














•<- V 



f ' • o 





















<0 TT* " 4 W • <0 V*. 






%. 



fee::'* ^■0.*^ 




o ♦ » • ,G 



.0 






< O 



V" 







^\' 




.: ^ 
' '!v 










^o-r^ :!^^<^: .-lo. 




%.*" -I^^': %/ -afe'-- \/ .'^- \ 

« V „ « o "^ A V 







V „ H n '/'. 



^' ^;^^^ %/ />^ V^' y. 






Ao^ 



T*-^^*' «-^ 



v'^ 











o .0 ^ * • • 






<* 










oK 



^^-^<^. 



V 



^cp^- 



'v'K^ 






\ 



oBth Congress, ) SENATE. J Report 

U Session. \ \ No. 2043. 



-o-"-' » 



OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY 

PRODUCTS, ETC. LIB ^1 A BY OF CONGRESS, 

HECEIVED 

FEB 12 1901 

January 26, 1901.— Ordered to be printH«)'|SION OF DOCUMENTS, 



Mr. Proctor, from the "Committee on Agriculture and Forestry 
submitted the following 

REPORT, WITH THE VIEWS OF THE MINORITY. 

[To accompany H, R. 3717.] 

The Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, to whom was referred 
House bill 3717, known as the Grout bill, and entitled "An act to make 
oleomargarine and other imitation dairy products subject to the laws 
of the State or Territory into which they are transported, and to 
change the tax on oleomargarine,"" begs leave to submit the following 
report and recommend the passage of the bill: 

This bill proposes to increase the tax on oleomargarine colored in 
semblance of butter and reduce that not colored in imitation of butter 
to the mere nominal sum of a quarter of a cent a pound, the purpose 
being to encourage the sale of the genuine article, and to discourage 
the sale of the imitation article and to protect the honest producer, 
dealer, and consumer of both l)utter and oleomargarine. 

So far as the identification of the commodity to the wholesaler is con- 
cerned, the law of 1886 has been successful. So far as the identifica- 
tion of the commodity to the consumer is concerned, the law of 188() 
is of little value, the evidence being that a ver}^ large proportion of the 
oleomargarine manufactured goes to the consumer finally as butter, 
either as a purchaser of the retailer or as a guest at a hotel, restaurant, 
or boarding house. 

Y'^our committee, realizing the importance of the questions involved 
in the bill, has inquired very carefully and exhaustively into the exist- 
ing conditions, as shown by the report of the testimony before the 
committee, which occupies 580 pages, the taking of which was begun 
Deceml>er 19 last and occupied the attention of your committee nuich 
of the time from that date to and includinj?" Januarv 16. Y^'our commit- 



II OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER LMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. 

tee can conceive of no interest which would be affected that was not 
represented at the hearings and does not s(h^ how anything- new could 
have been presented had the hearings been continued indeHnitely. 

It apears from the testimony that through the legislatures of 32 
States, with four-tifths of the population of the United States, the peo- 
ple have expressed theii' c^isa;p]ir(n;al.of ioleomargarine colored in sem- 
blance of butter; that those wdiohftve been charged with the duty of 
enforcing the State laws regarding this pi"oduct are positive in the 
opinion that so Ipiiig as it is colored in imitation of butter fraud upon 
the consuhier. if not upon the dealer, can not be prevented. Your 
conmiittee is of the opinion that such fraud is actually sanctioned and 
defended l)v some of the largest manufacturers, who guarantee their 
retailers protection in case of prosecution for the sale of oleomargarine 
in contravention of State laws. 

It also appeared, and it was not denied b}' the uianufacturers them- 
selves, that the}' do not feel in any way bound to respect the laws of 
the States against selling oleomargarine colored in imitation of butter, 
claiming that they are unconstitutional; and the testimony revealed 
methods by which such law\s are evaded or their enforcement defeated, 
despite the fact that such laws have been sustained ))v the courts of 
last resort in the States and also by the Supreme Court of the Ignited 
States. 

So far as the committee has been able to ascertain, this measure has 
the approval of all State officials and food commissioners whose duties 
are the enforcement of the laws regulating the manufacture and sale of 
oleomargarine. 

It appears to Ije unanimously desired by the farmers of the country 
who are engaged in dairying, and has the earnest approval of the Sec- 
retary^ of Agriculture, who appeared l)efore the conmiittee at its 
request and who has made an exhaustive study of the question from 
a broad, economic point of view. 

Your connuittee has listened with interest to the representations of 
the live-stock interests and the cotton-seed oil manufacturers, and is 
unable to see in this measure anything that can greatly injure either. 
The Secretary of Agriculture expressed the opinion before the com- 
mittee that the dairy cow was a necessity to the restoration of the 
exhausted cotton lands of the South. 

We have heard some objections to this measure from organized 
labor; and while it is true that some laboring men may, as represented, 
prefer, as a matter of pi'ide. to consume oleomargarine that is yellow 
instead of white, yet your committee believes that while the pride of 
some may suffer under this measure, which will raise the tax on the 
colored and reduce it on the uncolored, a far greater number are now 
being deceived througn the sale of oleomargarine as butter and at butter 
prices. 

Your committee is of the opinion that if oleomargarine is the whole- 
some and nutritious product that those interested in its manufacture 
and sale claim it to be, it will meet with a ready demand in its natural 
color, and especially as the tax on the uncolored product is by this bill 
reduced from 2 cents to one-quarter of a cent per pound. 

We submit herewith the report on this measure by the committee 
of the House and the views of a minoritv of that bodv. 



FEB 12 1901 
D. ofU, 



Or.EOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. Ill 

[House Report No. 1S.'>4, P'i ft y -sixth Congress, first session.] 

The Coniiiiitlee on Agrieultiire, to \vh(,ni Mas referred H.K.STIT, known ay the 
Grout bill, " To make oleoniargiririue and oiler iniitati( n ('airy j rf duct s^ subjtitto 
tlie laws ( f the Sti te orTeriitory into \\i idi ihey are tiansported and to change the 
tax on oltoniargar'ne," l;eg leave to .suLniit the f( llowing report and recommend the 
passage of the bill: 

"We are of the opinion that the peojile have ample cause for alarm at the tremen- 
dous illegal growth of the oleomargarine trafhc in this countiy duiirg the past few 
years, which now ajiptais to have reached proportions beyond the power of the 
States to successfully regulate or control, and the pies-ent Federal aws- are apparently 
altogether inadequate for the emergency. 

After carefully weighing the evidence anel suggestions offered for remedies for the 
regulation of this tratlic we aie cemstrained to hold that the jjrovisiens of H. R. .3717 
offer t''e best practical solution of the eiiffie-ulty. 

We believe that the States should be protected in their rights to regulate their 
internal affairs to the fullest extent in relatie)n to articles of food which have been 
adjuelged adulterateel or of a dee*eitful charae'ter, anel we elo not tliink that the inter- 
state-connnen-e law of the (iovernment shejuld prejtee't a deceitful imitation from the 
jurisdiction of the State's laws, even if the article in ejuestion is in the original pack- 
age anel is shipped from an outsieler into the State in such i)ackage. 

We tind that the very foundation and cause of the enormous amount ejf frauel and 
ille'gal selling of oleomargarine is in the great profits which are elerived from the sale 
of the imitation because of its absolute counterfeit of butter, which enables unscru- 
pulous dealers to impose upon unsuspee^ting customers. These profits are sufficiently 
large to cause the retailer te) run the chances of eletection and ])rosecution; anel they 
are further emboldeneel and encouraged through the guaranties of the manufacturers 
of protection against prosee-utions uneler the State laws. 

Thirty-two States, having four-fifths of the entire population of the Uniteel States, 
absolutely forbid the manufacture and sale e)f oleomargarine colored to resemble 
butter. These laws have l)een upheld in the higher courts without a single exe-ep- 
tion, anel the question has twice been passed upon favorably l)y the Supreme Court 
of the United States. Therefore, the policy of a very large majority of our people 
is plainly against the existence of the article in such counterfeit form. 

The tax of 10 cents per pounel upon oleomargarine colored to resemble butter will 
not eleprive the manufacturers anel dealers or e-onsumers of any great amemnt of legal 
right they now jjossess. Four-fifths e)f the colored ai-ticle maele is sold illegally now. 
as indicated by the rejiorts of the Treasury Department, anel the only effect of this 
tax, even were it pre)hiV)itive upon this class of olee)margarine, would be te) itrevent 
the manufacture of an article the sale of which is e»ontrary to the laws of 32 State's 
of the Union. This tax will bring the cost of the colored article up to a figure that 
will take from it the possibility for the large profits which have l)een the incentive 
to violate the laws of the State and Government and defraud innocent jjure-hasers, 
while the reeluction of the tax on oleomargarine in its natural color from 2 cents to 
one-fourth cent per pound will make it j)ossible for the man who really desires to 
consume oleo'i.argarine to procure it at a much lower cost than heretofore, the emly 
difference being that it will not contain coloring matter, which not even the oppo- 
nents of this measure claim contributes anything to its palatableness or nutritive 
value. 

We believe the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine will e'ontinue under this 
measure, anel that those who elesire a che>ap sul)stitute for butter will purchase the 
uncolored article. The only differene-e is that the counterfeit article, colored in imi- 
tation of butter, will no longer be accessible to hotel keepers, restaurant keepers, anel 
boarding-house proprietors at such prices as will be an inducement for them to deceive 
their guests, as is now, we believe, absolutely universal where it is served, anel thu« 
another class of consumers, who have been subject to impositicjn for more than twenty 
years, will be able to know whether they are eating butter fat or hog fat when they 
spread their bread. If colored oleomargarine is served it will be because it is better 
and not because it is cheaper than Ixitter. 

Seriems conditions require drastic measures, anel it e'crtainly appears from the tes- 
timony of those representing the producers of butter, as well as from the admissions 
of the witnesse.s for the other side, that those who are engaged in this oleomargarine 
traffic have absolutely no regard for State laws, and regard the public as their le'giti- 
mate victim, in whose behalf they resent the interference of the General Govern- 
ment. The continued existence of such a conelition we can not but believe furnishes 
a elemoralizing example to our people in trade, who are being tutoreel by this oleo- 
margarine interest in the art of evasion and defiance of the legally constitutetl 
authorities. 



IV 



OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. 



APPENDIX. 

The poi:)ulation of the States which have passed laws forbidding the sale of oleo- 
margarine colored in semblance of butter, as shown by the census of 1890, is as 
follows: 



Population. 

New York 5, 997, 853 

Pennsylvania 5,228,014 

Illinois 3, 826, 351 

Ohio 3,672,316 

Missouri 2, 679, 184 

Massachusetts 2, 238, 943 

Michigan 2, 093, 889 

Iowa 1, 911, 896 

Kentucky 1, 858, 635 

Georgia 1, 837, 353 

Tennessee 1, 766, 518 

Wisconsin 1,686,880 

Virginia 1, 655, 980 

Alabama 1, 513, 017 

New Jersey 1, 444, 933 

Minnesota 1, 301, 826 

California 1, 208, 130 



Population. 

South Carolina 1, 151, 149 

Nebraska 1, 058, 910 

Maryland 1, 042, 390 

West Virginia 762, 794 

Connecticut 746, 253 

Maine 661, 086 

Colorado 412, 198 

New Hampshire 376, 530 

Washington 349, 390 

Oregon 313, 767 

Vermont 332, 442 

South Dakota 328, 808 

Utah 207, 905 

North Dakota 182, 711 

Delaware 168, 493 



Total 50,117,440 



The States and Territories which have not passed laws forbidding the sale of oleo- 
margarine colored in semblance of butter are: 



Population. 

Texas 2, 235, 523 

Indiana 2, 192, 404 

North Carolina 1, 617, 947 

Kansas 1 , 427, 096 

Mississippi 1 , 289, 700 

Arkansas 1, 128, 179 

Louisiana 1 , 118, 587 

Florida 321, 422 

Rhode Island 345, 506 

District of Columbia. . / 230, 392 



Population. 

New Mexico 153, 593 

Montana 132, 156 

Idaho 84, 385 

Oklahoma 61, 834 

Wyoming 60, 705 

Arizona 59, 620 

Nevada 45, 761 

Total 12, 604, 790 



Views of the Minority. 

The minority of the Committee on Agriculture of the House of Representatives 
beg leave to submit the accompanying bill, which we offer as a substitute for H. R. 
3717, known as the Grout bill. 

We first wish to bring to the attention of the House proof positive that oleomar- 
garine is a wholesome and nutritious article of food, and is therefore entitled to a 
legitimate place in the conunerce of our country. In substantiation of this statement 
we beg to submit the following testimony taken before the committee: 

OPINIONS OF LEADING SCIENTISTS. 

Prof. C. F. Chandler, professor of chemistry at Columbia College, New York, says: 
"I have studied the question of its use as food, in comparison with the ordinary but- 
ter made from cream, and have satisfied myself that it is quite as valuable as the but- 
ter from the cow. The product is palatable and wholesome, and I regard it as a most 
valuable article of food." 

Prof. George F. Barker, of the University of Pennsylvania, says: "Butterine is, in 
my opinion, quite as valuable as a nutritive agent as butter itself. It is perfectly 
wholesome, and is desirable as an article of food. I can see no reason why but- 
terine should not be an entirely satisfactory equivalent for ordinary butter, whether 
considered from the physiological or commercial standpoint." 

Prof. Henry Morton, of the Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey, says: "I 
am able to say with confidence that it contains nothing whatever which is injurious 
as an article of diet, but, on the contrary, is essentially identical with the best fresh 
butter, and is superior to much of the butter made from cream alone Avhich is found 
in the market. The conditions of its manufacture involve a degree of cleanliness and 
consequent jiurity in the product such as are by no means necessarily or generally 
attained in the ordinary making of butter from cream." 

Prof. S. W. Johnson, director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, 



OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. V 

and professor of agricultural chemistry in Yale College, New Haven, says: "It is a 
product that is entirely attractive and wholesome as food, and one that is for all ordi- 
nary and culinary purposes the full equivalent of good butter made from cream. I 
regard the manufacture of oleomargarine as a legitimate and beneficent industry." 

Prof. S. C. Caldwell, of Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y., says: "While not equal 
to fine butter in respect to flavor, it nevertheless contains all the essential ingredients 
of butter, and since it contains a smaller proportion of volatile fats than is found in 
genuine butter, it is, in my opinion, less liable to become rancid. It can not enter 
into competition with fine butter, but so far as it may serve to drive poor butter out 
of the market, its manufacture will be a public benefit." 

Prof. C. A. Goessmann, of Amherst Agricultural College, says: "Oleomargarine 
butter compares in general appearance and in taste very favorably with the average 
<iuality of the better kinds of dairy butter in our markets. In its composition it 
resembles thatof ordinary dairy butter, and in its keeping quality, under corresponding 
circumstances, I believe it will surjjass the former, for it contains a smaller percent- 
age of those constituents which, in the main, cause the well-known rancid taste and 
odor of a stored butter." 

Prof. Charles P. Williams, i^rofessor in the Missouri State University, says: "It is 
a pure and wholesome article of food, and in this respect, as well as in respect to its 
chemical composition, fully the equivalent of the best quality of dairy butter." 

Prof. J. W. S. Arnold, professor of physiology in the University of New York, says: 
"I consider that each and every article employed in the manufacture of oleomargarine 
butter is perfectly pure and wholesome; that oleomargarine butter differs in no essen- 
tial manner from butter made from cream. In fact oleomargarine butter possesses 
the advantage over natural butter of not decomposing so readily, as it contains fewer 
volatile fats. In my opinion oleomargarine is to be considered a great discovery, a 
blessing for the poor, and in every way a jjerfectly pure, wholesome, and palatable 
article of food." 

Prof. W. O. Atwater, director of the United States Government Agricultural Exper- 
iment Station at Washington, says: " It contains essentially the same ingredients as 
natural butter from cow's milk. It is perfectly wholesome and healthy and has a 
high nutritious value." 

Prof. Henry E. Alvord, formerly of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, and 
l)resident of the Maryland College of Agriculture, and now chief of the Dairy Division 
vi the United States Department of Agriculture, and one of the best butter makers 
in the country, says: "The great bulk of butterine and its kindred products is as 
wholesome, cleaner, and in many respects better, than the low grades of butter of 
which so much reaches the market." 

Prof. Paul Schweitzer, Ph. D., LL. D., professor of chemistry, Missouri State Uni- 
versity, says: "As a result of my examination, made both with the microscope and 
the delicate chemical tests applicable to such cases, I pronounce butterine to be 
wholly and unequivocally free from any deleterious or in the least objectionable sul> 
stances. Carefully made physiological experiments reveal no difference whatever in 
the palatability and digestibility between butterine and butter." 

Professor Wiley, chief of the Division of Chemistry of the United States Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, also appeared before the comiiaittee and testified to the nutritive 
and wholesome qualities of oleomargarine. 

The Committee on Manufactures of the United States Senate, in a report dated 
February 28, 1900, finds, from the evidence before it, "that the product known com-, 
mercially as oleomargarine is healthful and nutritious." 

Judge Hughes, of the Federal court of Virginia, in a decision, says: 

"It is a fact of common knowledge that oleomargarine has been subjected to the 
severest scientific scrutiny, and has been adopted by every leading government in 
Europe as well as America for use by their armies and navies. Though not origi- 
nally invented by us, it is a gift of American enterprise and progressive invention to 
the world. It has become one of the conspicuous articles of interstate commerce 
and furnishes a large income to the General Government annually." 

Believing that this testimony establishes beyond controversy that oleomargarine 
is a nutritious and wholesome article of food, the main question to be considered is 
the complaint that fraud is practiced in its sale. 

The only just complaint (indeed the only complaint) against the existing oleomar- 
garine law consists in the facility with which the retail dealer, in selling from the 
original or wholesale package and substituting a new and unmarked wrapper, may 
violate the law. There is nothing in H. R. 3717 (known as the Grout uill) which 
would decrease the temptation or increase the difficulty of such violations. On the 
contrary, the increased taxation would either be fraudulently evaded or else would 
force the honest manufacturer out of business. H. R. 3717 merely increases taxation 
without providing any new or additional penalties or any new methods to prevent 
the sale of oleomargarine as butte)-, either in its colored or mic-olored state. In fact. 



VI OLEOMARGARINE AlW OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. 

the radical advocates of the (irout Inll do not seek this end, as they have declareil 
in their testimony before tlie committee and in declarations elsewhere that their sole 
intention is to absolutely crush out the manufacture of oleomargarine and eliminate 
it as a food product. 

In substantiation of this assertion we quote the following: 

Mr. Adams, pure food connnissioner of the State of AVisconsin, in his testimony 
before the committee on March 7, 1900, said: 

"There is no use beating about the bush in this matter. We want to pass this 
law and drive the oleomargarine manufacturers out of the business." 

Charles Y. Knight, secretary of the National Dairy Union, in a lettei' to the Vu- 
ginia dairymen, dated May 18, 1900, writes: 

" Now is the time for you to clip the fangs of the mighty octopus of the oleomar- 
garine manufacturers, who are ruining the dairy interests of this country by manu- 
facturing and selling in defiance of law a spurious article in imitation of ])ure butter. 
We have a remedy almost in grasp which will eliminate the manufacture of this 
article from the food-product list. The (irout bill, now pending' in the Agricultural 
ronnnittee of the House of Representatives in Congress, meets the demand." 

\V. D. Hoard, ex-governor of AVisconsin and president of the National Dairy Union, 
stated in his te.stimony before theconnnittee on March 7, 1900, as follows: 

"To give added force to the first section of the bill, it is provided in the .second sec- 
tion that a tax of 10 cents a pomid shall be imposed on all oleomargarine in the color 
or semblance of butter. In plain words, this is repressive taxation." 

In view of this testimony the minority believe they are justified in claiming that 
the Grout l)ill, if enacted into law, would destroy the business of the legitimate oleo- 
margarine manufai-turers. In other words. Congress is l)eing asked to ruin one indus- 
try to benefit another; and this, in the opinion of the minority, is a thing Cbngrcss 
ought not to do. The minority believe it to be class legislation of the most pro- 
nounced kind and would estal)lish a precedent which, if allowed, would create 
monopolies, destroy conij)etition, and nulitate against the public good. 

The substitute bill offered by the minority would, in our opinion, eliminate all 
possibility of fraud, and would compel the manufactiu'ers of and dealers in oleo- 
margarine to sell it for what it really is and not for butter. The substitute offered 
is practically an amendment to section :5 and (i of the existing oleomargarine law. 
The licenses for manufacture and sale of this article ai'e not changed, and are as 
follows: Manufacturers, $H00 per anninn ; wholesale dealers, !t!480 per anmim; retail-- 
ers, $48 per annum, while the penalties imposed for violations of the law are 
materially increased. We (juote in full .'section 2 of the substitute bill, and ask for it 
the careful and thoughtful consideration of the House, believing that it is just and 
fair to all the interests involved: 

"Sec. 2. That all oleomargarine shall l)e i)Ut uj) by the manufacturer for .'iale in 
packages of one and two pounds, respectively, and in no other or larger or smaller 
package; and upon every })rint, l)rick, roll, or lump of oleomargarine, before being 
so put up for sale or removal from the fat-tory, there shall be imjjressed by the man- 
ufacturer the word 'oleomargarine' in sunken letters, the size of which shall ))e 
prescribed by regulations made .by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and 
approved by the Secretary of the Treasury; that every such print, Ijrick, roll, or 
lump of oleomargarine shall first be wrapped with paper wrapper with the word 
'oleomargarine' printed thereon indistinct letters, and said wrapper shall also bear 
the name of the manufacturer, and then shall be ])ut by the manufacturer thereof in 
such wooden or paper packages or in such wrappers, with the word 'oleomargarine' 
printed thereon in distinct letters, and marked, stamped, and ])randed in such man- 
ner as the Commi.^^sioner of Internal Revenue, with the approval of the Secretary of 
the Treasury, shall {irescribe, and the internal-revenue stamp shall l)e affixed so as to 
surround the outer wrapper of each one and two pound package: Prondi'd, That any 
number of such original stamped packages may l)e put up by the manufacturer in 
crates or boxes, on the outside of which shall be marked the word 'oleomargarine,' 
with such other marks and brands as the Connnissioner of Internal Revenue .shall, 
by regulations approved Ijy the Secretary of the Treasury, prescrii)e. 

" Retail dealers in oleomargarine shall sell only the original j^ackage to which the 
tax-paid stamp is affixed. 

"Ever}' person \\ho knowingly sells or offers for sale, or delivers oi" offers to 
deliver, any oleomargarine otherwise than as provided by this act or contrary to the 
regulations of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue made in pursuance hereof, or 
who packs in any package any oleomargarine in any manner contrary to law, or who 
shall sell or offer for sale as butter any oleomargarine, colored or uncolored, or who 
falsely brands any package, or affixes a stamp on any package denoting a less amount 
of tax than that required by law, shall be fined for the first offense not less than one 
hundred nor more than five hundred dollars and be imprisoned not le.«s than thirty 
days nor more than six months; and for the second and every subsequent offense 



OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. VII 

shall 1)e lined not less than two hundred nor more than one thousand dollars and be 
imprisone<l not less than sixty days nor more than two years." 

One oi the claims made by the friends of the Grout bill is that it will protect the 
interests of the farmer. We call attention to the fact that every ingredient that 
enters into the manufacture of oleomargarine is as much a product of the farm as is 
butter, anil that .such ingredients are made more valuable on account of their use in 
the manufacture of oleomargarine. 

Your committee has had before it representatives of both the cattle and hog raisers 
of the country, and also representatives of the cotton industry, and they are unani- 
mous in their opinion that their business will be materially injured and the price of 
their i>roduct lowered bj' the pas.sage of the Grout bill and the destruction of the 
oleomargarine industry. 

The manufacture and sale of oleomargarine does not interfere with the growth and 
prosperity of the butter industry. Statistics show a nmch greater percentage in the 
increase of the production of butter than in the production of oleomargarine. Though 
similar in ingredients, they are not strictly competing, as the oleomargarine is prac- 
tically all bought l)y the poorer class of our people. 

In justification of this statement we have received a large number of petitions from 
the labor organizations of our country protesting against the passage of this 1)111 for 
the above-given reasons. 

It being possi1:)le to keep oleomargarine in a sweet and sound condition nmch 
longer than l)utter, it is also used extensively in the mining and lumber camps, on 
exploring and hunting expeditions, on ships at sea, and by armies in the Held. 

The claim made by the friends of the Grout bill that the manufacture and sale of 
oleomargarine has greatly depreciated the price of butter will not obtain when it is 
known that there is now manufactured in the United States nearly 2,000,000,000 
pounds of butter annually, and it is positively known that there only were 83,000,000 
pounds of oleomargarine manufactured last year, which shows that the amount of 
oleomargarine produced is al)out 4 per cent of the amount of butter i)roduced. 
Therefore, the argument that oleomargarine in any material sense controls the price 
of butter is not justified by the facts. 

The manufacture and sale of oleomargarine have in no way depreciated the price 
of butter, as more butter is beijig sold at a higher i->rice in this country than ever 
before, as shown by testimony. 

It is a suggestive fact that those sections of our country which are most exclusively 
devoted to the dairy interests are blessed with the greatest prosperity, as brought out 
in the testimony of ex-Governor Hoard, of Wisconsin, before our coimnittee, who 
said that a few years ago land was worth only $15 an acre in that State, but as the 
State began to be devoted more exclusively to the dairy interests land had rapidly 
appreciated in price, and that farmers had gotten out of debt, had jiaid their mort- 
gages, and the land is now worth the sum of $80 per acre, this price averaging much 
higher than agricultural lands in other parts of the country. 

In conclusion, the members of the Committee on Agriculture who have joined in 
this minority report beg to assure the House and the (Country in the most solemn man- 
ner possible that it has been their earnest intention, and is now their determination, 
to do everything possible to be done to enforce the sale of oleomargarine as oleomar- 
garine and to prevent its sale as butter. To prevent fraud and not to stamp out an 
industry has been and is our purpose. We believe that it ought to be the sole pur- 
pose of all legislation and the sole motive of all just men. 

J. AV. Wadsworth. 
Wm. Lorimer. 
W. J. Bailey. 
G. H. White. 
John S. Williams. 
J. W.M. Stokes. 
H. D. Allex. 



[SuUstitute for H. R. 3717.] 

A BILL To amend sections three and six of an act entitled "An act defining butter, also imposing a 
tax upon and regulating the manufacture, sale, importation, and exportation of oleomargarine." 
approved August second, eighteen hundred and eighty-six, and also to define manufacturers and 
dealers and to provide for the payment of si)ecial taxes by them. 

Be it enacted by tJte Senate and House of Representatives of tJie United States of A}iierica 
in Congress assembled, That sections three and six of an act entitled "An act defin- 
ing butter, also imposing a tax upon and regulating the manufacture, sale, importa- 
tion, and exportation of oleomargarine," apjiroved August second, eighteen hundred 
and eighty-six, be amended so as to read as follows: 

"Sec. I. That special tax on the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine shall l>e 



VIII OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. 

imposed as follows: Manufacturers of oleomargarine shall pay six hundred dollars 
per annum. Every person who manufactures oleomargarine for sale shall be deemed 
a manufacturer thereof. 

" Wholesale dealers in oleomargarine shall pay four hundred and eighty dollars 
per annum. Every person who sells or offers for sale oleomargarine in quantities 
greater than ten pounds at a time shall be deemed a wholesale dealer therein; but a 
manufacturer of oleomargarine who has given the required bond and paid the required 
special tax, and who sells oleomargarine of his own production only at the place of 
its manufacture in the original packages to which the tax-paid stamps are affixed, 
shall not be required to pay the special tax of a wholesale dealer on account of such 
sales. 

"Retail dealers in oleomargarine shall pay forty-eight dollars per annum. Every 
person who sells or offers for sale oleomargarine in quantities not greater than ten 
pounds at a time shall be regarded as a retail dealer therein. 

"Sec. 2. That all oleomargarine shall be put up )jy the manufacturer for sale in 
packages of one and two pounds, respectively, and in no other or larger or smaller 
package; and upon every print, brick, roll, or lump of oleomargarine, before being 
so put up for sale or removal from the factory, there shall be impressed by the 
manufacturer the word 'oleomargarine' in sunken letters, the size of which shall 
be prescribed by regulations made by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and 
approved by the Secretary of the Treasury; that every such print, brick, roll, or lump 
of oleomargarine shall first be wrapped with paper wrapper with the word ' oleo- 
margarine' printed thereon in distinct letters, and said wrapper shall also bear the 
name of the manufacturer, and shall then l)e put by the manufacturer thereof in such 
wooden or paper packages or in such wrajjpers and marked, stamped, and branded 
with the word 'oleomargarine' printed thereon in distinct letters, and in such manner 
as the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, with the approval of the Secretary of the 
Treasury, shall prescribe, and the internal-revenue stamp shall be affixed so as to 
surround the outer wrapper of each one and two pound package: Provided, That any 
number of such original stamped packages may be put up by the manufacturer in crates 
or boxes, on the outside of Avhich shall be marked the word 'oleomargarine,' with 
such other marks and brands as the Commissioner of Internal Revenue shall, by 
regulations approved by the Secretary of the Treasury, prescribe. 

"Retail dealers in oleomargarine shall sell only the original package to which the 
tax-paid stamp is affixed. 

"Every person wdio knowingly sells or offers for sale, or delivers or offers to 
deliver, any oleomargarine otherwise than as provided by this act or contrary to the 
regulations of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue made in pursuance hereof, or 
who packs in any package any oleomargarine in any manner contrary to law, or who 
shall sell or offer for sale, as butter, any oleomargarine, colored or uncolored, or who 
falsely brands any package, or affixes a stamp on any package denoting a less amount 
of tax than that required by law, shall be fined for the first offense not less than one 
hundred nor more than five hundred dollars and be imjjrisoned not less than thirty 
days nor more than six months; and for the second and every subsequent offense 
shall be fined not less than two hundred nor more than one thousand dollars and be 
imprisoned not less than sixty days nor more than two years." 



VIEWS OF THE MINORITY. 

The minority of the Committee on Agricnlture and Forestry beg 
leave to .submit to the Senate a substitute for the bill H. R. 3717, with 
favorable recommendation. The substitute is as follows: 

[Substitute for H. R. 3717.] 

A BILL to amend sections three and six of an act entitled "An act defining butter, also imposing a 
tax upon and regulating the manufacture, sale, importation, and exportation of oleomargarine." 
approved August second, eighteen hundred and eighty-six. and also to define manufacturers and 
dealers and to provide for the payment of special taxes by them. 

Be it enacted by the Se))ate and House of Representatires of the United States of America 
in Congress assembled, That sections three and .six of an act entitled "An act defining 
butter, also imposing a tax upon and regulating the manufacture, sale, importation, 
and exportation of oleomargarine," approved August second, eighteen hundred and 
eighty-six, be amended so as to read as follows: 

"Sec. 1. That special tax on the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine shall be 
imposed as follows: ^Manufacturers of oleomargarine shall pay six hundred dollars 
l^er annum. Every person who luanufactures oleomargarine for sale shall be deemed 
a luanufacturer thereof. 

" Wholesale dealers in oleoiuargarine shall pay four hundred and eighty dollars 
jier annum. Every person who sells or offers for sale oleomargarine in quantities 
greater than ten pounds at a time shall be deemed a wholesale dealer therein; l)ut a 
manufacturer of oleomargarine who has given the required bond and paid the required 
special tax, and who sells oleomargarine of his own production only at the place of 
its manufacture in the original packages to which the tax-paid stamps are affixed, 
shall not be required to pay the special tax of a whole.sale dealer on account of such 
sales. 

" Retail dealers in oleomargarine shall pay forty-eight dollars per annum. Every 
person who sells or offers for sale oleoiuargarine in quantities not greater than ten 
pounds at a time shall be regarded as a retail dealer therein. 

"Sec. 2. That all oleomargarine shall be put up by the manufacturer for sale in 
packages of one and two pounds, respectively, and in no other or larger or smaller 
package; and upoia every print, brick, roll, or lump of oleomargarine, before being 
^so put up for sale or removal from the factory, there shall be impressed by the 
manufacturer the word 'oleomargarine' in sunken letters, the size of which shall 
be prescribed by regulations made by the Comiuissioner of Internal Revenue and 
approved by the Secretary of the Treasury; that every such print, brick, roll, or lump 
of oleomargarine shall first be wrapped with paper wrapper with the word 'oleo- 
margarine' printed thereon in distinct letters, and said wrapper shall also bear the 
name of the luanufacturer, and shall then be put by the manufacturer thereof in such 
wooden or paper packages or in such wrappers and marked, stamped, and branded 
with the word ' oleomargarine ' printed thereon in distinct letters, and in such manner 
as the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, with the approval of the Secretary of the 
Treasury, shall prescribe, and the internal-revenue staiup shall be affixed so as to 
surround the outer wrapper of each one and two potmd package: Provided, That any 
number of such original staiuped packages may be put ujTby the manufacturer in crates 
or boxes, on the outside of which shall be luarked the word 'oleomargarine,' with 
such other marks and brands as the Commissioner of Internal Revenue shall, by 
regulations approved by the Secretary- of the Treasury, prescribe. 

"Retail dealers in oleomargarine shall sell only the original package to which the 
tax-paid staiup is affixed. 

"Every person who knowingly sells or offers for sale, or delivers or offers to 
deliver, any oleomargarine otherwise than as provided by this act or contrary to the 
regulations of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue made in pursuance hereof, or 
who packs in any package any oleomargarine in any manner contrary to law, or who 
shall sell or offer for sale, as l)utter, any oleomargarine, colored or uncolored, or who 



X OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. 

falsely brands any package, or affixes a stamp on any package denoting a less amount 
of tax than that required l)y law. shall be lined for the first offense not less than one 
hundred nor more than five hundred dollars and be imprisoned not less than thirty 
days nor more than six months; and for the second and every subsequent offense 
shall be fined not less than two hundred nor more than one thousand dollars and be 
imprisoned not less than sixty days nor more than two years." 

Oleoinaro-arhie is a logitiiiiate article ot comnieiro. 

This has been distinctively held by the Supreme Court of the United 
States. In the case of SchoUenberger v. Pennsylvania (171 V. S., 
80), which was decided May 2(5, 1898, the Supreme Court held as fol- 
lows: 

In the examination of this subject the first (|uestion to be considered is whether 
oleomargarine is an article of commerce. No aftirmative evidem^e from witnesses 
called to tlie stand and s])eaking directly to that subject is found in the record. We 
must determine the (|uestioii with reference to those facts wliich are so well and 
universally knovvn that i'(>urts will take notice of them without particular proofs 
being addut-ed in regard to them, and also by reference to those dealings of the com- 
mercial world which are of like notoriety. Any legislation of Congress upon this 
subject nmst, of course, be recognized by this court as of first importance. If Con- 
gress has affirmatively pronounced it a pro])er subject of commerce, we should 
rightly be influenced l)y that declaration. 

After referring to the act of Congress of August 2, 1886, being the 
law now in force, im})osing a tax of 2 cents a poiuid on oleomargarine, 
the court further stated as follows: 

This shows that Congress at the time of its passage in ISSH recognized the article 
as a proper subject of taxation, and as one w hich was the subject of traffic and of 
exportation to foreign countries and of importation from such countries. Its manu- 
facture was recognized as a lawful pursuit, and taxation was levied upon the manu- 
facturer of the article, upon the wholesale and retail dealers therein, and also upon 
the article itself. 

Concluding upon this branch of the case, the court stated as follows: 

The article is a subject of exp(jrt and is largely used in foreign countries. Upon 
all these facts we think it apparent that oleomargarine has become a proper suljject 
of commerce among the States and the foreign nations. 

Coloring matter is used both in the making of butter and in the 
manufacture of oleomargarine for the purpose of catering to the tastes 
of consumers who have been accustomed to a generally yellow tint in 
l)oth food products. 

Neither the makers of butter nor the manufacturers of oleomarga- 
rine can chiim rightfully any exclusive right to the use of coloring mat- 
ter in their respective prodticts. Both admit that coloring matter is 
used for the reason that their customers prefer an article of a yellowish 
tint. If consumers preferr(>d the article white, or free from anj^ tint 
whatever, the makers of butter and the manufactiu'ers of oleomarga- 
rine could just as easily, and even more easil3% respond to that taste. 
The question for the lawmaking power to consider is this: Should the 
law interfere in a case of this kind and aid the makers of one product 
iuid injure the mantifacturers of the others 

The second section of the proposed l)ill imposes a tax of 10 cen's a 
pound upon colored oleomargarine, or, in the language of the act, ""col- 
ored in tht^ imitation of butter." The advocates of this proposed legis- 
lation admit that their object is to place the tax on oleomargarine so 
high that it can not be placed upon the markets of the country if colored. 

It is the universal opinion of those engaged in the manufacture of 
oleomargarine that a tax of 10 cents a pound upon the product colored 
a yellow tint will destroy that industry, for the reason, which expe- 



OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. XI 

rience has shown, there Avould not })e any considerable demand for 
oleomargarine in an uncolored condition, Tliis opinion is based upon 
efl'orts which have already been made to introduce and sell the uncol- 
ored pi'oduct in States where anticolor laws now prevail. The object, 
therefore, of imposing this excessive tax of 10 cents a pound upon 
colored oleomargarine is not for the purpose of raising revenue, but 
for the purpose of prohibiting its manufacture, and of thus destroying* 
the industry. It is of no importance that the proposed legislation 
reduces the tax on uncolored oleomargarine from 2 cents a pound to 
one-fourth of a cent a pound. Unless there is reason to believe there 
would be a substantial production of that kind of article, the increase 
of the tax of 10 cents a pound would, in all probability, prevent any 
substantial revenue l^eing derived from its manufacture. 

The alleged frauds committed in the sale of oleomargarine are not 
attributed to the manufacturers, but to the retail dealers in the article. 

This brings us to the consideration of the question whether fraud in 
the sale of oleomargarine as butter can better be prevented by the 
proposed legislation, which imposes a tax of 10 cents a pound upon 
its manufacture, or by the enactment of more stringent regulations 
governing the retail dealer. 

Under the present law^ the retail dealer is required to lireak the 
original package in which he receives oleomargarine from the manu- 
facturer. The smallest package which the law permits the manufac- 
turer to place upon the market contains 10 pounds. The retail dealer 
is only permitted to sell from the manufacturer's original packages. 
If he desired to sell in 10-pound packages or over, he would be required 
to take out a wholesale dealer's license, which is fixed at $480 a year. 
This makes it necessary for the retailer to break the original pack- 
age, and it is conceded that whatever frauds may be committed occur 
l)y reason of this fact. 

If the retail dealer desires to commit a fraud upon his customer, the 
opportunity for so doing is thus afforded. If legislation can be enacted 
which will require the retail dealer to sell oleomargarine in the origi- 
nal package put up by the manufacturer Avithout breaking the wrap- 
per or the internal-revenue stamp of the Government, and if such 
wrappers and stamps were clearly and distinctly marked and branded, 
under regulations of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, the 
opportunity, to commit fraud upon the customer would be whollv 
eliminated or reduced to a minimum. This opinion is entertained by 
those most intimately connected with the manufacture and selling of 
oleomargarine: and it is also the opinion of the Secretary of the Treas- 
ury, given in his statement liefore the Senate Committee on Agricul- 
ture: and also the opinion of ex-Commissioner of Internal Revenue. 
Mr, Wilson, given in his statement before the House Committee on 
Agriculture. 

Under the proposed bill the temptation to fraud on the part of the 
retail dealer would be largely increased from the fact that he will be 
enabled to buy the uncolored oleomargarine, on which one-fourth of a 
cent per pound tax is imposed, and by coloring the same himself 
increase the value of his product 9^ cents per pound, for the reason 
that he could sell the same at this largely increased profit for either 
butter or oleomargarine. 

We assume that the lawmaking JDOwer of the Government desires 
to prevent the possibility of fraud in the sale of oleomargarine as but- 



XII OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. 

ter and not to destroy the industry itself. We therefore recommend 
legislation upon the subject which will make fraudulent sales as near 
impossible as laws can provide. 

We have omitted reference heretofore to the first section of the 
pending bill. This section has for its object the placing of oleomarga- 
rine under the police laws of the several States, notwithstanding its 
introduction into a State in the original package. This provision is 
for the purpose of avoiding the effect of the ruling of the Supreme 
Court of the United States in the case of Schollenberger v. Pennsyl- 
vania, reported in 171 U. S., 1-30. The opinion of the Supreme 
Court in that case was to the effect that a lawful article of conmierce 
can not be wholly excluded from importion into a State from another 
State where it was manufactured. It was conceded in that opinion 
that a State has power to regulate the introduction of any article, 
including a food product, so as to insure purity of the article imported, 
but that such police power does not include the total exclusion even of 
an article of food. 

The States may provide for a reasonable inspection of all food prod- 
ucts imported into them, but the object of this legislation must be 
inspection and not prohibition of the traffic. . It is true that Congress, 
in 1890, passed an act which placed intoxicating liquors under the 
police power of the States; but oleomargarine, which is a wholesome 
and nutritious food, ought not to be treated in the same manner that 
the law regards intoxicating liquors. The States should not be per- 
mitted by C'Ongress to interfere in its sale, and especially should Con- 
gress refuse to place the article subject to the laws of the States, which 
might exclude its manufacture or sale entirely. The States my inspect 
oleomargarine for the purpose of ascertaining whether it was free from 
adulterants or unwholesome ingredients; but Congress should not 
recognize the right of a State to exclude it from importation and sale 
therein, so long as it is conceded to be nutritious as an article of food. 

The proposed bill is not a revenue measure. It is not for the pur- 
pose of raising revenue or reducing surplus revenue. In fact, in no 
sense is it a measure resting for its authority upon the taxing power 
of the Government. Its object is to prevent competition between two 
home industries by building up the one and destroying the other. 
Such use of the taxing power of the Government is an abuse which 
should not be encouraged or even tolerated for a moment. , The prece- 
dent will open wide the door for all manner of vexatious schemes and 
instigate selfish greed to demand legislation involving every conceiv- 
able interference of Government with private interests. It is an 
effort to so frame our internal-revenue laws that one class of home 
producers will be protected from competition with another class of 
home producers. While our Government has adopted the policy of 
protecting home producers against foreign producers of the same 
kinds of articles, there can be no excuse or justification for interfering 
among our own citizens by aiding one industr}" at the expense and to 
the injury or destruction of another. This policy would tend to 
destroy all benefits which consumers receive from improved processes 
of production, from labor-saving machinery, and from the results of 
invention. By such means all progress could be arrested and mankind 
could be deprived of the blessings which modern science and genius 
are securing to the world. 

The taxing power of the Government can not be used for any object 



OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. XIII 

other than the public needs. As was said by the Supreme Court of 
the United States, in Loan Association r. Topeka (20 Wallace, 664), 
''To lay with one hand the power of the Government on the propert}' 
of the citizen and with the other to bestow it upon favored individuals 
to aid private enterprises and build up private fortunes is none the 
less a robber}' because it is done under the forms of law and is called 
taxation."' While under the proposed l)ill the object is not to donate 
the taxes which may be raised to aid a particular industry, yet the 
imposition of the tax is for the purpose of enabling one industry to 
sell its products free from competition with another, and thus to exact 
from the public an increased price for the product, not for the benefit 
of the public Treasury but for private purposes solely. The effect upon 
the people is the same in both cases. As was stated in the opinion of the 
Supreme Court in the Topeka case, "there can be no lawful tax which 
is not laid for a public purpose." This doctrine is so well recognized 
that it is unnecessary to produce further authorities upon the subject. 
There is no conflict of judicial opinions; all are in harmony with the 
opinion in the Topeka case. 

The proposed bill is class legislation of the most dangerous character. 
It is not demanded by any existing economic conditions in this country, 
and its passage would be a perversion of the taxing power of the Gov- 
ernment, and a violation of the Constitution, l)oth in its letter and 
spirit. 

The Hon. Lyman J. Gage, Secretary of the Treasur}^ was invited 
to come before the committee and give his view from a revenue stand- 
point. The following is a part of his testimony: 

SetTetary Gage. Of course I only feel at liberty to state my views as the Secretary 
of the Treasury, and only upon that part of the bill which involves the question of 
revenue. I might have personal views which go far beyond those; but you would 
probably not care much about them. 

There" is, in my opinion, an objection to the bill on either theory. If it is a rev- 
enue producer, it is superfluous; we do not need it. If it is not a revenue producer, 
then the title of the bill is a misnomer, and it is inoperative in the name of revenue. 
It seems to me that on either theory there are serious objections to it. 

I think that covers all I care to say directly on the subject. 
******* 

The Acting Chairm.\n. Mr. Secretary, can you tell us what has been the experi- 
ence, in a general way, of your Department in the collection of the revenue on oleo- 
margarine? You know, of course, that there is now a 2-cent tax on it. 

Secretary Gage. Yes, sir; I think the revenue is well collected. There has been 
considerable discussion of that subject between the Commissioner of Internal Rev- 
enue (especially Commissioner Wilson) and myself, at different times; and we think 
we are cheated to some extent, as we are in all revenue matters. 

******* 

Senator Bate. Then I suppose the losses in oleomargarine internal-revenue col- 
lections are about on a par with the losses in all other revenue collections? 

Secretary Gacje. Well, they are on a par with the losses in most of the revenue 
collections. There is not any great disparity. 

******* 

Senator Allen. Of course the liquor can not go out without the consent of the 
Government? 

Secretary Gage. No, sir; but the tax on liquor is |1.10 a gallon, while that onbut- 
terine is 2 cents per pourtd, so that the temptation is very much greater in the one 
case than in the other. 

Senator Allen. The only thing with which you are concerned is the tax? 

Secretary Gage. That is the main thing, of course. 

Senator "Money. The remark you have just made, Mr. Secretary, suggests this 
question: You say the greater the tax the greater the incentive to fraud. The same 
rule would apply here, would it not? 

Secretary Gage. Undoubtedly. 



XIV OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. 

Conflicting interests have appeared ])efore the committee, one to 
demand the exercise of the taxing power in order to crush a I'ival in 
the business, and the other to ask that it be permitted to continue the 
manufacture of a product, wholesome and nutritious, for the benefit of 
the thousands who are unable, b}' their poverty, to buy butter. The 
makers of oleomargarine, of dairy l»utter, of creamery butter, of the 
process or renovated or resurrected butter, have all appeared, person- 
ally or l)v representatives, to insist upon their interests being more or 
less protected or not to be interfered with. The producers of cotton- 
seed oil and the live-stock growers have also been represented, asking 
that there be no further interference with the protits of their several 
industries for the benetit of the dairy nien. 

In the consideration of this subject the quarrels of the respective 
manufacturers and parties at interest as to the protits to be lost or 
made from this legislation are not so important as the rights of the 
consumers of the several products. There are millions of working- 
people who are not producers of any articles of food, but who nmst con- 
sume these various products. They can not all of them buy butter, and. 
as the object of this bill is evidently — from the expressions of the lead- 
ing advocates of the bill — to exterminate the oleomargarine industry, 
these great numbers of people are interested that such nefarious legis- 
lation should be defeated. They have rights as well as the manufac- ' 
turers of Imtter and oleomargarine, as well as the cotton-seed-oil and the 
live-stock men, and it is the cry of the consumer, the cry of the poor, 
that should have the lirst attention of the Senate. 

Below is appended statements hy accredited representatives of the 
various la])or organizations of the counti'v, and it can not he dou})ted 
that the}- speak not only for those who have formally accredited them 
to us, but also for the vast number of unrepresented poor people whose 
interests and whose w^ants are the same. 

Mr. Patrick Dolan, president of the United Mine Workers' Asso- 
ciation, testified as follows: 

Our people, Mr. Chairman, are against the passage of the measure. I represent 
over 40,000 miners and their families, and I know from the sentiment in other sec- 
tions of the country to which I go, from talking to people who are interested in our 
organization, that they do not want to be deprived of the ability to purchase this 
wholesome article of food. If it is not made in a wholesome way, then they do not 
want it; but if it is just as good to them to spread their bread with as 35-cent butter, 
they do want it. And if this measure passes the chances are that butter will go up 
to 50 cents, and poor people will not be able to purchase it at all. 

Mr. fJohn Pierce, representing the Amalgamated Association of Iron 
and Steel Workers, said: 

Colored oleomargarine is at present retailed at from 12J to 20 cents per pound. On 
investigation I am satisfied that most of our people are paying about 15 cents per 
pound for it, and I can not admit that those who buy it can afford to pay more. I 
therefore arrive at the conclusion that they must either find 10 cents per pound more 
to pay this proposed robbery (for I can not dignify it by the name of tax) or buy and 
eat white oleomargarine. And this to satisfy the greed of the manufacturers of but- 
ter, who think that white oleomargarine is good enough for those who can not afford 
to pay 10 cents additional for yellow, or the 20 cents or more additional for creamery 
butter, or use the off grades of butter now unsala))le as food. 

Shall those thus defrauded of what should be their inalienable constitutional right l)e 
compelled either to wear in their homes, on their very tables, flaunting before the eyes 
of their children and of those who may share their board, a badge of their poverty, 
and an emblem of their inability to pay a legalized robbery; or, on the other hand, 
to contribute from their meager board to the hellish greedof the butter interests, of 



OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. XV 

^\■holn it hass been doubtless truly said that they seek to follow the fashion and form 
a trust, but are deterred by the existence of oleomargarine? 

* * * * * * -:f 

Now, Mr. Chairman, there are a good many of our people who make pretty good 
wages, and of course they can buy butter; T)ut the majority of them make small 
wages now, es{)ecially since we got into this trust l)usiness. I know there are lots of 
men who do not like to l)uy this white oleomargarine, because it looks more like lard 
than anything else. It does not look like butter at all. Why should they be made 
to pay 10 cents a jHiund more bei-anse they get l)utter that resembles country butter 
and looks a little l)etter on the table? That is why I am here to oppose the passage 
of this bill. It is for our people alone, for of course I do not know much al)out the 
1 lutter business myself. 

Mr. John F. McNameo, vice-president and chairman logi.shitive com- 
mittee Cohimbus Trades and Labor Assembly, Colum])us, Ohio, said: 

I bear from the Central Labor Union of the city of Columbus, Ohio, ofticiall)' known 
as the Columbus Trades and Lal)or Assembly, credentials which, with your permis- 
sion, I will. read to you: 

Columbus, Ohio, Jdiinari/ o, I'joi. 
To irJioiii It may conctni: 

This is to certify that the bearer, ;\Ir. John F. McNamee, vice-president of the 
Columbus Trades and Labor Assembly, is authorized and empowered by said body 
to exert every effort and use all honorable means in accomplishing the defeat of a 
measure now pending in the United States Senate, and known as the Urout bill, the 
object of which is to destroy a legitimate industry in the interest of its competitors, 
said Grout bill being regarded by said Trades and Labor Assembly and all it repre- 
sents as a gross injustice, class legislation, an invasion of citizenship rights, and a 
serious menace to the best interests of all citizens, ])articularly those in moderate 
circumstances. 

Any courtesies extended to our representative, Mr. McXamee, will be fully apjire- 
ciated and remembered liy the Colum)>us Trades and Labor Assembly. 

[seal.] Frank B. Cameron, Prcsidcid. 

WiivLiAM P. Hauck, Sccretdr;/. 

This letter of introduction which I have presented represents but faintly the bitter 
antagonism which jirevails in the ranks of organized la))or to said measure. 

******* 

The members of organized labor are thoroughly familial- with all of the pha.ses of 
this bill. They speak about the chemical analyses which have been made of oleomar- 
garine by official chemists, and they discuss all of the various components and ingre- 
dients of the product with almost as nmch familiarity as the manufacturers themselves 
are capable of doing. So I say that they are wide awake to the necessity, in the pro- 
tection of their own interests, of having the bill defeated. Not only that; but as 
patriotic American citizens they feel deeply the indignity to which our legislative 
bodies have been subjected by this attempt to utilize them for the promotion of the 
interests of certain individuals and corporations in violation of every sense of right 
and justice and at the expense of the constitutional prerogatives of other citizens. 
They feel that the legislative bodies of some of our States and the Congress of the 
United States have been insulted by this attempt to utilize them as tools for the pro- 
tection of certain interests which can not sustain themselves against competitors. 
******* 

Gentlemen, there are hundreds of thousands of our citizens in uKxlerate circum- 
stances who are now looking to the United States Senate for protection against the per- 
petration of such a gross injustice. They are depending absolutely upon that sense of 
justice, that sense of honor, fair play, and conservatism which has always character- 
ized this body to protect them from this, one of the most culpable violations of their 
rights which any individual or com])ination of individuals has ever attempted to 
perpetrate upcMi the Amerit'an inil)lic. Tliey are looking to this body with tlie firm 
hope that its traditional love of justice will jirevail and jiredominate in this crisis. 
Should this measure become a law, aiising from the mists of the near future there 
will come a monster into whose insatiable maw the contributions of our citizens shall 
continually flow, and whose appetite shall l)e increased by all attempts at its gratifi- 
cation. This monster we have all, in our apprehensive conviction of the certainty of 
its existence, learned to regard as the creamery trust of the future — the coud)inatiou 
of creamery interests into one great organization, which shall monopolize the manu- 



XVI OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODLCTS. 

facture, not only of the food product known as butter, but of everything of that 
nature. That octopus is now being conceived. If the United States Senate should 
consent to the passage of a bill so outrageously unjust as this one is, then its birth 
will have been accomplished. 

****** 4e- 

Now, we can not see that there is any justice whatever in placing any tax upon 
oleomargarine. Heaven knows that its manufacture is already sufficiently restricted 
and that it is an utter impossibility, under the stringent laws which exist in almost 
all of our States regulating its sale, for any deception to be practiced therein. And I 
want to assure you, gentlemen, that if any deception in this connection should be 
attempted in our part of the country it would be, and often is, in undertaking to 
palm off inferior butter for the product known as oleomargarine. I am myself a con- 
stant consumer of the article, and I propose that it shall be continually used by my 
family, because I know, and so do all of the members of organized la1)or who have 
listened to the discussions relative to this product in their various unions, that it is 
absolutely free from all disease germs; that the process of its manufacture is such as 
to destroy all the bacilli of tuberculosis and various other disease germs that exist in 
the cow and through the medium of butter consumption are conveyed to the human 
system, and that butter is not subjected to any process which will eliminate that 
element of danger. 

******* 

Here is an expression from one of the largest representative labor bodies in the 
United States— the Chicago Federation of Labor — and here is what they say relative 
to the tax : 

" We believe the efforts to place a tax of 10 cents per pound on colored butterine 
is inspired by selfish motives, so that the manufacturers of butter may charge an 
unreasonable price for their commodity and enaljle tlie large creameries to establish 
surely and securely a butter trust which may raise prices as their cupidity may 
dictate. ' ' 

Here is another expression: 

"Justice demands equal rights for both manufacturers of butter and butterine 
both products having equal merit. Any adverse legislation against either must l)e 
condemned." 

* ****** 

This is from the Journeyman Horseshoers' L^nion: 

"We feel that all people having arrived at the age of discretion should be left to 
exercise their own choice as to whether they shall use butter or oleomargarine: 
Therefore, be it 

"Resolved 6// Journeyman Hors^esJioers' Union No. 40, of Columims, Ohio, That as long 
as butterine is colored with a healthful ingredient said coloring should be encour- 
aged, as it improves the appearance of the product; that we do most emphatically 
condemn the persecution being waged against the butterine industry; that we pro- 
test against the attempt to increase the tax thereon, and that copies of this resolu- 
tion be forwarded to every Congressman, with the request that they each and every 
one exert the most strenuous efforts to crushingly defeat once and for all any and all 
measures providing for the further taxing of butterine." 

******* 

Here is something from the Painters and Decorators of Cleveland, Ohio. It speaks 
in very plain language. This is in the form of a letter signed by Mr. Peter Has- 
senpflue, 442 Erie street, Cleveland, president of said union. 

" I have been instructed by our union, containing over 400 members, to write and 
inform you that we are unanimously and bitterly opposed to the bills now pending 
in Congress providing for the persecution of the butterine industry. As you doubt- 
less know, there are laws now that are being carefully enforced and livedup to that 
make it impossible for butterine to be manufactured and sold for anything else but 
butterine, and it is the unanimous opinion of our members that butterine made 
according to these laws is better for all uses than three-fourths of the butter that 
can be bought. It won't get strong, and it don't come from feverish cows that are 
full of disease germs, and butter frequently does. 

"We feel this way — that if butterine is wrong, or poison, or liable to injure public 
health, then do away with it altogether; but if it is not (and years of experience in 
using it have taught us it is not) then why persecute the industry and keep passing 
laws against it? Our belief is that this is kept up just for political reasons, and 
that some people in Congress that are sworn to protect the rights and interests of 
all the people are willing to increase our already too high cost of living and add to 
our taxes just to catch the farmer vote and increase the business of the butter trust 



OLEOMARGAEINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. XVII 

or trusts (and if butterine is killed they will soon be in one), and make them a pres- 
ent of the butter market, so they can either rob the people or make them go without 
butter. It is the rankest kmd of injustice to kill one industry that is right and 
legitimate in order to accommodate another. We want butterine; we know what 
it is; we would rather have it than butter, and it is an outrage, in order to gratify 
the people who make butter, that we should have to go without it and pay two 
prices for butter which we are compelled by law to eat, and which, nine cases out of 
ten, is not fit for human use. It is getting to be pretty serious when the Congress 
of the United States is asked to go into the business of booming certain interests, and 
for their accommodation driving their competitors out of existence simply because 
they are competitors, and for no other reason on earth. A great deal is being said 
about butterine being a certain color. Now, the only reason that a kick is made on 
that color is because it helps to sell that commodity. If the butterine makers were 
to use red or black or blue, these patriotic statesmen, and others so solicitous for the 
people's protection, would raise no objection, because that would make the same 
point that they want to make by law, and that is to hurt its sale and thereby tickle the 
farmers and advance the interests of the creamery trusts. The ingredient used in 
butterine which gives it its color has been proven by official chemical analysis to be 
a natural and healthful product. As there is no reason to kill butterine but because 
it hurts another business, then why not do away with these hose painting machines 
because they hurt our business? 

' ' We know it would be unreasonable to ask this, but i t would be no more so thae 
for butter makers to try, as they are doing, to drive butterine out of existence becausn 
it hurts their business. 

' ' I will close by saying that we consider any further legislation by Congress tam- 
pering with the butterine business as a prostitution of that dignified body to the greed 
and avarice of certain corporations and individuals, at our sacrifice and that of the 
people in general who don't own farms or creamery factories; and in the name of 
my union, under its seal, and by its unanimous instruction, I earnestly request you 
do everything you can to defeat all measures that provide for the increase in the tax 
of or further interference with the manufacture or sale of butterine." 

******* 

From the Chicago Federation of Labor: 

Chicago, 3farch 21, 1900. 
Hon. William McAleek. 

Dear Sir: The following resolutions were unanimously adopted by the Chicago 
Federation of Labor at regular meeting, Simday, February 4, and I was instructed to 
forward a copy of same to you: 

"Whereas the Chicago Federation of Labor is deeply interested in and desires to 
encourage every legitimate industry which furnishes employment to the laboring 
classes; and 

" Whereas efforts are being attempted by contemplated legislation at Washington 
to destroy the manufacture and sale of butterine, thereby displacing large numbers 
of the industrial element and preventing them from gaining a livelihood as well as 
the use of an article of food which has received the highest testimonials of every 
chemist in this country and the indorsement of every standard work that treats on 
the subject of hygiene; and 

"Whereas we ibelieve the efforts to place a tax of 10 cents per jiound on colored 
butterine is inspired by selfish motives, so that the manufacturers of Vjutter may 
charge an unreasonable price for their commodity and enable the large creameries 
to establish surely and securely a butter trust which may raise prices as their cupidity 
may dictate; and 

' ' Whereas j ustice demands equal rights for both manufacturers of butter and butter- 
ine, both products having equal merit, any adverse legislation against either must 
be condemned; and 

"Whereas the late published reports furnished to Congress by the Secretary of the 
Treasury proves the legitimate and growing demand for butterine and discloses the 
large amount of revenue derived therefrom; and 

"Whereas we believe that the present Federal law taxing butterine 2 cents per 
pound and the additional regulations imposed by the Commissioner of Internal Rev- 
enue are sufficient to properly regulate the manufacture and sale of butterine: There- 
fore, be it 

"JResolved, That we, the representatives of the industrial classes in Chicago, and 
voicing, as we know we do, the sentiments of the mechanic and the laborer through- 
out the country, protest against the passage of the Tawney, Grout, or any other bills 
that have for their object the further increase of tax or the relegating to the different 
States the right to enact laws that are opposed to the interests of the people and in 

S. Rep. 2043 ii 



XVIII OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. 

no way in harmony with the inventive and iirogressive spirit of tlie age; and be it 
further 

'■^Resolved, That we instruct our secretary to have sufficient copies of these resolu- 
tions printed that one be mailed to every Senator and Congressman in Washington 
and one to each of the labor organizations aflBliated with the Federation of Labor, 
requesting them to indorse same or pass others of a similar character, so that a full 
expression of our condemnation of such legislation may be made known." 
Respectfully submitted. 

Walter Carmody, 
Secretary Chicago Federation of Labor. 
******* 

Building Trades Council, 

Cleveland, Ohio, April 27, 1900. 

Dear Sir: The Building Trades Council of Cleveland, Ohio, and vicinity, repre- 
senting over 5,000 mechanics, has by unanimous vote indorsed the action of the 
Chicago Federation of Labor and all the other labor organizations who are so doing 
in opposing the persecution of the butterine industry. 

We can not see any justification in placing a larger or, in fact, any tax on butterine 
or oleomargarine. The article is sold on its merits, and it would rather hurt than 
help its sale to attempt to sell it for butter, as it is more popular and generally 
regarded as more healthy than butter. Any of our people that may not want but- 
terine can, while it is on the market, buy butter at a reasonable price, but if the 
attempt to kill it by legislation is successful, the butter manufacturers will have no 
competitors, and the result will be that the present butter trust will absorb the 
butter industry and control the purchase of milk by having little creameries in every 
farming locality on the plan of the Standard Oil Company, and we will have the 
pleasure of paying 50 or 60 cents per pomid for butter or going without it altogether, 
the chances being in favor of the latter. 

We feel that as butterine is demanded and sold for what it is, and as the laws 
regulating its manufacture and sale are operating successfully in preventing its 
adulteration, that the legislative bodies of our country have gone as far as they have 
anj' right to go, and that further interference on their part is persecution and 
intended to advance private interests at the expense of the rights of the peoj)le. 

There is, undouVjtedly, political motive behind all this. 

There are a hundred different cases in which legislative vigilance could protect 
the people from adulterated foods where such vigilance is not exercised, or if in any 
remote way ever apiilied it is not being taken advantage of by the officials supposed 
to enforce it; and why? Simply because the manufacturers of adulterated foods or 
the beneficiaries of their existence have no influential competitors to be served by 
their suppression. 

Butterine has been the victim of legislative attacks for a number of years, and we 
feel it is now time to let up on it and devote the effort wasted in the persecution of 
this legitimate industry to some more worthy cause in the protection of the real 
interests of the people. 

There is an old saying that " He who is bent on an evil deed is never lacking for 
an excuse," and it is certainly applicable in this case, the excuse being that it is 
wrong to color butterine because it is likely to be sold as butter, whereas, in fact, 
owing to the extreme popularity of the former, there is more liability of an attempt 
being made by some butter manufacturer to imitate it, and the only reason why an 
attempt is made to prevent the use of the material in butterine imparting color to it 
is to hurt its sale, as it has been proven this material is perfectly healthy. And 
where is the justice of prohibiting its use simply because it helps the sale of an honest 
product? 

As long as the people want butterine and it is good to use, as the (loverment 
chemists have pro\en, why should it be abolished? ^Ve can not see that there is 
need to say more. You can not but see the rank injustice of this whole business, and 
we would, therefore, earnestly request, in the name of common Americaii justice, 
' that you would strenuously oppose and exert every means in your power to defeat 
all such legislation. 

This letter has the hearty indorsement of our body, and as a testimony of which it 
bears our seal. 

W. C. Davis, 

President. 
Grant Morgan, 

Secretary 



OLEOMAEGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS XIX 

The minority insert here, as a part of their report, the views of the 
minority of the Committee on Agriculture of the House of Repre- 
sentatives, which is as follows: 

Views of the Minority. 

The minority of the Committee on Agriculture of the House of Representatives 
beg leave to submit the accompanying bill, which we offer as a substitute for H. R. 
3717, known as the Grout bill. 

We first wish to bring to the attention of the House proof positive that oleomarga- 
rine is a wholesome and nutritious article of food and is therefore entitled to a legiti- 
mate place in the commerce of our country. In substantiation of this statement we 
beg to submit the following testimony taken before the committee: 

OPINIONS OF LEADING SCIENTISTS. 

^' Prof. C. F. Chandler, professor of chemistry at Columbia College, New York, says : 
"I have studied the question of its use as food, in comparison with the ordinary but- 
ter made from cream, and have satisfied myself that it is quite as valuable as the 
butter from the cow. The product is palatable and wholesome, and I regard it as a 
most valuable article of food. ' ' 

Prof. George F. Barker, of the University of Pennsylvania, says: "Butterine is, in 
my oi^inion, quite as valuable as a nutritive agent as butter itself. It is perfectly 
wholesome, and is desirable as an article of food. I can see no reason why butterine 
should not be an entirely satisfactory equivalent for ordinary butter, whether con- 
sidered from the physiological or commercial standpoint. ' ' 

Prof. Henry Morton, of the Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey, says: "I 
am able to say with confidence that it contains nothing whatever which is injurious 
as an article of diet, but, on the contrary, is essentially identical with the best fresh 
butter, 'and is superior to much of the butter made from cream alone which is found 
in the market. The conditions of its manufacture involve a degree of cleanliness and 
consequent jjurity in the product such as are by no means necessarily or generally 
attained in the ordinary making of butter from cream." 

Prof. S. W. Johnson, director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station 
and professor of agricultural chemistry in Yale College, New Haven, says: "It is a 
product that is entirely attractive and wholesome as food, and one that is for all 
ordinary and culinary purposes the full equivalent of good butter made from cream. 
1 regard the manufacture of oleomargarine as a legitimate and beneficent industry." 

Prof. S. C. Caldwell, of Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y., says: "While not equal 
to fine butter in respect to flavor, it nevertheless contains all the essential ingredients 
of butter, and since it contains a smaller proportion of volatile fats than is found in 
genuine butter, it is, in my opinion, less liable to become rancid. It can not enter 
into competition with fine butter, but so far as it may serve to drive poor butter out 
of the market, its manufactvu'e will be a public benefit." 

Prof. C. A. Goessman, of Amherst Agricultural College, says: " Oleomargarine but- 
ter compares in general appearance and in taste very favorably with the average quality 
of the better kinds of dairy butter in our markets. In its composition it resembles 
that of ordinary dairy butter, and in its keeping quality, under corresponding cir- 
cumstances, I believe it will surpass the former, for it contains a smaller percentage 
of those constituents which, in the main, cause the well-know' n rancid taste and odor 
of a stored butter. ' ' 

Prof. Charles P. Williams, professor in the Missouri State University, says: "It is 
a pure and wholesome article of food, and in this respect, as well as in respect to its 
chemical composition, fully the equivalent of the best quality of dairy butter." 

Prof. J. W. S. Arnold, professor of physiology in the University of New York, says: 
"I consider that each and every article employed in the manufacture of oleomargarine 
butter is perfectly pure and wholesome, that oleomargarine butter differs in no essen- 
tial manner from butter made from cream. In fact, oleomargarine butter possesses 
the advantage over natural butter of not decomposing so readily, as it contains fewer 
volatile fats. In my opinion oleomargarine is to be considered a great discovery, a 
blessing for the poor, and in every way a perfectly pure, wholesome, and palatable 
article of food." 

Prof. W. O. Atwater, director of the United States Government Agricultural Experi- 
ment Station at Washington, says: "It contains essentially the same ingredients as 
natural butter from cow's milk. It is perfectly wholesome and healthy and has a 
high nutritious value." 



XX OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. 

Prof. Henry E. Alvord, formerly of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, and 
president of the Maryland College of Agriculture, and now chief of the Dairy Division 
of the United States Department of Agriculture, and one of the best butter makers in 
the country, says: ' ' The great bulk of butterine and its kindred products is as whole- 
some, cleaner, and in many respects better, than the low grades of butter of which so 
much reaches the market." 

Prof. Paul Schweitzer, Ph. D., LL. D., professor of chemistry, Missouri State Uni- 
versity, says: "As a result of my examination, made both with the microscope and the 
delicate chemical tests applicable to such cases, I pronounce butterine to be wholly 
and unequivocally free from any deleterious or in the least objectionable substances. 
Carefully made physiological experiments reveal no difference whatever in the pala- 
tability and digestibility between butterine and butter." 

Professor Wiley, Chief of the Division of Chemistry of the United States Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, also appeared before the committee and testified to the nutritive 
and wholesome qualities of oleomargarine. 

The Committee on Manufactures of the United States Senate, in a report dated 
February 28, 1900, finds, from the evidence before it, "that the product known 
commercially as oleomargarine is healthful and nutritious." 

Judge Hughes, of the Federal court of Virginia, in a decision, says: 

"It is a fact of common knowledge that oleomargarine has been subjected to the 
severest scientific scrutiny and has been adopted by every leading government in 
Europe as well as America for use by their armies and navies. Though not origi- 
nally invented by us, it is a gift of American enterprise and progressive invention to 
the world. It has become one of the conspicuous articles of interstate commerce 
and furnishes a large income to the General Government annualh^" 

Believing that this testimony establishes beyond controversy that oleomargarine 
is a nutritious and wholesome article of food, the main question to be considered is 
the complaint that fraud is practiced in its sale. 

The only just complaint (indeed, the only complaint) against the existing oleo- 
margarine law consists in the facility with which the retail dealer, in selling from 
the original or wholesale package and substituting a new and unmarked wrapper, 
may violate the law. There is nothing in H. R. 3717 (known as the Grout bill) 
which would decrease the temptation or increase the difficulty of such violations. 
On the contrary, the increased taxation would either be fraiidulently evaded or else 
would force the honest manufacturer out of business. H. K. 3717 merely increases 
taxation without providing any new or additional penalties or any new methods to 
prevent the sale of oleomargarine as butter, either in its colored or uncolored state. 
In fact, the radical advocates of the Grout l)ill do not seek this end, as they have 
declared in their testimony before the committee and in declarations elsewhere that 
their sole intention is to alwolutely crush out the manufacture of oleomargarine and 
eliminate it as a food product. 

In substantiation of this assertion we quote the following: 

Mr. Adames, pure-food commissioner of the State of Wisconsin, in his testimony 
before the committee on March 7, 1900, said: 

"There is no use beating about the bush in this matter. We want to pass this law 
and drive the oleomargarine manufacturers out of the business." 

Charles Y. Knight, secretary of the National Dairy Union, in a letter to the 
Virginia Dairymen, dated May 18, 1900, writes: 

"Now is the time for you to clip the fangs of the mighty octopus of the oleomar- 
garine manufacturers who are ruining the dairy interests of this country by manu- 
facturing and selling in defiance of law a spurious article in imitation of pure butter. 
We have a remedy almost in grasp which will eliminate the manufacture of this 
article from the food-product list. The Grout bill, now pending in the Agricultural 
Committee of the House of Representatives in Congress, meets the demand." 

W. D. Hoard, ex-governor of Wisconsin and president of the National Dairy Union, 
stated in his testimony before the committee on March 7, 1900, as follows: 

"To give added force to the first section of the bill, it is provided in the second 
section that a tax of 10 cents a pound shall be imposed on all oleomargarine in the 
color or semblance of butter. In plain words, this is repressive taxation." 

In view of this testimony the minority believe they are justified in claiming that 
the Grout bill, if enacted into law, would destroy the business of the legitimate oleo- 
margarine manufacturers. In other words. Congress is being asked to ruin one 
industry to benefit another; and this, in the opinion of the minority, is a thing Con- 
gress ought not to do. The minority believe it to be class legislation of the most 
pronounced kind and would establish a precedent which, if followed, would create 
monopolies, destroy competition, and militate against the public good. 

The substitute bill offered by the minority would, in our opinion, eliminate all 
possibility of fraud and would compel the manufacturers of and dealers in oleomar- 



OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. XXI 

garine to sell it for what it really is and not for butter. The substitute offered is 
practically an amendment to sections 3 and 6 of the existing oleomargarine law. The 
licenses for manufacture and sale of this article are not changed, and are as follows: 
Manufacturers, $600 per annum; wholesale dealers, $480 per annum; retailers, $48 
per annum, while the penalties imposed for violation of the law are materially 
increased. We quote in full section 2 of the substitute bill, and ask for it the careful 
and thoughtful consideration of the House, believing that it is just and fair to all the 
interests involved: 

"Sec. 2. That all oleomargarine shall be put up by the manufacturer for sale in 
packages of one and two pounds, respectively, and in no other or larger or smaller 
package; and upon every print, brick, roll, or lump of oleomargarine, before being so 
put up for sale or removal from the factory, there shall be impressed by the manu- 
facturer the word "oleomargarine" in sunken letters, the size of which shall be pre- 
scribed by regulations made by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and approved 
by the Secretary of the Treasury; and every such print, brick, roll, or lump of oleomar- 
garine shall first be wrapped with paper wrapper with the word "oleomargarine" 
printed thereon in distinct letters, and said wrapper shall also bear the name of the 
manufacturer, and then shall be put by the manufacturer thereof in such wooden or 
paper packages or in such wrappers, with the word ' ' oleomargarine ' ' printed thereon 
in distinct letters, and marked, stamped, and branded in such manner as the Com- 
missioner of Internal Revenue, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, 
shall prescribe, and the internal-revenue stamp shall be affixed so as to surround the 
outer wrapper of each one and two pound package: Provided, That any number of 
such original stamped packages may be put up by the manufacturer in crates or boxes, 
on the outside of which shall be marked the word "oleomargarine," with such other 
marks and brands as the Commissioner of Internal Revenue shall, by regulations 
approved by the Secretary of the Treasury, prescribe. 

"Retail dealers in oleomargarine shall sell only the original package to which the 
tax-paid stamp is affixed. 

" Every person who knowingly sells or offers for sale, or delivers or offers to deliver, 
any oleomargarine otherwise than as provided by this act or contrary to the regula- 
tions of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue made in pursuance hereof or who 
packs in any package any oleomargarine in any manner contrary to law, or who shall 
sell or offer for sale as butter any oleomargarine, colored or uncolored, or who falsely 
brands any package, or affixes a stamp on any package denoting a less amount of 
tax than that required by law, shall be fined for the first offense not less than one 
hundred nor more than five hundred dollars and be imprisoned not less than thirty 
days nor more than six months; and for the second and every subsequent offense 
shall be fined not less than two hundred nor more than one thousand dollars and be 
imprisoned not less than sixty days nor more than two years." 

One of the claims made by the friends of the Grout bill is that it will protect the 
interests of the farmer. We call attention to the fact that every ingredient that 
enters into the manufacture of oleomargarine is as much a product of the farm as the 
butter, and that such ingredients are made more valuable on account of their use in 
the manufacture of oleomargarine. 

Your committee has had before it representatives of bbth the cattle and hog raisers 
of the country, and also representatives of the cotton industry, and they are unani- 
mous in their opinion that their business will be materially injured and the price of 
their product lowered by the passage of the Grout bill and the destruction of the 
oleomargarine industry. 

The manufacture and sale of oleomargarine does not interfere with the growth and 
prosperity of the butter industry. Statistics show a much greater percentage in the 
increase of the production of butter than in the production of oleomargarine. Though 
similar in ingredients, they are not strictly competing, as the oleomargarine is prac- 
tically all l)(iught by the poorer class of our people. 

In justification of this statement we have received a large number of petitions from 
the labor organizations of our country protesting against the passage of this bill for 
the above-given reasons. 

It being possible to keep oleomargarine in a sweet and sound condition much longer 
than butter, it is also used extensively in the mining and lumber camps, on explor- 
ing and hunting expeditions, on ships at sea, and by armies in the field. 

The claim made by the friends of the Grout bill that the manufacture and sale of 
oleomargarine has greatly depreciated the price of butter will not obtain when it is 
known that there is now maiuifactured in the United States nearly 2,000,000,000 
pounds of butter annually, and it is positively known that there only were 83,000,000 
pounds of oleomargarine manufactured last year, which shows that the amount of 
oleomargarine produced is about 4 per cent of \he amomit of butter produced. There- 



XXII OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. 

fore, the argument that oleomargarine in any material sense controls the price of 
butter is not justified by the facts. 

The manufacture and sale of oleomargarine have in no way depreciated the price 
of butter, as more butter is being sold at higher price in this country than ever 
before, as shown by testimony. 

It is a suggestive fact that those sections of our country which are most exclusively 
devoted to the dairy interests are blessed with the greatest prosperity, as brought 
out in the testimony of ex-Governor Hoard, of Wisconsin, before our committee, 
who said that a few years ago land was worth only $15 an acre in that State, but as 
the State began to be devoted more exclusively to the dairy interests land had rapidly 
appreciated in jjrice, and that farmers had gotten out of debt, had paid their mort- 
gages, and the land is now worth the sum of $80 per acre, this price averaging much 
higher than agricultural lands in other parts of the country. 

In conclusion the members of the Committee on Agriculture who have joined in 
this minority report beg to assure the House and the country in the most solemn 
manner possible that it has been their earnest intention, and is now their determina- 
tion, to do everything possible to be done to enforce the sale of oleomargarine as oleo- 
margarine and to prevent its sale as butter. To prevent fraud and not to stamp out 
an industry has been and is our purpose. We believe that it ought to be the sole 
purpose of all legislation and the sole motive of all just men. 

J. W. Wadsworth. 

Wm. Lorimer. 

W. J. Bailey. 

G. H. White. 

John S. Williams. 

J. Wm. Stokes. 

H. D. Allen. 
Mr. W. E. Miller said: 

At this juncture we would like to introduce as evidence an article from Experiment 
Station Record, United States Department of Agriculture, on the nutritive value of 
oleomargarine: 

"The nutritive value of margarin compared with butter. E. Bertarelli {Riv. 
Ig. eSan. Pubb., 9 {1898), Nos. 14, pp- 538-545; 15, pp. JZ^^-J/S*).— Three experiments 
with healthy men are reported in which the value of margarin and butter was tested 
when consumed as part of a simple mixed diet. In one experiment the value of a 
mixture of olive oil and colza oil, which is commonly used in Italy in the neighbor- 
hood of Turin, was also tested. The author himself was the siilDJect of one of the 
tests. He was 24 years old. The subjects of the other tests were two laboratory 
servants, one 27 years old, the other 32 years old. The coefficients of digestibility 
and the balance of income and outgo of nitrogen in the different experiments were as 
follows: 

Digestion experiments with margarin, butter, and oil. 





Time. 


Coefficients of digestibility. 


Nitrogen. 




Protein. 


Fat. 


Carbo- 
hydrates. 


In 
food. 


In 
urine. 


In 
feces. 


Gain. 


Laboratory servant, P. G.: 500 gm. 
white bread, 270 gm. veal, 70 gm. 


Days. 

5 

5 
6 
6 

5 

5 

5 


Per cent. 
81.75 

79.50 

81. 85 
77.80 

85.32 

82.92 

83.27 


Per cent. 

92. C7 

93.90 
94.25 
93.73 

95.80 

95.33 

95.82 


Per cent. 

97.25 

97.07 
97.35 
96.70 

97.38 

97.24 

97.56 


Gms. 

15.7 

1.5.7 
13.5 
13.5 

16.5 

16.9 

17.5 


Gms. 

9.6 

10.3 
10.1 
9.6 

13.2 

12.5 

13.4 


6ms. 

2.6 

3.2 
2.5 
3.1 

2.9 

3.4 

3.5 


Gms. 
3 5 


Laboratory servant, P. G. : 500 gm. 

white bread, 2.50 gm.veal, 70 gm. 

margarin, 250-300 cc. wine 

Author: 450 gm. white bread, 250 


2.2 
9 


Author: 450 gm. white bread, 250 
gm. meat, 70 gm. margarin 

Laboratory servant, F. D.: 824 gm. 
wliite bread, 250 gm. meat, 61.6 


.8 
.4 


Laboratory servant, F. D. : 8.59 gm. 
white bread, 250 gm. meat, 61.6 


1 


Laboratory servant, F. D. : 910 gm. 
white bread, 250 gm. meat, 61.6 


.6 







OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. XXIII 

"The principal conclusions follow: When proj^erly prepared, margarin differs but 
little from natural butter in chemical and physical properties. On an average 93.5 
to 96 per cent of fat was assimilated when margarin was consumed and 94 to 96 per 
cent when butter formed part of the diet. The moderate use of margarin did not 
cause any disturbance of the digestive tract." 

* " * * * * * * 

This is a resolution passed by the Sioux City Live Stock Exchange: 

"Whereas a bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives known as 
House bill 6, providing for an amendment of 'An act defining butter, also imposing 
a tax upon and regulating the manufacture, sale, importation, and exportation of 
oleomargarine;' and. 

"Whereas such a bill, if enacted, is calculated to build up and restore one industry 
at the expense of another by means of uncalled-for and unjust taxation; and 

"Whereas the destruction of the oleomargarine industry would greatly impair the 
market value of beef cattle, and would thereby deprive the producer of a large amount 
of revenue: Therefore, be it 

''Resolved, That the Sioux City Live Stock Exchange of Sioux City, Iowa, emphat- 
ically protests against the enactment of the law proposed in House bill No. 6. 

"Witness the signatures of the president and secretary of said exchange and the 
official seal thereof affixed at Sioux City, Iowa, December 28, 1899. 

"J. H. Nason, Prmden^. 
"Wm. Magivny, Secretary." 
******* 

These are resolutions passed by the Texas Cotton-Seed Crushers' Association: 

"Dear Sir: At a meeting of the Cotton-Seed Crushers' Association, held in Dallas 
on Tuesday, November 14, 1899, T. P. Sullivan, of Jefferson; R. K. P^rwin, of Waxa- 
hachie; W. R. Moore, of Ardmore, Ind. T., and Robert Gibson, secretary, of Dallas, 
were appointed a committee to draft resolutions expressive oi the sense of the meet- 
ing on the mattei's discussed. The resolutions as submitted were unanimously 
adopted, and are as follows: 

"Marion Sansom, Chairman: 

"The undersigned committee appointed by you beg leave to submit the following 
preamble and resolutions: 

"Whereas the line of industrial business represented by this association is coexten- 
sive with the entire area of the cotton-cultivated zone of our Southern States and, in 
conjunction with cotton in its various uses, represents the wealth of the South; and 

" Whereas Texas represents over 30 per cent of the cotton and cotton seed annually 
produced in the United States, any embargo placed by legislation on the growth and 
development of our industry is detrimental to the vast interests committed to our care. 
It is therefore of most vital necessity that all avenues leading to the sale and con- 
sumption of our cotton-oil products should be free and unrestricted, and inasmuch as 
cotton oil is used to a large extent in the manufacture of butterine, which is a most 
wholesome and healthful substitute for butter; and 

"Whereas a tax at present exists of 2 cents per pound on the manufacture of this 
most healthful article of food, and that it is contemplated to introduce at the next 
session of Congress an increased tax of 10 cents per pound on same: It is, therefore, 

'■'Resolved, That this association enter its protest against the existing tax of 2 cents 
per pound on butterine and ask for its abrogation and repeal, and against the intro- 
duction or adoption of any future tax on same as an article of food, as it directly 
affects our great industry both at home and on the continent of Europe, where a 
cheap and wholesome article of food, such as butterine, is appreciated. 

' ' Resolved, That we believe the imposition of a special tax of this nature is class legis- 
lation and should be combatted l)y all the means at our command, and that our Sen- 
ators and Representatives in Congress are hereby requested to give us all the neces- 
sary aid in this behalf ; and it is further 

"Resolved, That the secretary of this association transmit a copy of these resolutions 
to each cotton-oil mill in the South, with the request that they interest their Senators 
and Representatives therein, and also to our Senators and Representatives in Con- 
gress from Texas. 

"T. P. Sullivan, Chairman, Jefferson, Tex. 

" R. K. Erwin, Wa.vahachie, Tex. 

"W. R. Moore, Avdmore, Ind. T. 

" Robert Gibson, Secretanj, Dallas, Tex." 



XXIV OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. 

Resolutions against oleomargarine tax offered at meeting of cotton-oil mill super- 
intendents: 

"Charleston, S. C, July 6. 

"Cotton-oil superintendents from South Carolina and North Carolina met yester- 
day at the Calhoun Hotel for the purpose of organizing the cotton-oil mill superin- 
tendents' association ; 

"After the constitution and by-laws were read and adopted, the following resolu- 
tions were offered by A. A. Haynes: 

" 'Resolved, That this association, representing millions of dollars of invested capital 
in the South, strongly protest against national class legislation which aims directly at 
the destruction of competition in the manufacture and sale of wholesome and health- 
ful articles of food. 

" 'Resolved, That we protest strenuously against the passage by Congress of the 
Grout oleomargarine bill, which pro^soses to tax oleomargarine 10 cents per pound, 
and thus to drive it from the market. 

" 'Resolved, That this association implores Congress not to destroy an industry 
which now uses nearly 10,000,000 pounds of the best grade of cotton-seed oil annu- 
ally, and thus kill that ciuantity of our most profitable output. 

" 'Resolved, That we urge the legislatures of South Carolina and of other Southern 
States to remove from their statute books the antioleomargarine legislation thereon, 
because such acts are only in the interest of the renovated and process butter facto- 
ries of the North and Northwest, and against the hog fats, beef fats, and cotton-seed- 
oil products grown on our Southern farms. 

" 'Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the National Provisioner, of 
New York and Chicago, the indomitable champion of the cotton-oil interests, for 
publication, and that the members of this association proceed to secure, if possible, 
the repeal of the obnoxious State laws above referred to. 

"'Resolved, That this association will do what it can to cause the defeat of the 
Grout antioleomargarine bill in Congress during the coming session.' " 

Mr. John C. McCoy presented the following resolutions: 

The Kans.\s City Live Stock Exchange, 

Kansas City, Mo., February 8, 1900. 

The following preamble and resolutions were unanimously adopted by the board 
of directors of the Kansas City Live Stock Exchange at a regular meeting held Feb- 
ruary 5, 1900: 

" Whereas certain bills have been introduced in the House of Representatives of 
the United States looking for the enactment of a law, by way of taxation, whereby 
the manufacture, sale, importation, and exportation of oleomargarine will be ruined; 
and 

"Whereas such bills, if passed and allowed to become laws, will build up one 
industry at the expense of tearing down and ruining another, the logical effect of 
which will be the granting of a monopoly to the industry sought to be benefited; and 

"Whereas the destruction of the oleomargarine industry will reduce the value of 
cattle and hogs to the farmers and raisers thereof, as well as work a hardship upon 
millions of poor people who are unable to pay the fancy prices asked for butter: 
Therefore, be it 

Resolved, That the Kansas City Live Stock Exchange, of Kansas City, Mo., earnestly 
protest against the enactment of the law proposed relating to oleomargarine; and be 
it further 

Resolved, That the board of directors of this exchange be requested to memorialize 
the Congress of the United States against the passage of a law or laws inimical to the 
live-stock industry, and that a copy of these resolutions be sent to the honorable the 
Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States." 
Respectfully, yours, 

W. S. Hannah, Pres'ident. 

Mr. William H. Thompson, president National Live Stock Exchang-e, 
Chicago, 111., said: 

-In round numbers there are 75,000,000 people in this country. I believe a reason- 
able estimate of the number of Indians and children under a butter-eating age to be 
25,000,000, which would leave a population of 50,000,000 outside of these classes 
who are consumers of butter. 

Of this 50,000,000 people at least one-half are able to buy the best butter manu- 
factured, irrespective of price, while the other 25,000,000 are a class of people whom 
the butterine manufacturers aim to reach and benefit, and are a class of our citizens 



OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. XXV 

known as laborers, not in the common acceptance of the term, but as a class of peo- 
ple following a variety of pursuits at small salai'ies, and in most cases, owing to their 
dependencies and meager earnings, compelled to go without the luxuries of life. 

it is this class of people whose interests need careful consideration, whose claims 
upon you as their representatives are invariably backed by justice, who are always 
the greatest sufferers by and the most sensitive to inimical legislation, who always are 
the first to respond to and cheerfully comply with all just and reasonable laws. 

As the representative of the National Live Stock Exchange, I also plead for a con- 
sideration of the rights of this class of our citizens, who, from the nature of their sur- 
roundings and conditions, are unable to appear before you in their own behalf. 

They, who are the principal consumers of butterine, are not asking for anj- legisla- . 
tion. The producers and raisers of fat cattle are not asking j'ou for any legislation in 
this respect. 

"Why should it be any more unlawful to put into butterine, the product of the 
beef steer, the same coloring matter as is put into butter, the similar product of his 
sister, the dairy cow? 

Is there any equity or justice in such denial? Is it made necessary by the condi- 
tions? Is it warranted upon any grounds? If it is, I am at a loss to comprehend it. 

This kind of legislation is most assuredly the worst and most vicious kind of class 
legislation, because it is inaugurated solely for the purpose of destroying a competi- 
tive industry equally as important and equally as deserving of legislative support 
and protection. 

The Grout bill rei^resents an attempt on the part of Congress to tax one legitimate 
industry out of existence for the benefit of another industry. The ostensible pur- 
pose is protection to the consumers against "imitation butter;" but the public has 
never asked for such jirotection. It does not even object to the coloring of butterine 
the same as butter, so long as the butterine is properly labeled and sold on its merits. 
As a matter of fact, the consumers of butterine prefer to have it colored, so long as 
the coloring material used is harmless. They like butterine because of its cheapness 
and because they are satisfied with its purity and wholesomeness. 

The enactment of this bill will not only deprive the consumer of a healthy and 
nutritious article of food, but immediately it becomes a law will depreciate the value 
of the beef cattle and take from the producers of this country upward of forty-five 
millions of dollars. 

The following is not part of the hearino- before the committee, but 
is vouched for as the true resolution passed by the convention. 

At the Fourth Annual Convention of the National Live Stock Asso- 
ciation, held at Salt Lake City, Utah, January 15, 16, 17, and 18, 1901, 
at which 1,112 delegates were represented and 5,000 visitors were pres- 
ent, from nearly ever}^ State and Territory in the Union, the following 
memorial to the Senate of the United States was adopted: 

To Hie honorable the Senate of the United States: 

Your orator, the National Live Stock Association, respectfully represent unto 
your honorable body that it is an association composed of 126 live-stock and kindred 
organizations, all directly interested in the production, marketing, and disposing of 
live stock, and whose holdings thereof represent an investment of over 1600,000,000. 

Your orator, in annual session assembled at Salt Lake City, Utah, desires to enter 
its emphatic protest against the enactment of what is commonly known as the Grout 
bill (House bill 3717), and in behalf of its protest desires to record a few of the 
many reasons in support of its contention. 

This measure is a species of class legislation of the most iniquitous and dangerous 
kind, calculated to build up one industry at the expense of another equally as 
important. 

It seeks to impose an unjust, uncalled-for, and unwarranted burden upon one of 
the principal commercial industries of the country for the purpose of prohibiting its 
manufacture, thereby destroying competition, as the manufacturers can not assume 
the additional burdens sought to be imposed by this measure and sell their product 
in competition with butter. 

"The passage of this law would destroy the demand, except for export, for that 
product of the beef of animals, oil of oleo, of which 24,000,000 pounds was used in 
the year 1899 in the manufacture of oleomargarine, and also would seriously injure 
the iiog industry by a similar destruction of the demand, except for export, of neutral 
lard, 31,000,000 "pounds of which was used in the year 1899 in the manufacture of 
this food product, and by thus eliminating the demand for these legitimate articles 



XXVI OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS 

of commerce force dealers to seek other channels for their disposition, at greatly 
reduced prices, tliereby entailing a loss to the producers of live stock of the United 
States of niillidus of dollars annually. 

"The nu'usuie seeks to throttle competition, and, if enacted, will render useless 
immense estahlisliments, erected at great expense, for the manufat-ture of oleomarga- 
rine, dejirive thousands of employees of the opportunity to gain a livelihood, and 
deny the people — and especially the workingmen and their dependencies — of a whole- 
some article of diet. 

"In oleomargarine a very large proportion of the consumers of this country, and 
especially the working classes, have a wholesome, nutritious, and satisfactory article 
of dii't, which, before its advent, they were obliged — owing to the high price of butter 
and their limited means — to go without. 

" Your orator contends that it is manifestly unjust, unreasonable, and unfair to deny 
manufacturers of the ])roduct of the beef animal and the hog the same privileges in 
regard to the use of coloring matter that are accorded to the manufacturers of the 
product of the dairy, and that the rights and privileges of the producers of cattle and 
liogs should be as well respected as those of others, and, as they are the beneficiaries 
in the manufacture of this wholesome article of food, they should not be burdened 
with unnecessary and oppressive special taxes or needless restrictions in the manu- 
facture of this product, other than is absolutely necessary for the support of the Gov- 
ernment and the proper governmental regulations surrounding the handling of the 
same. 

Your orator respectfully contends that these products should receive at the hands 
of Congress no greater exactions than those imposed upon competing food products; 
and that the manufai'ture and sale of oleomargarine is already surrounded by numer- 
ous safeguards which Congress, in its wisdom, has seen lit to provide, stipulating a 
severe j)nnisinnent for selling same under misrepresentation as to its composition; 
and that this ])n)dui'e has, by ex]>erience, i)roven to be just what a large majority of 
the pei)i)le of this country want, aTid that none but the dairy and allied interests are 
asking for or seeking any further legislation in this matter, and their indorsement of 
the proposed legislation is purely and simply selfish. 

In conclusion, your orator, in behalf of the producers and consumers of this 
great country, solenmly protests against the enactment of the Grout bill or any other 
legislation calculated to entail an enormous loss on the live-stock producers of this 
country, to ruin a great industry, and to deprive not only the working classes, but 
many others of a cheap, wholesome, nutritious, and acceptable article of food. 

The National Live Stock Association. 
John W. Springer, President, 
By C. F. Martin, Secretary. 

The bill recommended l\v the majority is, in the opinion of the 
minority, an unconstitutional measure in that it is class legislation. 
If it is designed as a revenue measure, then it would be unconstitu- 
tional, because it taxes one man for the benefit of another, which, 
according- to the language of the Supreme Court, ""is robbery under 
the form of law." 

H. D. Money. ' 
Henry Heitfeld. 

I concur generally in the views expressed in this minority report, 
without indorsing all the expressions therein used, especially in the 
testimony of witnesses and extracts made a part of it. I concur fully, 
however, in the conclu.sion of the minority that the bill ought not to 
pass. 

Wm. B. Bate. 



THE OLEOMARGARINE BILL. 



HEARINGS 



BEFORE THE 




UNITED STATES SENATE, 



BILL (H. R. 3717) TO MAKE OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION 

DAIRY PRODUCTS SUBJECT TO THE LAWS OF THE STATE OR 

TERRITORY INTO WHICH THEY ARE TRANSPORTED, AND 

TO CHANGE THE TAX ON OLEOMARGARINE. 



S. Rep. 2043- 



HEARINGS ON THE OLEOMARGARINE BILL. 



Washington, D. C, 

We(Mesday, December 19^ 1900. 

The committee met at 10.30 a. m. 

Present: Senators Proctor (chairman), Hansbrough, Warren, Foster, 
Bate, Money, Heitfeld, and Allen. 

Also, Hon. William W. Grout, a Representative from the State of 
Vermont; Hon. W. D. Hoard, ex-governor of Wisconsin and presi- 
dent of the National Dairy Union; C. Y. Knight, secretary of the 
National Dairy Union; Hon. William M. Springer, of Springfield, 111., 
representing the National Live Stock Association; Frank M. Mathew- 
son, president of the Oakdale Manufacturing Company, of Providence, 
R. I.; Rathbone Gardner, representing the Oakdale Manufacturing 
Company, of Providence, R. I. ; Frank W. Tillinghast, representing 
the Vermont Manufacturing Company, of Providence, R. I. ; Charles 
E. Schell, representing the Ohio Butterine Company, of Cincinnati, 
Ohio; and others. 

STATEMENT OF HON. W. W. GROUT. 

The Chairman. General Grout, whose name has been given to the 
bill, is here, and we shall be glad to have him make any statement in 
regard to the bill which he sees fit. 

Mr. Grout. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I shall 
detain you only a moment. 

It was thought best that the friends of the bill should open with a 
very brief statement, and we do so by submitting the hearings before 
the House Committee on Agriculture, which were quite full, and the 
report of that committee of the bill to the House, together with the 
minority views. 

It has also been thought well that some one should explain somewhat 
to you, as the subject I presume is new to most of the committee, the 
general scope of the bill. 

The first section puts all imitation dair}"^ products under the control 
of State laws the moment they come from the State of manufacture, 
or from one State into another, to state it more exactly. This princi- 
ple has already been established by the decision of the Supreme Court 
in the case of Plumley v. The State of Massachusetts, which came up 
to the Supreme Court on a writ of error from the supreme court of 
that State. Plumley was indicted for a violation of the State law in 
the sale of oleomargarine and was convicted and imprisoned. He 
brought a writ of habeas corpus before the State court. The State 
court held the proceeding regular. It was brought here on a writ of 
error, and the Supreme Court decided that the State of Massachusetts 

3 



4 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

had the right to pass a law taking control of this article so soon as it 
came into the State, the interstate clause of the Constitution to the 
contrary notwithstanding; and that the State had the right to enforce 
that law on the ground that this article was calculated to deceive, it 
being made in imitation of butter. It was upon that ground that the 
case went off in the State court, and it was upon that ground that it 
was affirmed by the Supreme Court. 

You may ask, then, why do we need any statute law on the subject, 
the Supreme Court having settled it? Here is the reason why: That 
decision was made by a divided court. Chief Justice Fuller and two 
associate justices dissenting from the view taken by the majority of 
the court, the opinion having been given by Mr. Justice Harlan. It 
has been thought for these many years — this was a decision some eight 
or nine years ago; I have forgotten the exact date of it — it has been 
thought by the dairy interests that they wanted this written in the 
statutes of the country as well as in a Supreme Court decision, for the 
question is very likely to arise there again, and it might result in a 
different decision by the court. 

Mr. Knight. Allow me to make a suggestion. In the Schollenber- 
ger "case, in Pennsylvania, the circuit judges — some of them, at least — 
overruled or reversed the Plumley case, and it was so held in the State 
of Minnesota by Judge Lochren. 

Mr. Grout. That has been done by one or two circuit or district 
judges certainly, and in some of the State courts, but I thought it 
well to refer only to the court of last resort, the Supreme Court, not 
wishing to take time to go into the details. It is true this decision 
has already been brought in question by some decisions of subordinate 
courts. 

Senator Allen. Let me ask a question. Did the case to which you 
refer go off on the ground that the propert}', having gone into Massa- 
chusetts and become mingled with the property there, at the end of 
transit is subject to the police regulation of the State? 

Mr. Grout. Precisely. It is the police power of the State which 
gives this right to take charge of the article. 

Senator Allen. Do you know that there is a decision which holds 
that Congress ma}^ abdicate its power to control interstate commerce 
to the State? 

Mr. Grout. Yes, sir; there is such a decision, under what is known 
as the Wilson law. The Wilson law was passed to overcome>what was 
known as the original package decision, and there is a decision by the 
Supreme Court in a case coming up from the State of South Carolina 
under the constabulary act of that State, or whatever name it went by, 
in which it is held that that power could be passed to the States. I 
am not able now to name the case, but I have examined it. 

Senator Allen. Under the Iowa liquor law originally the court 
held that liquors which went in original packages were not subject to 
State regulation. 

Mr. Grout. Certainly; that was the original package decision. The 
Wilson law conferred power on the States to take charge of it. 

Senator Allen. Mr. Wilson introduced a bill, which became a law, 
remitting that power to the States. Has that act itself been passed 
upon ? 

Mr. Grout. Yes, sir; it was passed upon by the Supreme Court in 
the case from South Carolina, already referred to, the opinion having 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 5 

been delivered by Mr. Justice White, as 1 remember, in which the 
authorit}^ of State law is recognized. So there can be no question on 
that score, I think. 

This feature of the bill has been pending in the two Houses for 
several years. I introduced the first section of the bill in the House 
six or eight years ago, certainly, and four years ago this ver}^ winter, 
I think, the idrst section of the bill passed the House. I am speaking 
now of the first section of the present bill. It passed the House and 
came to the Senate, but was not acted upon by this body. 

In addition to that, there is the second section of the bill, which puts 
a tax of 10 cents a pound on all oleomargarine made in imitation of 
butter, and reduces the present tax of 2 cents per pound to one-fourth 
of 1 cent a pound on all that is left in its natural, uncolored state. 
The great objection thus far to this bill has been to the second section. 
Very few complain of the first section, but it is to the second section 
that objection is principall}^ leveled. 

I am not going into any long statement here. Read the testimony 
which we have submitted, and you will see that the testimony is 
abundant on all sides that oleomargarine is sold constantly for butter. 
You will learn from that testimony that the manufacturers arrange 
with the retailers to sell it — they do not say as butter in their circulars, 
but to sell it. They know very well that the retailer will sell it for 
butter — that is a part of the programme — but he is to sell it, and they 
will stand between him and all State laws for paj^ment of fines, costs, 
and damages, this being substantially the language used in their 
circulars. You will find that in the printed hearings before the House 
committee. There is no question about this. The}^ in fact make no 
reply to it, or have thus far made no reply, and I presume they will 
not undertake to do so. 

Only a small portion of oleomargarine relatively, however, as I 
believe, is really sold through the retailers. There are no statistics 
on the subject, because it is a matter wholly within the knowledge of 
the manufacturers. The great body of it is worked ofi' through hotel 
keepers and restaurant and boarding-house keepers, who buy directly 
of the manufacturers; if not, perhaps they buy of some intermediary 
wholesale dealer this stuff, and palm it off upon their guests as butter. 
The great share, I believe, of the article is marketed in that way. 

Now, the oleomargarine men claim, or have claimed, that they are 
not parties to this fraud, that persons buying it know just what it is. 
This is undoubtedly true of the hotel man and the restaurant and 
boarding-house keeper. The}^ know what they are buying, but the 
manufacturer knows that they intend to palm it off on their guests 
as butter. There is no question about this, and it makes them, morally 
at least, parties to the fraud. 

Senator Allen. How are you going to sustain the constitutionality 
of the second section ? 

Mr. Grout. In what respect, if you please, sir? 

Senator Allen. In respect to its being a tax to destroy an industry. 

Mr. Grout. The decisions are all one way, as undoubtedlj^ the Sen- 
ator knows. You may go back to an earl}^ decision b}^ Chief Justice 
Marshall, in which the Supreme Court denied itself the power to 
inquire into, " to review," to use the language of that authority, the 
discretionary power of the legislature to tax. The tax must be laid 
alike, of course, upon the same class of articles. The legislative power 



6 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

may, in its discretion, single out one thing and tax it and leave another 
untaxed; but wherever you levy a tax it must be levied uniformly on 
the same class of articles. The courts insist upon uniformity, but 
they never question the discretionary power lodged with the legisla- 
tive body to impose the tax. 

Senator Allen. I know of but one precedent for this proposed legis- 
lation, and that is the taxation of State bank issues. 

Mr, Grout. Exactly. That is a notable instance, the rankest 
instance probably, our opponents would say, that has ever been fur- 
nished of the exercise of the power to tax out of existence. 

Mr. Hoard. In addition to the State bank tax, there is the tax on 
filled cheese and adulterated flour. 

Mr. Grout. Yes, to be sure, and along the same line of this pro- 
ceeding. The power to tax and tax out of existence is unquestioned, 
as I believe, gentlemen. The only question which the court ever 
inquires into is whether the tax is laid evenly, uniforml}", upon the 
class of articles which it proposes to deal with. It may select a single 
thing and tax it and leave another thing untaxed. That is according 
to the discretion of the legislative power. The cure for any wrong in 
this respect is with the constituency. If an unjust tax be imposed, the 
people will send men here who will exercise better discretion. 

Senator Allen. The court can not inquire into the motive of the 
legislative department; but if that motive is apparent upon the face of 
the act, then it does enter into the litigation and become a part of the 
construction of the act. 

Mr. Grout. Yes; but they do not, then, even give it effect to the 
extent of setting aside the power of the legislature to tax. How could 
it have been otherwise than that the intent was apparent in the law 
taxing State banks? 

Senator Allen. Suppose it is apparent on the face of this bill that 
the motive for imposing the tax is to destroy the thing taxed ? 

Mr. Grout. We deny this. We say that is not the motive. 

Senator Allen. What would be the rule, then ? 

Mr. Grout. I do not think it would change it a particle. Judge 
Collamer, up in our State, who was a Senator with you gentlemen, and 
held a high place when in this body — the very first in his time, as tradi- 
tion will tell you, and as discussions will disclose if you turn to them — 
Judge Collamer, on the bench up in Vermont, said you could not inquire 
into the motive by which one did a legal act; and that I understand to 
be good law ever3^where. 

Senator Allen. That is true; but suppose the motive is apparent 
upon the act itself ? 

Mr. Grout. Very well; the motive makes no difference, providing 
the act be legal, and here unquestionably the act is legal. 

Senator Allen. Then 3^ou must take into consideration the motive, 
because it is a part of the act? 

Mr. Grout. Well, I have expressed to the committee my views on 
this subject, but let me say it is not the purpose here to tax out of 
existence. The object of this second section i.s to prevent the sale of 
oleomargarine as butter, to prevent a fraud. And we say that is the 
only rational construction which can be given, because if the purpose 
of the section was to destroy the article it would not provide as it does 
in the closing clause for a small tax, the least possible tax, on the 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 7 

uncolored article. It might be made still less, if the legislative power 
thought best to do so, although 1 do not think it ought to be less, for 
it ought to be large enough to cover the cost of policing the business. 
Now, when it reduces the tax to the lowest possible limit, so that oleo 
undisguised can go to the consumer at the cheapest possible price, who 
can fairly say that this second section is intended to destro}^ the manu- 
facture of oleomargarine? No, instead of destroying, it encourages 
the manufacture of the honest article. All that it seeks to destroy is 
the fraud that is perpetrated when it is colored like butter. 

It may stop its sale as butter and yet not go to the extent of pre- 
venting its manufacture, as 1 will show you a little later. The profit 
on the sale of 104,000,000 pounds of oleomargarine and a little more, 
last year, fairly estimated, must have been anywhere from $13,000,000 
to $15,000,000 — thirteen to fifteen million dollars between the cost of 
the article and the price paid by the consumer. 

Some oleomargarine friend present smiles — I hear a smile — but such 
is the case, disguise the matter the best they can. But we will, to accom- 
modate the gentleman-s state of mind, call the profit $12,000,000, or any 
large sum you please along there; it can not be less than that amount, 
as it costs but 9 cents per pound, tax paid, and the consumer pays 
anywhere from 18 to 30 cents per pound for it. Call it 22 cents, and 
for 104,000,000 pounds it would amount to $22,880,000. Take from 
this $9,360,000, cost of production, and you have left $13,520,000 
profit. But call it $12,000,000 for safety, if you please. Remember 
this stuff is sold as butter almost exclusively to the consumer; that is, 
the consumer takes it supposing it is butter. The guest at table eats 
it and pays his $5 a day to the hotel. It passes with him as butter and 
he pays the price of butter. The same is true at the restaurant and 
the boarding house. And the retailer everywhere sells it as butter and 
for the price of butter. 

Senator Allen. Is not that a subject of police regulation in the 
State? 

Mr. Grout. Yes; but we have got a regulation here in this second 
section which transcends police regulations, and, if the Senator will 
allow me a moment, I will make it plain to him. 

Senator Allen. Can you do that? 

Mr. Grout. Oh, yes, sir, in the waj^ we propose to do it here, as I 
believe. 

Here are the large profits of which I have spoken. I might go more 
into details, but I feel that I must not detain the committee. I intended 
to be very brief when I began, and I will now be as brief as possible. 
The profits are what I have indicated, twelve or thirteen million dollars 
annually. If you put a 10-cent tax on 104,000,000 pounds of oleo- 
margarine, that will make $10,400,000 the manufacturer would have 
to pay before he could put the stuff afloat. And this would so reduce 
the profits that it would take away the inducement to enter into the 
fraudulent practices now resorted to to work it off as butter. It would 
reduce the profits $10,400,000. 

If it be true, however, as the oleomargarine crowd claim, that 
people really prefer oleomargarine to butter and they desire to have 
it colored, that large numbers of the middle class of people prefer it 
to butter — that is the way one circular puts it— if that be true, it can 
be colored and sold to those people for oleomargarine at just about 
the price it is fraudulently sold now for butter; so they can have it at 



8 OLEOMARGARINE. 

a price not exceeding the present cost. But this is not true, and I 
believe this 10-cent tax on the colored article will stop the sale of 
oleomargarine for butter by making the business unprofitable. 

Senator Waeren. Would it disturb you if I should ask you a 
question ? 

Mr. Grout. Not at all, if the committee wish to delay the hearing 
for this talk by me. 

Senator Waeren. The bill proposes to tax oleomargarine 10 cents 
a pound when it is colored in imitation of butter. Is there any estab- 
lished color that butter has? 

Mr. Grout. Yes, sir; it is yellow. 

Senator Warren. And alwa3\s the same ? 

Mr. Grout. The world over and through all time it has been yel- 
low — varying shades of yellow. 

Senator Warren. Is it alwa^^s the same? 

Mr, Grout. No; not always the same shade, but always yellow — the 
cow colors it yellow. 

Senator Warren. Is it the same color at different seasons of the 



year 



Mr. Grout. Oh, no, it varies; but it is yellow, different shades of 
yellow at different seasons of the year. 

Senator Allen. Depending on the condition of the cow? 

Mr. Grout, Yes, sir; but there is no cow so poor nor fed so poorl}^ 
in all the world, I believe, but that the butter made from the cream 
of her milk would be yellow in some degree; I do not say highly yel- 
low, but 1 say yellow. 

Senator Warren. If that were the case there would not then be 
any necessity of coloring butter? 

Mr, Grout, Yes, there is, because many people want it a little yel- 
lower than the cow at some seasons of the year makes it. Many people 
think it tastes better. There is a demand in certain localities to have 
it colored a little, and in some places more than a little, and butter 
makers have to cater to the taste of their customers. I did not intend 
to enter upon a discussion of this color question, but I am perfectly 
willing to do so if the committee wish to hear me. There is much 
that can be said about it. 

Senator Warren. One question more. When in New England, say 
in Vermont, at this time of the year and from now until, sa}^ April 1, 
a farmer has one or two or three cows and is making butter, what is 
the color of that butter if it is not colored with anything except the 
milk which comes from the cow? 

Mr, Grout, It is }■ ellow, but not as yellow as when the cow is fed 
on grass in June, Then, too, it would be yellower if the cow were 
were well fed during the winter — fed on corn meal, shorts, and early- 
cut hay, and the like — and kept in a healthy condition. 

Senator Warren, I ask for information whether oleomargarine is 
colored different shades at different seasons of the j^ear to follow the 
different shades of butter ? 

Mr, Grout, Yes, sir; these very circulars to which I have alluded 
disclose that fact. You will find them in this printed report here. 
They do that very thing, sir, to meet the var3ing shades of butter. 
That is one of the tricks of the trade. They are up to it, Senator, 
clear up to it, you may be sure; and they are up to every other pos- 
sible scheme that ingenuity can devise to work this stuff off' for but- 



OLEOMAKGARINE. 9 

• 
ter. But if you will put this 10-cent tax on it and stop coloring it 
like butter the game will then be up. 

Senator Foster. They put on a June color or a December color ? 

Mr. Grout. Yes, sir; that is it exactly. They advertise to do it and 
they do it with neatness and dispatch. They say in these circulars, 
which you will find in the printed testimony, that they will give it 
just such color as may be wanted. 

Senator Warren. As a matter of fact, butter made naturally from 
the milk of cows will vary at difi'erent times of the year almost as much 
as the difference between the color of that desk and the color of this 
sheet of paper. If that is so, where is your guard against coloring 
oleomargarine? 

Mr. Grout. Safety consists in the fact that oleo is white. But the 
Senator will not seriously claim that the color of butter varies as much 
as indicated by him 

Senator Warren. But in imitation butter, as to what degree? 

Mr, Grout. The}^ are not to color it at all. 

Senator Warren. It must be purely white? 

Mr. GrouT. Yes, sir; it must be white or some other color than but- 
ter. The bill, if law, will prevent its assuming the color of butter — ■ 
that is the only object — so that it can not go forth and practice these 
frauds. The closing clause in the section puts the tax so low that it 
enables pure oleo, without disguise, to go at the cheapest possible price 
to the consumer, and he can get it for 1() or 11 cents a pound with great 
profit to the manufacturer and a fair profit to the retailer, who will 
then do an honest business. 

Senator Allen. Suppose a man says from choice that he wants to 
use oleomargarine, but he wants it colored, has he not that right? 

Mr. Grout. Yes, he has the right, and let him color it himself if 
he wants to be to that trouble. But the legislative power, to prevent 
fraud, has a right to intervene and say that it shall not take a color 
which is calculated to produce fraud, and then put it on the market, 
even though it contravenes the taste of some gentlemen. 

Senator Allen. Do j^ou think it is within the legislative power to 
compel all butter to be colored, December butter, for instance? 

Mr. Grout. I do not think Congress will ever enter that field. If 
it does, and I am here, I will then enter on the discussion of that 
question. 

Senator Allen. Suppose Congress should pass a law that no Decem- 
ber butter should be sold unless it were colored as June butter. Do 
you think that would be within the power of Congress? 

Mr. Grout. 1 do not quite see how Congress would get jurisdiction 
of the question. We would not, certainly, unless it could be made 
clear that some fraud was to be perpetrated, and took jurisdiction by 
the taxing power in some way. We might do it then, but otherwise 
we could not take jurisdiction of it. 

Senator Allen. Suppose the article is stamped as oleomargarine. 
Do you then contend that it is within the power of Congress to con- 
demn the al'ticle or to give it a particular color? 

Mr. Grout, ^o; we are not asking you to give it any particular 
color. We are only asking that you make so expensive the coloring of 
this stufi* like butter as to leave no temptation to so color it and fraud- 
ulenth" sell it as butter. 

Senator Allen. You want to prevent fraud ? 



10 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

Mr. Grout. That is it exactly. Pass this bill and I believe you 
will stop this great fraud — the greatest the world has ever known in 
the manufacture and sale of a food product. Do this and you will 
have the thanks of the millions of hard-working men and women who 
make honest butter, and the thanks also of the millions on millions 
more who want to eat honest butter. 

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I thank you for 
your kind attention. 

ORDER OF PROCEDURE. 

The Chairman. I am obliged to attend a meeting of the Committee 
on Military Affairs, and I will ask Senator Hansbrough to preside 
while I am away. I may say before going that I am sure it is the 
desire of the committee to give all interests a fair hearing, but we 
wish you to bear in mind that we are very busy — busy without prec- 
edent, almost, at this time — with the measures before Congress, and 
we hope you will make your statements as concise and brief as possi- 
ble and, so far as possible, not repeat what is already before us. The 
testimony given in the House is before us, and it will be received on 
both sides. That is all 1 need to say. 

Mr. Gardner. May 1 say a word before the chairman retires? 

The Chairman. The committee will remain, and the hearing will 
continue. 

Mr. Gardner. Owing to the lack of opportunity we have had to 
prepare for this hearing, I desire to express the hope that we may be 
allowed to present our case at a somewhat later date. The parties 
whom I represent have never had an opportunity to appear before any 
committee with reference to this subject. They were informed of this 
meeting very recentl}^ for the first time. They feel that they come 
here to-day utterly unprepared, and they are most anxious that they 
shall have an opportunity to present their view to the committee after 
a reasonable preparation may have been made. 

The Chairman. The committee will try to be reasonable and fair. 
I can not speak about that definitely. You represent the oleomarga- 
rine interest? 

Mr. Gardner. I represent simply one, the Oakdale Manufacturing 
Company, of Providence, R. I. 

The Chairman. I wired you Wednesday morning, did I not? 

Mr. Gardner. Yes; some time during the week. 

The Chairman. I think 1 wired you Wednesday morning. That 
gave 3'ou just a week's notice. We hope that we may get through 
with the hearing speedily, because after the holidays we shall be 
extremely busy. It is for your advantage to have the hearing as 
early as possible, because after the holidays it will probably be a very 
small subcommittee that we could get together. So, in order to have 
the hearing by the entire committee, the earlier the better, and we 
shall determine as we go along when we must close. But 1 merely 
want to urge you to be as expeditious as possible. 

Mr. Springer. May I ask. Senator, whether you intend to continue 
this investigation from day to day during the holiday recess ? 

The Chairman. Certainly, if necessary. I expect to be here most 
of the time and some members of the committee will be here all the 
time. 1 think probably we could have fuller meetings during the recess 
than afterwards. 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 11 

Senator Hansbeough. Mr. Chairman, I wish to ask if there has been 
any arrangement whereby a limit is placed on the hearing? 

The Chairman. There has not been anj^ and in the notice I sent out 
1 said that we would hear gentlemen to-daj^, and to-morrow, and the 
next day. 

Mr. Grout. I simpl}^ want to say, gentlemen, that with this testi- 
mony the friends of the bill submit their case, and give the field to 
those who are opposed to the measure. 

The Acting Chairman (Senator Hansbrough). It is understood that 
Governor Hoard is present and desires to be heard. 

STATEMENT OF HON. W. D. HOARD. 

Mr. Hoard. Mr. Chairman, I have nothing to submit at the present 
time. I think it only fair that the men who are opposed to this legis- 
lation should have tlie time. The proponents of the bill have had their 
say before the House. I am astonished to hear one gentleman say that 
he has had no chance to appear before any committee, because this bill 
occupied two months last winter before the House Committee on 
Agriculture. 

1 will only add that the bill is for the purpose of preventing the 
counterfeiting of food, so far as the constitutional power of the Federal 
Government can go. The Federal Government is limited in its con- 
stitutional power. It has no right to enact prohibition. It has no 
police power. Those things you are as well aware of as I am. But it 
has taken ground upon certain lines, like the taxation of State banks 
in the interest of a sound currency. 

We believe this is a taxation of a counterfeit and a fraud in the 
interest of fair dealing, in the interest of the consumer, and in the 
interest of the producer. Here is a great army, between five and six 
million men, in this nation who are engaged in one of the most impor- 
tant branches of agriculture. Here is another great army of consum- 
ers who are being defrauded and imposed upon. The one is being 
swindled out of his rightful market and the other out of his propert}^, 
and they are both imposed upon by a fraud and a counterfeit. 

The question was raised whether it is not just as lawful to color 
oleomargarine as it is to color butter. No. In one case the question 
of color is a matter of taste. In the other it is a matter of fraud, a 
vehicle of deception. In no instance is the coloring of butter a vehicle 
of deception. 

I had a distinguished member of the other House ask me if butter 
was not colored in winter to make the consumer believe that it was 
made last June. That gentleman was a student of maxims, not of 
markets. The cheapest and poorest butter in winter is that made last 
June. The highest-priced butter is that which is not over ten days 
old and faultless in character and flavor. In the butter scores at all 
dairy fairs and conventions 3'ou will find in a scale of 100 that flavor 
takes 50, color, 5. It is a question of taste with the consumer. 
Senator Allen appears here with a woolen suit of clothes colored black. 
It is a question of taste with him. He would not wear that suit in its 
original color for any reason except that of taste. It was not colored 
black to make him believe it was silk, or that it was linen or cotton. 
It was simply colored to suit his taste; that is all. So it is with the 



12 OLEOMAEGAEINE. 

coloring of butter. There is a market demand, a demand of the con- 
sumer, which compels the producer to adapt himself and cater in that 
particular, as the maker of fabrics has to do. 

So, as I said, in one case the matter of color is a question simply of 
taste, without any change whatever in the mind of the consumer or in 
the character of the product. 

Senator Allen. Governor, will you permit me to ask you a 
question ? 

Mr. Hoard. Certainly. 

Senator Allen. Why does the prudent farmer, ordinarily in June, 
endeavor to put down enough butter to carry him through the winter 
for his own use? 

Mr. Hoard. Senator, that is not done at the present time to any 
appreciable extent. 

Senator Allen. It has been done ever since I was a boy. 

Mr. Hoard. It may have been done when j^ou were a boy and when 
I was a boy. As to that, you are right, but at the present time the 
whole S3^stem of butter making is changed. Not one man puts down 
butter in June for the next winter, where 10,000 did it forty years 
ago. This wonderful change has come through the organization of 
creameries, where now a very large proportion of the best butter is 
made. 

That is the only thing I have to submit at the present time. I do 
not think it is fair to take the time of these gentlemen who are desir- 
ous of being heard, and what I may have to say I hope to have an 
opportunity, if granted, to submit at a subsequent meeting of the 
committee. I thank you, gentlemen, for your kind attention. 

opponents of the bill. 

The Acting Chairman. I should like to ascertain, if possible, the 
number of gentlemen here who desire to be heard on the other side, 
and about the length of time they would want to consume. 

Mr. ScHELL. Mr. Chairman, I represent the Ohio Butterine Fac- 
tory, of Cincinnati. 

The Acting Chairman. Are you the only one here in the interest 
of that institution ? 

Mr. ScHELL. I am the only one here in the interest of that institu- 
tion, and that institution came into existence the same day that the 
Grout bill passed the House. We certainly have not had any chance 
to be heard. But I do not want to take the time of this committee at 
all m3^self if some one representing identical interests can cover the 
ground better than I can. However, I want time to unite our forces, 
to get together and select one man to present our side of the question. 

The Acting Chairman. I do not believe that it is the desire of the 
committee to traverse the ground that has been covered by the hear- 
ings in the House. 

Mr. ScHELL. I understand that. 

The Acting Chairman. If possible it is desired to avoid doing that, 
and I simply desire to ascertain how many gentlemen are here now 
who wish to be heard in opposition to the bill and how much time they 
desire to take. We have heard from one gentleman who wishes to be 
heard on the other side. 

Mr. Gardner. 1 represent the Oakdale Manufacturing Company, of 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 13 

Providence, R. I., which desires to be heard. I shall endeavor to be 
as brief as I possibly can, but owing to lack of time for preparation I 
can not be as brief to-day as I could be after the holidays. 

The Acting Chairman. Are there any other gentlemen here who 
wish to be heard? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. I wish to be heard, representing the Vermont 
Manufacturing Company, of Providence, R. I. , and I assure you if I 
do speak I will not go over the ground, or at least while I may go over 
the ground I will not present the same facts or perhaps the same argu- 
ments that were used in the House. I did not appear before the 
House committee. I did not have any opportunity to do so. 

The Acting Chairman. Are you ready to go on now? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. I am not ready to go on this morning, but Mr. 
Gardner is, I understand, ready to speak this morning if it is the 
desire that he shall proceed at this time, though he has not had that 
opportunit}^ for preparation that he wished. 

The Acting Chairman. We have heard from three gentlemen who 
are present and who desire to be heard. Are there others? 

Senator Allen. Does not the gentleman sitting by you, Mr. Gardner, 
desire to be heard ? 

Mr. Mathewson. No, sir; Mr. Gardner will represent me. 

Mr. Schell. I wish to add that I have not had a chance to go over 
what was presented to the House, and I do not know what is before 
the committee. I will put in every minute of my time in preparation. 

Senator Bate. You are the only one representing your interest? 

Mr. Schell. I am the only one representing it on this side. 

Senator Bate. We can probably hear you now. 

Mr. Schell. If the same arguments that I would advance appear in 
the hearing in the House I would have nothing to say. AH 1 want is 
time to prepare. 

Senator Allen. I think we ought to have the hearing and be pre- 
pared to report the bill promptly upon the meeting of Congress after 
the holidays. 

Senator Bate. I do not think we can do that. Telegrams are com- 
ing here from gentlemen who want to be heard after the holidays. 

The Acting Chairman. We shall have to decline to sit here and 
listen to arguments the balance of the session. Mr. Springer will be 
heard now. 

Mr. Springer. I yesterdaj^ received a telegram from the president 
of the National Live Stock Association of the United States, asking me 
to appear before this committee in behalf of the live-stock interests of 
the whole country to oppose the passage of the bill. I received this 
notice only yesterday afternoon and it was received by telegram, and 
I will receive a written communication probably by to-morrow morn- 
ing, giving some of the views and interests that that association desires 
to have presented to this committee. 

1 will state that I am not aware that that association appeared in any 
capacity before the House committee. I have not had a chance to 
examine all its hearings yet, but I will do so at once and, if I find that 
they have presented their views there in any way I will not desire to 
go over that ground again. I do not think they have been heard. 

The Acting Chairman. You represent a live-stock association ? 

Mr. Springer. All the live-stock associations. 

Senator Foster. The National Live Stock Association ? 



14 OLEOMAKGAKINE. 

Mr, Springer. All the live-stock associations of the whole country. 
I represent every live-stock interest in the country. 

Senator Heitfeld. Who is the president of the live-stock associa- 
tion? 

Mr. Springer. John W. Springer, of Dallas, Tex. 

Mr. Hoard. You say that you represent all the live-stock associa- 
tions ? 

Mr. Springer. All who are embodied in the live-stock association. 

Mr. Hoard. You do not represent the Holstein and Friesian 
Association ? 

Mr. Springer. No; 1 do not. However, the association that I 
represent embodies the large majority of the live-stock interests in the 
United States. 

Mr. Hoard. I knew that the Holstein and Friesian Association were 
here in support of the bill. 

Mr. Springer. Yes; they are dairymen. These are people who 
raise cattle for the purpose of supplying the markets of the country 
with live stock, and it is that association which I desire to appear for 
before this committee. 

The Acting Chairman. Are you ready to go on now? 

Mr. Springer. As I stated before, Mr. Chairman, I had this notice 
yesterday afternoon, and I have not had a chance yet to read all the 
testimony. I am going to go over it as rapidly as I can. I do not 
desire to ask for more than a reasonable delay. I think an association 
representing such large interests as this ought to be permitted to pre- 
sent their views, and that there ought to be at least a reasonable time 
given for that purpose. While 1 can do so some time during the holi- 
days I could not promise to do it this week, because this is now 
Wednesda}'^, and I understand Senators are very busy with matters, 
expecting to adjourn on Friday, but during the holday recess I hope 
to be able to present to the committee or a subcommittee that you may 
appoint the views of the association. 

The Acting Chairman. We have three-quarters of an hour this 
morning if some gentleman is read}^ to go on now. 

Senator Foster. Mr. Gardner is ready, I believe. 

STATEMENT OF RATHBONE GARDNER. 

Mr. Gardner. Mr. Chairman, I am as read}^ perhaps as a gentleman 
can be with fortj^-eight hours' preparation, and possibly I am as ready 
as anyone else who desires to be heard. 

As I said, I appear here representing the Oakdale Manufacturing 
Compan}^, which is a corporation engaged in the city of Providence, R. I. , 
in the manufacture of oleomargarine. I also represent a large number 
of wholesale and retail dealers in the city of Providence, who sell oleo- 
margarine, and who I think are, perhaps, a class which has not hereto- 
fore been represented in any hearing upon this bill. They are men 
who claim that the}^ sell the product honestly and absolutely in accord- 
ance with the requirements of the laws of the United States and of the 
State of Rhode Island, where the}^ do business. 

The Oakdale Manufacturing Company, as also mj" other clients, feel 
that an attack upon their existence compels them to protest as strongly 
as possible against the passage of this bill. They believe that the pas- 
sage of the bill would absolutely destroy their industiy, and they 



OLEOMARGARINE. 15 

believe that the proposed law is an unwarrantable interference b}' the 
Congress of the United States with their conduct of a legitimate 
business. 

We protest against the bill, in the first place, upon the broad ground 
that we consider it a dishonest act — dishonest in purpose, pretending 
to be that which it is not. 

The Acting Chairman. Of course you do not desire to reflect on the 
gentlemen at the other end of the Capitol who have passed the biir^ 

Mr. Gardner. Not at all, because one of the representatives of the 
gentlemen at the other end of the Capitol has this morning expressed 
exactly what we claim makes the bill dishonest. He has expressed his 
view and his opinion that it is a bill to prevent the competition of colored 
oleo with butter, and I think that that purpose in a bill avowedly a 
revenue bill stamps it as legally a dishonest bill. I have, of course, not 
the slightest intention to reflect upon the motives of any person who 
advocates the bill, but it is a bill which seeks to accomplish by indirection 
that which Congress can not accomplish directly. 

It is avowedl}^ a revenue measure, and in explanation of my meaning 
I say that it is only as a revenue measure that the second section of 
this act can be considered and passed upon by the Congress of the 
United States. It is only upon the theory that it is a revenue measure 
that the constitutionality of the act can be upheld by the courts of the 
United States. 

I do not go into the question of the constitutionality of the proposed 
act. I have felt that the act would be pronounced constitutional on 
the same ground that other acts which imposed a tax the purpose of 
which was really not the collection of revenue have been pronounced 
by the courts of the United States to be constitutional. Upon the 
same ground upon which I think that the oleomargarine act of 1886 
has been by the circuit court pronounced constitutional, upon the 
ground that the courts of the United States can not impugn the pur- 
poses, motives or intentions of the legislative body. 

Upon the face of this act it is a revenue measure. The courts will 
not say that, notwithstanding the fact that this is avowedly a revenue 
measure, they know from any source that the purpose of the act was not 
the collection of revenue; that it was not the intention of the legisla- 
tive branch of the Government in passing the act to collect revenue; 
that there is another motive Ij'^ing underneath and behind it. The 
court does not feel that it is at liberty to do that; and so it seems to 
me that the court probably would hold to be constitutional any 
measure which was avowedly a revenue measure. 

But, gentlemen, I say that this proposed act is not honest, in that 
sense. The promoters of the bill are not acting sincerely, because, 
while they claim the constitutionality of the act upon the ground that it 
is a revenue measure, and while every one of us understands that it can 
only be upheld upon that ground, they come here and tell 3^ou with 
perfect frankness that that is not the purpose of the act; that the act 
has another purpose. The author of the bill tells j^ou this morning 
that the purpose is not to destroy this industry, but that the purpose 
is to prevent a fraud b}^ enabling the States to exercise their police 
powers, or by exercising, as in effect the bill does exercise, as I think 
I can show in a moment, the police powers of the State for them ; that 
the purpose and intention of the act is to prevent a fraud. 

I maintain that the Congress of the United States has no more right, 



16 OLEOMAEGAEINE. 



under the guise of a revenue act, to pass an act the purpose of which 
is to prevent a fraud than it has to pass an act the purpose of which is 
to destroy an industry. It is in either case stepping outside of its 
province. The author of the act has this morning stated its purpose. 
An advocate of the act in the House stated its purpose in these words: 

' 'It proposes to require the oleomargarine manufacturer to pay a tax 
on oleomargarine, colored as butter, large enough to raise the expense 
to the producer equal to the expense of producing pure butter." 

That is to say, so far from the purpose of this act being the produc- 
tion of revenue, although that is avowedly its purpose, the purpose of 
the act as declared by its advocates is to regulate competition between 
different businesses. The advocates of the act come before this com- 
mittee to-day and say that colored oleomargarine enters into unfair 
competition with colored butter ; therefore they propose through this 
act to make the production of colored oleomargarine as expensive as the 
production of colored butter, and to destroy the advantage which they 
claim colored oleomargarine has to-day in the markets of the country. 

Now, that is a purpose which is absolutely contradictory of the claim 
that must be made before Congress in asking them to take action upon 
this bill. It is absolutely contradictory of the claim which must be 
made before the courts if this bill ever comes before the courts. The 
advocates of this measure frankly state that they are seeking by this 
act to do something other than what the act purports to do. 

The advocates of the measure before the House argued that this act 
was harmless because the legislatures of a large number of the States 
had alreadj^ adopted laws which prohibited the sale of colored oleo- 
margarine within those States; that they had found themselves unable 
to enforce those laws; that this law would simply operate to make the 
laws of the different States in that respect effective; and that while it 
was, as a matter of fact, the exercise by Congress of the police power 
which is reserved to the States, yet it was a harmless exercise, because 
in so many of the States similar laws had been adopted. It seems to 
me that Congress has no more right to pass a law to enable States to 
enforce their own laws governing the exercise of the police power, 
under the guise of a revenue bill, than it has itself to try to exercise 
that police power. 

I wish to call your attention to the fact that in many of the States 
there are no laws which forbid the sale of colored oleomargarine as 
such. In the State of Rhode Island, in which my client is doing busi- 
ness, colored oleomargarine is allowed to be sold as colored oleomarga 
rine. The regulation of that power of sale is something which every 
member of this committee will admit belongs absolutely and solely to 
the police power of the State. This proposed act of Congress comes 
and says that colored oleomargarine shall not be sold within the State. 
It imposes a condition upon the sale of colored oleomargarine which 
absolutely prohibits that sale. Upon the theory of the advocates of 
the bill that the passage of the bill is to enforce the police laws of the 
States which have enacted prohibitory legislation, it must enact in effect 
laws for those States which have not enacted any such prohibitory leg- 
islation. 

To-day the State of Rhode Island, as a dozen other of the United 
States which permit, in the wisdom of their legislatures, the sale of 
this product, when this bill is passed will be disabled from having the 
product sold within the State, and the Congress of the United States 



I 



OLEOMARGAKINE. 17 

is direct!}^ exercising the police power of the State. That is true if 
it is true that the effect of the bill is to prohibit the sale of artificiall}' 
colored oleomargarine, and the advocates of the measure claim that 
that is its effect, because they claim that only by the passage of the bill 
can the State laws now existing which forbid the sale of colored 
oleomargarine be enforced. 

Therefore I say that this act is, it seems to me, properly character- 
ized as legally a dishonest act, a pretense, an act which seeks to do by 
indirection what Congress can not do directly; and while it is upon its 
face a reyenue act, it is ayowed by its friends and adyocates to be an 
act not for the purpose of raising reyenue, but for the purpose of 
regulating competition; an act which enables Congress to exercise the 
police power which is reserved to the State. 

If that is true, that, it seems to me, is sufficient to condemn the act. 
It is utterly in yiolation of principle, and if it is in yiolation of prin- 
ciple, then no considerations of expedienc}^ are strong enough to justify 
the passage of the act. That is the broad ground which we take. 

But we do claim much further than that — that eyen though this act 
were justified on principle, if it were not what we claim it to he, a sub- 
terfuge, it is not just or expedient in its provisions. As the author of 
the bill has said this morning, the chief opposition to the proposed act 
has not come upon the first section of the bill, but the first section of 
the bill is nevertheless for certain reasons very objectionable, and for 
certain other reasons it may in the future be very dangerous. It ma}^, 
I believe, accomplish what even the adyocates of the measure do not 
desire should be accomplished. 

Of course eyer}^ honest manufacturer of oleomargarine protests 
against the first section of the act because it places oleomargarine in the 
category of those dangerous articles of food the use of which the State 
b}' the exercise of its police power ought to regulate and does regu- 
late. We claim that we make an absolutely healthful food product, a 
food product which more than any other is certified to be healthful and 
wholesome — the one food product, perhaps, which the Government of 
the United States makes it its business to see that it is absohitcly 
wholesome; and we object and protest against having that product of 
ours placed in the category of articles which justify the exercise of the 
police regulations of tlie different States. 

But I desire to call the attention of ever}^ member of the committee, 
if I may, to the wording of the last part of the first section of the act, 
which reads as follows: 

" Provided^ That nothing in this act shall be construed to permit any 
State to forbid the manufacture or sale of oleomargarine in a separate 
and distinct form, and in such manner as will adyise the consumer of 
its real character, free from coloration or ingredient that causes it to 
look like butter." 

Every ingredient of oleomargarine causes it to look like butter. 
Without the use of any artificial coloring matter whatever oleomarga- 
rine as it comes from the factory looks like butter. It is in its natural 
state nearly white, and ordinary butter produced at most seasons of 
the year is in its natural state almost white. 

It may be yer}^ well claimed under the language of this section that 
this section does permit an}?^ State to make a law forbidding the manu- 
facture and sale of oleomargarine which contains any ingredient which 
makes it look like bvitter; and upon the section as it stands we know 
S. Rep. 2043 2 



1 8 OLE OMAEG ARINE 

not how we could meet a prosecution based upon a law which forbade 
the making of oleomargarine to resemble butter, even though it had 
no coloring matter whatever. 

Further than that, there are certain absolutely essential ingredients 
of oleomargarine which do give it color. Oleomargarine can not be 
manufactured without the use of oleo oil, but oleo oil gives to the 
product a certain tint which takes it off of white, as I understand. 
Therefore oleo oil is an ingredient which to some extent, at least, makes 
oleomargarine look like butter. If a State, under this authority of 
Congress, passes a law which forbids the manufacture of oleomargarine 
that contains any ingredient which makes it look like butter, 1 do not 
see why they can not institute prosecutions and convict us for manu- 
facturing oleomargarine which contains oleo oil, and such may be the 
result, if it is not the purpose, of the l)ill. 

Then there is cotton seed oil. There are other ingredients, as I am 
informed, all of which have some slight tendency to give a shade of 
color to the substance. So if this bill is acted upon it should be drawn 
in such a manner as simply to forbid, or to enable the States to forbid, 
the artificial coloring of oleomargarine, and these very dangerous pro- 
visions with reference to the ingredients of the substance should be 
omitted. 

It is to the second section of the bill, or to the bill as a whole, that we 
chiefly object, and we object upon different grounds. I do not desire 
to cover, and will not, so far as I am able, cover any of the ground 
which has been covered in the hearings before the House committee, 
although this matter has been brought to my attention within a time 
which has rendered it utterly impossible for me to know exactly what 
has been presented in the House. But we claim that there are abso- 
lutely no conditions existing to-day which render the passage of such 
legislation necessary or desirable, and that the reasons urged for the 
passage of this act are not valid. 

It then becomes necessary to consider what the reasons are that are 
urged for the passage of this act. The reason that has heretofore been 
urged for the passage of similar acts is that the product was unwhole- 
some. That argument is presented still. I do not think there is any 
testimon}^ which is worthy of being considered as testimony, to that 
effect. As 1 have said, 1 believe it is the one substance which is, as no 
other substance possibly can be under existing laws, certified ])y the 
Government of the United States to be absolutely pure. We have, in 
addition to that, the testimony of chemists of the very highest stand- 
ing and repute who have examined the substance and who have certified 
over and over again to its absolute purity. 

But notwithstanding all that, the strongest opposition to-day to oleo 
margarine, the strongest popular support brought to this act, is based 
upon the opprobrious epithets which are hurled at the product and 
which have been used by the advocates of this bill in the House. While 
in the face of the testimony which is introduced it is impossible to claim 
that there is anything deleterious in this product, it is nevertheless 
claimed by innuendo and indirection that there are in the product those 
things which render it harmful to certain persons or on certain occa- 
sions, and there is something which perhaps is called evidence with 
reference to its effect in almshouses somewhere in England. 

It seems unnecessary to argue this point. I presume the members 
of this committee know the conditions under which oleomargarine is 



OLEOMAKGAKINE. 19 

produced — that there has to be a regular formula; that there is a 
chemist maintained at the expense of the Government, who examines 
samples; that representatives of the Internal-Revenue Department 
stand in the doorway of every oleo manufactory; that they know 
exactl}^ what comes into the building- and what goes out of the build- 
ing. But at the same time there is lingering to-day in the public mind 
an impression that there is something unclean or unwholesome in 
the product itself. 

The Acting Chairman. That question is not raised here, I think, 
Mr. Gardner. 

Mr. Gardner. I do not think that it is raised here. It was, how- 
ever, strongly urged by the advocates of the bill in the House, and it 
is for that reason that I refer to it. There is testimon}^ here also with 
reference to its effect upon inmates of poorhouses and asylums in 
England. AVhether the question is raised before the committee, or 
will be raised before the committee, I have no way of knowing. It 
was raised by innuendo certainly before the House committee. 

Then the second reason that is alleged for the necessity of this act is 
that oleomargarine is fraudulently sold as butter. To a certain extent 
this is true. There is no doubt but that retailers, unscrupulous 
retailers, do occasionally sell oleomargarine, pretending that it is but- 
ter, just as they sell the imitation of everything else which they carry 
in stock, pretending that it is the article that it purports to be. 
But we do claim here that there is less fraud in the sale of oleomarga- 
rine as butter than there is in the sale of most imitations, and that that 
elimination of fraud has been procured by the rigid Government super- 
vision, and can be extended by an even more rigid Government super- 
vision, which ever}" honest manufacturer of oleomargarine is anxious 
to submit to, and, so far as it lies in his power, to secure. 

But the statements which are made with reference to the amount of 
the fraudulent sales of oleomargarine in imitation of butter are abso- 
lutel}^ groundless. The author of the bill, in advocating its passage 
in the House, said that not one pound in a thousand of this substance 
was sold as oleomargarine, liut that nine hundred and ninety-nine 
pounds out of every thousand were sold as butter. Another advocate 
of the bill said that 90 per cent of the product was sold as butter. 
Another advocate of the bill said that it was never put upon the market 
except as butter. All those statements were made in the advocacy of the 
bill in the House of Representatives, and all those statements doubt- 
less had their effect upon those who had not investigated the testimony. 

After looking* through the testimony which was taken before the 
House committee very thoroughly, the only evidence which I find in 
support of those assertions is that out of twenty -five hundred dealers in 
Illinois two were found who had made a fraudulent sale of this product 
and the affidavits of a certain party, or perhaps parties, in Philadelphia 
that on several occasions they had purchased in one market or at one 
place oleomargarine for butter. 

I believe that that was absolutely the only evidence which was sub- 
mitted in substantiation of these wild charges. What w^as the evidence 
to the contrary? The late Commissioner of Internal Revenue has 
stated that, in his judgment (and there is no man who had such oppor- 
tunities to form any judgment, he being charged with the regulation 
of this lousiness), not 10 per cent of this product was sold anywhere 
for anything else except what it actually is, oleomargarine. 



20 OLEOMAEGAKINE. 

Who sells this oleomargarine as butter? I say, and I say without 
fear of contradiction, that no manufacturer of oleomargarine sells one 
pound of oleomargarine for anything else except oleomargarine. It 
is utterly impossible for him to do it. It is against his own interests 
to do it. Possibly members of the committee know the kind of super- 
vision which is exercised over the manufacture of this substance; that 
inspectors of the Internal-Revenue Department take account of every 
pound of material which goes into a factory and see that every poiuid 
of oleomargarine which can be produced from that material goes out 
of the factory. There is absoluteh" no opportunity for any manufac- 
turer, if he wished, to send out oleomargarine as butter. 

Then, nobody has an}^ occasion to go to that factory for anj^hing 
except oleomargarine, because nothing except oleomargarine can be sold 
at that factory or manufactured at that factory for sale. The inspec- 
tion is rigid. The penalties, involving the forfeiture of the manufac- 
turer's entire plant, are so extreme as to render absolutely untenable 
the supposition that any manufacturer, however dishonest he might 
desire to be, should sell this product for anything but oleomargarine. 

I do not know how it may be with the great packing houses with 
whom my clients have no connection, but we say that three-quarters 
of our entire product is sold by the manufacturer directly to the 
consumer. I think I am right. 

Mr. Mathewson. You are correct, 

Mr. Gardner. Approximating three-quarters of the entire product 
is sold directly by the manufacturer to the consumer in the original 
package, usually a 10-pound package. Now, if the Congress of the 
United States are to legislate to prevent the keeper of a boarding house 
from giving his guests some imitatation food product they have under- 
taken a contract. What the head of a family does, whether a husband 
deceives his wife and his children, or a wife deceives her husband as 
to the nature of the product which he puts upon the table, we do not 
know. Whether the keeper of a boarding house deceives his guests 
as to what they are eating, we do not know. That is not a matter of 
purchase and sale. It is not anything which by this bill can be con- 
trolled. We make the assertion that by the manufacturer there is no 
violation of the law whatever; that every pound of oleomargarine pro- 
duced at the factory is sold as oleomargarine; that he desires that it 
should be sold as oleomargarine; that he is making a reputation for 
his factorj^, and that the necessities of his business and his own self- 
interest require that he should do it. And as a matter of fact, with 
the people whom I represent, the great proportion of the product is 
sold by them directy to the consumer. 

I shall have to take up this question regularly, and I will go over it 
as quickly as possible. I do not know whether the committee deem it 
essential that I should finish what I have to sa}^ absolutely this morn- 
ing. I have, I think, less than twenty minutes left. 

Senator Bate. It is about 10 minutes to 12. 

The Acting Chairman. We shall have to adjourn at 12. 

Senator Warren. I suggest that we fill in what time there is left, 
and then if Mr. Gardner wishes to present further facts to the com- 
mittee the opportunity will be given to him to do so. 

Mr. Gardner. I do not think I shall want to occupy a great deal 
more time. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 21 

The Acting Chairman. If agreeable to the committee, we will con- 
tinue the hearing to-morrow. 

Senator Foster. Certainly. 

Senator Allen. Let us meet at 9 o'clock in the morning. 

The Acting Chairman. You have only about ten minutes left, and I 
will ask you a question. Can you inform the committee as to the 
average price of the manufacture of oleomargarine — the cost of pro- 
duction ? 

Mr. Gardner. I should say about 12 cents — from 12 to 13 cents — 
but my client can answer that question better than I. 

Mr. Mathewson. The selling price of our goods runs from 12^ to 
13i packed in tub, and the average profit will average less than a cent 
a pound — barely half a cent a pound from the day we commenced manu- 
facturing up to the present time. To substantiate that statement our 
books are open for the inspection of any member of this committee, 
or the members of a subcommittee of this committee. 

Mr. Gardner. That is what I understood. 

Senator Foster. Is there any residuum ^ Have you anything else 
except oleo left? 

Mr. Mathewson. The only residuum you can speak of are some by- 
products which come from the rerendering of the scrap of leaf lard 
and the refining of a certain amount of grease which goes out on the 
floor, which passes off into soap grease. 

Senator Bate. What ingredients are put into oleomargarine before 
you sell it? 

Mr. Mathewson. The ingredients that go to make up oleomargarine 
are oleo oil, neutral lard, lard made from the leaf, and nothing but the 
leaf. 

Mr. Gardner. You buy the leaf? 

Mr. Mathewson. We buy the leaf and make the lard ourselves. It 
is made from absolutely pure leaf. 

Senator Bate. What are the proportions? 

Mr. Mathewson. Cotton-seed oil, cream, milk, salt, and coloring. 

The Acting Chairman. What is the proportion of cream and milk ? 

Senator Foster. Is there a secret in your formula? 

Mr. Mathewson. Oh, no; there is no secret about it. There is 
absolutely no secret as far as the making of oleomargarine is concerned. 
The three ingredients of oleo — oil, lard, and cotton-seed oil — make 
from 75 to 80 per cent of the whole. 

Senator Bate. Of equal proportions? 

Mr. Mathewson. The proportions vary according to the seasons of 
the year and according to the climate. 

Senator Bate. Of those three articles? 

Mr. Mathewson. Of those three articles. The other 20 per cent 
is made up of cream, milk, salt, coloring, and the natural gain which 
comes from the churning of the article, the same as in butter. 

The Acting Chairman. There is not enough milk and cream in it, 
however, to give it a butter color? 

Mr. Mathewson. Under this bill we should be absolutely unable to 
use any butter, because all butter is colored, and we would be indicted 
for using butter. 

The Acting Chairman. I understood Mr. Gardner to say that but- 
ter was universally white when first manufactured. 

Senator Bate. In winter. 



52 OLEOMARGARlT^E. 

Mr. Gardner. I stated that it was ordinarily so. I do not think I 
said that was universally the case; but in point of fact butter at most 
seasons of the year is practically white. It is slightly colored. 

The Acting Chairman. And you said there was some slight color 
to oleomargarine when iirst manufactured. 

Mr. Gardner. There is some slight color to it. It would be very 
difficult to distinguish the ordinary butter of commerce at this time of 
the year from uncolored oleomargarine. One bears as much resem- 
blance to the other as can possibly be. 

The Acting Chairman. The two articles would be on all fours until 
properly treated with coloring matter? 

Mr. Gardner. Absolutely on all fours; and, as I said, the danger 
of the first section is that the manufacturer would manufacture a 
product that would look like butter. 

Senator Warren. That is to say, if a creamery was getting milk 
from a dairy where the cows were fed through the winter on grain, 
the butter might take a high color, but if butter was made by a 
farmer who had three or four cows who were eating hay alone it would 
be nearly the color of your oleomargarine 'i 

Mr. Gardner. That is what my clients have told me. 

Mr. Mathewson. That is the fact. 

Senator Bate. What kind of food is it that gives butter a yellow 
color ? 

Mr. Mathewson. Grain, ensilage, grass, and carrots. The color 
depends on the food. 

The Acting Chairman. Why do you color oleomargarine ? 

Mr. Gardner. I was going to speak of that, later, but I am willing to 
answer the question. We color it to meet the public taste — for exactly 
the same reason that the manufacturer colors butter. We can not sell 
it unless we color it. 

Senator Foster. Butter is colored through the cow, and oleomarga- 
rine is colored after it is made. 

Mr. Gardner. Butter is colored after it is made. 

The Acting Chairman. So when a gentleman sits down at a table 
with butter before him he does not know whether it is oleo or butter. 

Mr, Gardner. If he is living at a boarding house he trusts, perhaps, 
to the honesty of the person with whom he is living. 

Senator Foster. What is the difference in value between butter and 
oleo? 

Mr. Gardner. Cheap butter, renovated butter, resurrection butter, 
as we call it, made up of old rancid butter which has been melted and 
made over and then colored, can be produced cheaper than oleomarga- 
rine can be produced. Then butter runs up to any cost which taste 
and luxury call for. 

Senator Warren. For creamery butter they would charge a price 
twice as much ? 

Mr. Gardner. Yes; and oleomargarine never under any circum- 
stances comes in competition with it. It has not the taste and has not 
the flavor. 

Senator Bate. You did not answer my question. I want to know 
what kind of food produces white and what kind yellow butter? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. As I am something of a farmer perhaps I can 
answer that question better. 

Senator Bate. What kind of food affects the color of butter? 



OLEOMAKGARINE 23 

Mr. Mathewson. One of the members of j^our committee has 
already explained that, I am not a practical farmer, and I do not pre- 
tend to know so much about it probably as some of the other gentle- 
men, but in a general way when a herd of cows is kept on an ordinary 
farm, ordinary country stock, not Jerseys, or Alderne3^s, or Guernseys, 
not hig-h grade, but kept in an ordinary barn during the winter and 
fed on hay and fodder, the butter will come out very nearly white. 
Now, if you go from that to a herd of high-grade Jerseys, or Guern- 
seys, or Alderneys, any of the high-grade cattle, and they are fed on 
grass or on grain, or carrots, or ensilage, or anything of that kind, 
they will produce a butter more highh" colored, but it will not be even 
then of the shade of that which is ordinarily served on the tables. 
Every section of the country has a different color, and that color is 
obtained in butter 'the same as it is obtained in oleo, and it could riot 
be gotten an}' other way. 

Senator Bate. Cows that are fed in winter upon hay, etc., produce 
white butter? 

Senator Heitfeld. On dry food. 

Senator Bate. On dry food? 

Mr. Mathewson. Yes, sir. 

Senator Bate. Suppose those same cows are grazed in summer on 
grass, how does that affect the color of the butter? 

Mr. Mathewson. That would give it a different color — more of a 
3"ellow shade. 

Senator Warren. It generally makes a difference whether the cow 
is fresh or not. The butter is more highly colored soon after calving. 

Senator Foster. Mr. Mathewson, do vou use oleomargarine on your 
table? 

Mr. Mathewson. I use both. My family is not large. 

The Acting Chairman. You know the difference when both are on 
the table? 

Mr. Mathewson. I think I do. I use the best creamery butter 
which I can buy, and we never have claimed that oleomargarine was 
in competition with that grade of butter; that is, on the table. For 
all other purposes in m}- family I use oleomargarine. 

Senator Warren. For cooking. 

Mr. Mathewson. For cooking and for the dressing of meats, fish, 
pastry, and every other purpose. Many a time have I sent from my 
table butter that cost 35 and 38 cents a pound and asked them to bring 
oleo in place of it. 

The Acting Chairman. It is not necessary that it should be colored 
for cooking purposes? 

Mr. Mathewson. That is not necessary for cooking pui*poses. 

The Acting Chairman. I think it is the aim of Congress to under- 
take in some manner to inform the hundreds of thousands of people 
who are boarding at boarding houses and hotels as to exacth' what 
they are eating, whether it is butter or oleomargarine. They have 
no way of ascertaining that fact. 

Mr. Mathewson. You can not inform them hj this bill. 

On motion of Senator Bate (at 12 o'clock meridian), the committee 
adjourned to meet to-morrow at half past 10 o'clock a. m. 



24 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Thursday, December 20, 1900. 

The committee met at 10.30 a. m. 

Present: SiMiators Proctor (chairman), Hansbrough, AVarren, 
Foster, Bate, Monej^, Heitfeld, and Allen. 

Also, Hon. William W. Grout, a Representative from the State of 
Vermont; Hon. W. D, Hoard, president of the National Dairy Union; 
C. Y. Knight, secretary of the National Dairy Union; Hon. William M. 
Springer, representing the National Live Stock Association; Frank M. 
Mathewson, president of the Oakdale Manufacturing Company; liath- 
lione Gardner, representing the Oakdale Manufacturing Company; 
Frank W. Tillinghast, representing the Vermont Manufacturing Com- 
pany; Charles E. Schell, representing the Ohio Butterine Company; 
John F. Jelke, representing the firm of Braun & Fitts, of Chicago, 
111., and others. 

PERSONAL, EXPLANATION. 

Senator Allen. Mr. Chairman, before the hearing progresses further 
I desire to make a brief statement, to be entered on the record as a 
part of the proceedings of the committee. 

During the last three days I have been in receipt of numerous tele- 
grams from different gentlemen in my State to the effect that it is 
reported in Nebraska that I am opposed to this so-called Grout bill 
and strongl}' urging me to support it. I have never, either publicly 
or privately, given utterance to anything from which any man could 
infer that I was either for or against the bill; but yesterday I had 
occasion to ask General Grout some questions, from which it was 
inferred, I suppose, by the lobbyists present in favor of the measure, 
that I was opposed to it; and during the night and this morning I have 
received numerous telegrams to that effect. 

There is but one conclusion to be drawn from the situation, and that 
is that telegrams were sent out yesterday to the State of Nebraska, 
after the conclusion of the hearing before the committee, to the effect 
that I was opposed to this bill and urging persons there to flood me 
with telegrams to support it. 

I want to enter my protest against this cheap- John peanut political 
method. It is an old and threadbare scheme to undertake indirectly 
to bring pressure upon a Senator to support a measure regardless of 
its merits b}^ the implied threat of a withdrawal of support at home 
if he fails to do so. I have no words to express my utter contempt 
for this method and for those who would engage in it. 

The lobbyists who are supporting this l)ill are doing it more injury 
than its open and avowed opponents. This method can have no effect 
upon my action. If after the hearings are concluded 1 become con- 
vinced that the bill ought to be supported and become a law, I will 
support it, regardless of public sentiment in my State or elsewhere; 
and if, on the other hand, I become satislied that it ought not become 
a law, I will oppose it and vote against it, regardless of any pressure 
that may be brought to bear in its support. 

1 desire to add, in conclusion, that if any more reports are sent out 
to the effect that I am opposing the measure or supporting it, and if I 
am the recipient of any more letters or telegrams which I may have rea- 
son to believe emanate from the lobbyists in favor of or against this 
measure, I shall ask that these hearings be private and that no one but 



OLEOMARGARINE. 25 

the particular individual who is giving testimonj^ shall be present at 
any time. I want again to denounce, in the severest language I am 
capable of using, the sneaking and cowardly method that has been 
pursued in respect to this measure. 

The Chairihan. Mr. Gardner, you may proceed. 

STATEMENT OF RATHBONE GARDNER— Continued. 

Mr. Gardner. Mr. Chairman, at the time of the adjournment yester- 
day I had partly completed my argument, and with the permission of 
the members of the committee I will resume it. 1 was engaged at the 
time of the adjournment in the endeavor to support the proposition 
that there were no existing conditions to-day which demanded the 
passage of legislation of this character in the interest of any legitimate 
industr}". I was considering somewhat in detail the reasons which 
have been advanced by the advocates of this measure for its passage. 
I had referred to the claim heretofore made, and now I think practi- 
cally abandoned, that oleomargarine is an unwholesome substance 
which it is proper, in the interest of the public health, to legislate 
against. In this connection I desire to refer to one piece of evidence 
which I did not mention yesterday. 

The Chairman. May I ask you a question right there? I do not 
know anything about this business, I will state in advance, and I want 
to learn about it what I can. Presuming what you say to be true, and 
I have no reason to question it, that oleomai'garine is, as now made, 
wholesome, I want to ask if it is not possible, it being a combination 
of various materials, I suppose, to introduce ingredients that are in 
themselves unwholesome — whether, in other words, an unscrupulous 
dealer might not put in unwholesome ingredients and so conceal them 
that the final consumer would not be able to know it? 

Mr. Gardner. I will answer that question as well as I can, Mr. 
Chairman, not being thoroughly familiar personally with the methods 
of manufacturing oleomargarine. 

The Chairman. You appear as counsel? 

Mr. Gardner. I appear as counsel. In answer to your question I 
would say that while I presume it is possible in the manufacture of 
any compound to introduce elements which are deleterious to the pub- 
lic health, I believe that there is no product in which it is so difficult, 
so well-nigh impossible to do it as here. The manufacture of this prod- 
uct is under the control of the Government. The Department of 
Internal Revenue have provided the most stringent regulations. They 
keep in every factory, I think, an inspector whose dut}' it is to know 
what comes into that factoiy and what goes out of the factoiy. Noth- 
ing can go out of that factory except oleomargarine, and everything 
that goes into that factory is to be used for the manufacture of oleo- 
margarine. If any substance of that kind is taken into the factoiy it 
must l)e known. Moreover, the Government of the United States 
maintains an expert chemist to whom the articles of this manufacture 
can be submitted without cost for analysis and for constant inspection 
as to their component parts. So I believe if it can be said of any com- 
modity that it is impossible to introduce deleterious substances into it 
that can be said of this commodity. 

The Chairivian. That answers my question. 



20 OLEOMAKGARINE. 

Mr. Gardner. And I think that to-day there is no question made 
by any person whose judgment is worth anything, there is no question 
by anyone else than those who hurl epithets, who call it grease prod- 
uct and that sort of thing, that the product is in any degree unwhole- 
some. 

In this connection I desire to ask the careful attention of the com- 
mittee to the report with reference to oleomargarine which is con- 
tained in the findings of the committee of the Senate which was 
appointed to consider the question of the adulteration of food prod- 
ucts. Such a consideration will show to the members of this com- 
mittee that that committee has certified, as every competent authority 
has certified, that oleomargarine is probably the one purest compound 
which is manufactured for human consumption. 

Senator Hansbrough. Let me ask a question. Do 1 understand 
you to say that the Government keeps an inspector, or agent, or 
expert, in each of the oleomargarine factories in the country? 

Mr. Gardner. I think so. If not constantly in each of the oleomar- 
garine factories, certainl}^ in each district where there is an oleomar- 
garine factory, whose duty it is to visit the factory. 

Senator Hansbrough. Can you tell us how many oleomargarine 
factories there are ? 

Mr. Gardner. I am informed that the manufacturers make every 
month a sworn return of every item of material which goes into the 
manufacture of oleomargarine, and that there are in each district inspec- 
tors of the internal revenue department who investigate the facts from 
time to time to ascertain whether these returns are correct. 

Senator Hansbrough. Can you inform the committee how many 
oleomargarine factories there are in the United States, approximately ? 

Senator Bate. And where located? 

Mr. Gardner. I shall perhaps refer that question to some gentle- 
man engaged in the business. 

Mr. Jelke. The Internal Revenue Department in the last report 
state that there were twentj^-seven oleomargarine factories in the 
United States on the 1st of last July. Since then there have been 
some new establishments opened. 

Senator Hansbrough. So there are several of them in an internal- 
revenue district? 

Mr. Jelke. In several of the internal-revenue districts there are a 
number. 

Senator Hansbrough. Do I understand that the inspector in each 
district depends upon the man at the factory for the report to his 
Department, and that he has no personal supervision ? 

Mr. Jelke. Our factory is visited almost daily by some internal- 
revenue deput}^, and I have personally taken the new deputies who 
have come to visit us over the factories and let them see every nook 
and corner. 

The Chairman. What is your factory? 

Mr. Jelke. I represent Braun & Fitts, of Chicago. 

Senator Bate. Can you tell us where the factories are located, or 
will you submit it in writing, so that we may know in what States 
they are located? 

Mr. Jelke. I can do so. 

Senator Bate. I do not ask you to stop to do it now. 

Mr. Jelke. The Internal-Revenue Commissioner's report gives 
each one in detail. I will furnish that if it is desired. 



OLEOMARGAKINE ^7 

Senator Hansbrough. There is but one Government chemist, how- 
ever, who is authorized to inspect the ing-redients ? 

Mr. Jelke. I understand there is one head chemist. 

Senator Foster. He has several deputies? 

Mr. Jelke. He has several deputies. 

Senator Heitfeld. Are you compelled to submit this product to the 
chemist? 

Mr. Jelke. Whenever he calls for it we submit to him an3^thing-. 

Senator Hansbrough. He has no personal supervision over the con- 
stituent parts that go into oleomargarine? 

Mr. Jelke. If he desires it he can have. It is his privilege to 
investigate every part of the manufacture, and our factory is as open 
to him as it is to any employee of the establishment. 

The Chairman. You will resume, Mr. Gardner. 

Mr. Gardner. I had then taken up the claim of the advocates of the 
bill that oleomargarine is to a great extent fraudulently sold, not as 
oleomargarine, but as butter. I had endeavored to show that while 
undoubtedly there is a certain element of fraud in the sale of this arti- 
cle, as there is in the sale, it seems to me, of every food product, the 
element of fraud is much less than has been claimed, and that it con- 
sists entirely in the transactions between the retailer and the consumer. 
I had considered at length, and I hope established to the satisfaction 
of the members of the committee, that there is and can be no fraudu- 
lent sale of this product by the manufacturer; that the manufacturer 
sells nothing else at his establishment; that he is not allowed by law 
to keep for sale in his establishment anything else, and that anyone 
who comes to purchase any substance there comes to purchase oleo 
margarine and nothing else, and that there is no fraud on his part. 

That is the point at which I left my argument yesterday, namely, 
the assertion that whatever fraud there is in the sale of this article for 
something other than what it is is confined entirely to the transaction 
between the retailer and the consumer. 

The manufacturer, gentlemen, is just as anxious to prevent fraud as 
anyone possibly can be, and he must be so in the nature of things. He 
is a manufacturer of olemargarine. He himself is obliged, as I have 
shown you, and as Mr. Grout admitted yesterday, I think, to sell it as 
oleomargarine, and nothing else. It is for his interest that oleomar- 
garine should have a legal and a respectable standing as a food product, 
and every fraud that is practiced with reference to it through <^he 
retailer, every prosecution that is instituted upon the ground of a 
fraudulent sale, is an injury to the article which the manufacturer has 
to sell. Anything which this committee can possibly devise, which 
shall make it more difficult, if that may be possible, for the retailers 
to practice fraud in this respect upon his customer will be welcomed 
b}' the manufacturer. 

I make another assertion, gentlemen. I make the assertion, with- 
out fear of successful contradiction, that all the fraud which exists in 
the sale of this product is due to the passage in the different States of 
laws forbidding the sale of the product for what it is — for oleomargar- 
ine. As was suggested here yesterday, in some 32 States laws have 
been adopted which forbid the sale of colored oleomargarine. There- 
fore, in those States oleomargarine can not be sold as oleomargarine; 
and 1 make the statement here and now that in those States which per- 
mit the sale of oleomargarine as oleomargarine it is practically never 
sold for anything else but oleomargarine. 



28 OLEOMAKGAEINE. 

As I have said, 1 appear here simply as an attorne}^, simpl}" as an 
advocate, without a special knowledge of this business. Upon this 
point, however, I can appear as a witness, for I know the condition of 
affairs which exists in my own city of Providence. The State of Rhode 
Island has a law which provides that oleomargarine when it is sold 
shall be branded as such. That is all the hxw upon the subject in the 
State of Rhode Island. The result is that in the State of Rhode 
Island the sale of oleomargarine is a legitimate business. It is sold 
as oleomargarine, and it is sold as nothing else. Our wholesale and 
our retail dealers advertise in the papers that they have this, that, or 
the other brand of oleomargarine for sale, and as you walk up and 
down our streets you will see upon the placards in front of our grocery 
stores this or that brand o^ oleomargarine at such a price. The busi- 
ness is advertised as widely as it can be advertised. When you enter 
the stores you will see the same signs. You will see the Oakdale oleo- 
margarine or the Vermont oleomargarine or Swift's oleomargarine for 
sale side by side with process butter, and side by side with creamery 
butter, and it is sold for what it is. 

It is undoubtedly the fact that at the inception of this industry 
unscrupulous dealers saw an opportunity for large profits, and that 
they sold this substance for butter. As district attorne}- of the United 
States for the district of Rhode Island, I had occasion, twelve years ago 
or so, to prosecute many such persons, and prosecutions were insti- 
tuted and most vigorously carried on by the Internal-Revenue Depart- 
ment of the United States. 

Under the stimulus of the possibility of a legitimate business with a 
fair profit into which high-minded business men can enter, that condi- 
tion of afi'airs has absolutel}' disappeared. I state, gentlemen, that 
to-day in the one city with which I am familiar, as a result of the 
fair treatment of this business, the business is conducted fairly and 
honestly. This article is sold simply for what it is, as honestly as any 
other article of food is sold for what it is. 

I assert as a corollary to this proposition that almost every item of 
fraud of which the advocates of this bill complain is due to the enact- 
ment in very many States of unjust and unwholesome laws forbidding 
its sale for what it is — laws which have no backing in public opin- 
ion, and which interfere with what otherwise would be a legitimate 
business. 

Let me refer to what is the condition of things in Massachusetts, a 
neighboring State which does forbid absolutely the sale of colored 
oleomargarine even as oleomargarine. The condition there follows 
perfectly naturally, it seems to me, from what we must all understand 
to be the circumstances. We all know that there is no more universal 
demand than the demand for butter or something to take the place of 
])utter. Butter is not a luxury. Butter is a necessity of life to-da}'^, 
and there is a demand on the part of all classes in the community for 
a pure butter at a reasonable price, or a pure butter substitute at a 
reasonable price. Creamery butter is undoubtedly the best which can 
be used or which can be purchased, but, as we all know, the great 
mass of the community can not pay the price which is charged for 
creamery butter. They go to the person from whom they buy their 
butter in Massachusetts, where the sale of oleomargarine colored is 
forbidden, and they tell him that they want a pure butter, a good but- 
ter, at a reasonable price. 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 29 

This dealer has upon his shelves the process butter, or the renovated 
butter, to which 1 shall refer in a few moments. That he is allowed 
to sell by the laws of Massachusetts without let or hindrance. He 
offers it to his customer, and perhaps his customer buys it. He goes 
home and tastes it and finds that when he uses it it takes the skin off 
the roof of his mouth. He comes back the next time he requires but- 
ter, and he says to the dealer, "We can not use that stuff you sold 
me." There is a demand which this dealer is tempted in some way to 
supply. He has oleomargarine. He knows that if he sells oleomar- 
garine to this man at the same price or a little higher price than he 
paid for his process butter this man will be a satisfied customer. He 
does sell it to him. He sells it to him as butter; and why does he sell 
it to him as butter? Not because the man is not perfectly willing to 
take it as oleomargarine, but because if he sells it as oleomargarine he 
violates the law of the State of Massachusetts. He does not dare to 
trust the customer, who may appear as a witness against him, and for 
that simple reason, instead of selling this substance for what it is, oleo- 
margarine, he sells it for butter, which it is not, and to that extent he 
perpetrates a fraud upon his customer. It is the most innocent of all 
frauds so far as the customer is concerned, for the customer gets what 
he wants, a pure article of good flavor, which satisfies his needs. But 
he does buy it upon the statement, perhaps under the impression, that 
it is something else than what he asks for, and that is a fraud. 

Senator Allen. What do you call process butter ? 

Mr. Gardner. Process butter, as I understand it, is a butter which 
is produced in this way: Butter which has become unmarketable — ran- 
cid butter, butter which is old and left over, which for any reason can 
not be used in the trade^ — is purchased, and it is melted over. It is 
treated; it is rechurned; it is colored, and it is put upon the market 
as butter. 

Senator Allen. What ingredients enter into process butter? 

Mr. Gardner. I do not think that any ingredients enter into it. It 
is the original butter spoiled and made over again. 

Senator Foster. Flavored over? 

Mr. Gardner. Flavored over and washed with acids, as my clients 
inform me. 

Senator Allen. How do jou remove the tainted taste? 

Mr. Gardner. I will ask some of my friends here to answer the 
question. 

Senator Foster. It is sterilized? 

Mr. Jelke. It is removed by aeration and washing in acid. 

Senator Allen. What acid? 

Mr. Jelke, Sulphuric acid. 

Senator Allen. Something injurious to the digestion ? 

Mr. Hoard. 1 should like to ask a question. Do you know that 
renovated butter is washed with sulphuric acid? 

Mr. Jelke. I have known it. 

Mr. Hoard. How do you know it? 

Mr. Jelke. Because I have been in the butter business years ago, 

Mr. Hoard. When was the renovated butter process instituted? 

Mr. Jelke. The recent improvements in process butter have been 
adopted within the last five or six years. 

Mr. Hoard. Do you know of any establishment making renovated 
butter that uses sulphuric acid ? 



80 OLEOMAKGAEINE. 

Mr. Jelke. Ill water; yes, sir. 

Mr. Hoard. Where? 

Mr. Jelke. They have used it in Chicago. 

Mr. Hoard, In Avhat establishment? 

Mr. Jelke. I do not think it would be proper for me to say. 

Mr. Hoard. All right. 

The Chairman. I did not understand 3^our question, Governor 
Hoard. 

Mr. Hoard, I was speaking of the manufacture of process butter, 
so called. The gentleman says that it is treated with sulphuric acid. 
There is no occasion whatever to treat it with sulphuric acid or anj/ 
acid. 

Senator Allen. How can you remove the taint? 

Mr. Hoard, The taint is in the casein content of butter, not in the 
butter fat. The whole process of albuminous fermentation is in the 
casein content, and the acid does not take out the casein. The simple 
method of making process butter is that it is melted, boiled, clarified, 
skimmed, and the elements taken out of it. It is then reincorporated 
into milk and separated by centrifugal separation, the same as )>utter 
fat is separated from ordinary milk. It is then taken and put into 
creamery vats and subjected to the same process of ripening that the 
process of creamery butter is subjected to. I know of no introduction 
of acids in its treatment, and I was asking the gentleman what he knew, 
that is all. 

The Chairman. I did not quite catch the question that the gentle- 
man declined to answer. 

Mr. Hoard. I asked him what establishments he knew were treat- 
ing it with sulphuric acid. So far as that is concerned, the testimony 
before this body in 1880 was aT)undant as to the use of sulphuric acid 
in oleomargarine. 

Senator Allen. I do not think the question is yet answered as to 
how you eliminate the rancid taste or the decayed taste of the butter 
fat from process butter. 

Mr. Hoard. By boiling and clarifying, and in that manner taking 
the casein content out of it. 

Senator Allen. But the fat itself is decayed, is it not? 

Mr. Hoard. No, sir; not at all. 

Senator Allen. It is in process of deca}^ ? 

Mr. Hoard. You can not decay butter fat chemically. The only 
process by which it can be deca^^ed is through what is known as albu- 
minous fermentation, and albuminous fermentation is imparted to it 
by the casein content, which is almost pure albumen or protein. Any 
person who is a student of these things will readily know that this 
process butter is not a fraud or counterfeit in any sense. It is an 
imposition if sold for other than it is. Therein constitutes the wrong- 
doing. 

Senator Allen. You say that the butter fat itself is not affected or 
tainted by the process ? 

Mr. Hoard, No, sir. The whole process of rancidity and distaste 
which you have in rancid butter is not the butter fat itself but is in 
the casein content which may be left in the butter. 

Senator Allen. Is that the case with any other decaying animal 
substance ? 

Mr. Hoard. I do not know. 



OLEOMAKGARINE. 31 

Mr. Mathewson. May I have the privilege of asking the gentleman 
a question ? 

The Chairman. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Mathewson. He says the only fraud in the question of process 
butter on the market is that it is not marked or branded. 

Mr. Hoard. No; I did not say so. 

Mr. Matheavson. That it is sold for what it is not. 

Mr. Hoard. I say in case it is sold for what it is not is a fraud. 

Mr, Mathewson. Is it ever sold for anything else ? Can you tell 
the committee of a case where it is sold for renovated or process butter? 

Mr. PloARD. I do not know anything about the sale of process but- 
ter at all, because I have had nothing to do with it. 1 am simply rea- 
soning abstractly on the proposition as to wherein the process lies to 
the extent that the butter fat in process butter is original butter fat 
and not another kind of animal fat. 

Mr. Mathewson. I understand you to state to the committee that 
the butter fat from which process butter is made is not tainted and is 
perfectly sweet. 

Mr. Hoard. I did not say that the butter was sweet. 

Mr. Mathewson. The butter fat? 

Mr. Hoard. The butter fat, when boiled and clarified. 

Mr. Mathewson. How is it clarified ? 

Mr. Hoard. By boiling. It is steamed. 

Mr. Mathewson. Are you familiar with the process? 

Mr. Hoard. I am, somewhat. 

Mr, Mathewson, And you know that this boiling and steaming 
absolutely clarifies that fat? 

Mr. Hoard. Certainly; 1 know that. 

Mr. Mathewson. I shall have to differ with you, because I have 
seen the process time and time again, and I know that that is not the 
case. 

Mr. Hoard, Very well; I ask for information. What do 3"ou know, 
please ? 

Mr, Mathewson. I know that the fat extracted from old butter — 
butter that has become putrid, or strong, or rancid — is thoroughly 
scented with that same odor. No amount of boiling — you can boil it 
from now until doomsday — will ever remove that rancid smell. 

Mr. Hoard. What is done to remove it? 

Mr. Mathewson. It has to be treated in other ways. 

Mr, Hoard. In what way ? 

Mr. Mathewson. There are several ways. I am not a manufacturer 
of process butter myself, so I do not know, and in such factories as I 
have been in they have tried, I think, not to let me see the whole 
process. 

Mr, Knight, If you want information, I am thoroughly familiar 
with the matter, I have been through the largest factories in the 
United States, and I know the manufacture of process butter very 
thoroughly. If the committee want the information, I can give it at 
an}^ time. 

Senator Allen, I would like to have it. 

The Chairman, I presume that Mr, Gardner may be in some haste 
to conclude. I suggest that we allow him to proceed. 

Senator Heitfeld, We will be glad to hear Mr, Knight later on, 

Mr, Gardner. I will endeavor to close my argument as qidckly as 



32 OLEOMARGARINE. 

I possibly can, and in anything I may state which may require investi- 
gation or answer the answer, perliaps, can be reserved. 

The point which I was trying to make was that absolutely the only 
occasion for the fraud which the advocates of this bill complain of is 
the passage in so many States of laws which make it impossible for a 
dealer to be honest, however much he may desire to be so, if he is to 
sell this product at all, which actually supplies a demand. I say that 
if the advocates of the bill are consistent and desire that oleomargarine 
should stand in the market solely upon its own merits and should not 
come into competition with butter, they can accomplish this purpose 
by procuring the repeal of those laws. They would do so if they knew 
where their own interests lay. It is simply by making it illegal to 
carry on this business as it ought to be carried on that there is a temp- 
tation offered to carry on the business as it ought not to be carried on. 

But what does this bill do? The bill proposes that upon the States 
which under the influence of wiser counsels have not enacted such laws — 
laws which have occasioned fraud — there shall be imposed the same con- 
ditions which exist in the States where those laws have been enacted, 
and in those States where it is desired to do an honest business to make 
it possible only to do a fraudulent business. 

Let me point out, further, that the bill does not seek to stop such 
fraud. The bill only seeks to make the carrying on of that business 
more expensive. The bill allows oleomargarine to be manufactured 
and to be artiflciall}' colored so as to resemble butter. It simply pro- 
vides that when it is so colored as to resemble butter it shall pay a tax 
of 10 cents per pound instead of paying a tax of 2 cents per pound. 

Now, let us suppose it to be true — I assert that it is not true, but it 
is the basis of the whole argument of the advocates of the bill — let us 
suppose it to be true that this substance when artificially colored does 
come into competition with the best, or with good creamery, butter. 
That is what they assert. They say that it can be sold for 28 or 30, and 
in some instances for 35 cents a pound. Let us suppose that to be true. 
Then oleomargarine which sells to-day at 15 cents a pound at retail, 
after the tax of 2 cents a pound has been paid, would sell, after the 
passage of this bill, to secure the same profit to its manufacturer and 
its retailer, at 8 cents a pound more, or at 23 cents a pound. If it 
does come into competition with creamery butter at 25 and 30 and 35 
cents a pound it will come into competition still, and if the dealer 
wants to make his profit he will simply have to press the sale of it 
harder. There is to be a profit of 7 or 12 cents a pound in the perpe- 
tration of this fraud, even after the passage of the bill, if the statement 
of the advocates of the bill is even approximately correct that it can 
be sold as pure creamery butter of the highest type. Therefore it 
appears that the advocates of the bill do not offer any remedy for the 
fraud of which they complain, but that upon their own hypothesis 
they are only making the fraud more expensive to the man who carries 
it on; and the bill is utterly inadequate for the purpose for which it 
purports to be drawn. 

Senator Hansbrough. How would it do to make the tax 20 cents a 
pound? 

Mr. Gardner. That would be more effective. A tax of a dollar a 
pound would l^e more effective still. But you come right liack to the 
proposition which I laid down at the start, that this is legislation which 
seeks to prohibit the sale of oleomargarine, and if you want to prohibit 



OLEOMARGARINE. 33 

it, 3^ou should adopt the suggestion which has been made and put the 
tax so high tliat it can not be sold at all to anybody. 

Senator Hansbrough, If there were no State or national law on the 
subject, would the manufacturers of oleomargarine seek to color their 
product? 

Mr. Gardner. If there were no State law? 

Senator Hansbrough. Yes. You complain of the existence of State 
lav/s. 

Mr. Gardner. I do complain of the existence of State laws, not of 
the existence of national laws. 

Senator Hansbrough. You say that is the way to get rid of the 
fraud ? 

Mr. Gardner. Yes; to repeal the State laws which say that colored 
oleomargarine shall not be sold as oleomargarine. 

Senator Hansbrough. And to have no laws whatever? 

Mr. Gardner. I beg your pardon; I do not wish to have no laws 
whatever. I say, have the most stringent possible laws to provide 
that it shall be sold simply as oleomargarine and as nothing else. 
Have the most stringent laws possible, but no laws forbidding the 
sale of colored oleomargarine. The United States law to-day is strin- 
gent. Ever.y manufacturer is glad that it is stringent. Every manu- 
facturer would like to have it made more stringent in the direction of 
securing the sale of this article simply for what it is. 

Senator Hansbrough. If denied the privilege of coloring the 
product, would the volume of the product diminish? 

Mr. Gardner. It would diminish, absolutely. There would not be 
any sold at all, in my judgment. 

Senator Hansbrough. Would that be the case with butter, if there 
should be a law enacted that butter must not be colored? 

Mr. Gardner. If people could not get any yellow substance to eat 
on their bread they would take white, undoubtedly; but as long as there 
is a yellow substance on the market, as I will argue to the committee 
in a few minutes, people will not take white. 

Now, the next reason advanced why this legislation ought to be 
enacted is that yellow is what is called the butter trade-mark. That 
phrase was used by the advocates of this bill in the House. It was 
said that butter has some sort of a trade-mark or copja-ight upon the 
color yellow. That matter has been hashed out at great length, and it 
is not necessary for me to go into it in detail very much; but I do want 
to call the attention of the committee to these considerations. 

It has already, I think, sufficiently appeared by the admissions of 
the author of the bill made here yesterday that there is no such thing 
as a uniform butter color. The color of natural butter, the color of 
butter before coloring matter is artificially applied to it, varies with 
every change of circumstance. It varies at different seasons of the 
year. It varies in different places. It varies at different times. It 
varies in accordance with the way in which the animal from which the 
base of the product comes is fed and cared for. There is no such thing; 
no tint can be pointed at or referred to as the tint of butter. 

Ordinary butter — butter the year round, butter under the usual cir- 
cumstances of its manufacture — is nearly white. It is slightl}' off' the 
color of white, with a slight yellow tingle. Even before the invention 
of the great creameries, and l>efore the use of the substance which has 
now been ad()])ted for coloring it, butter has always been artificially 
S. Kep. 2048 3 



34 OLEOMARGAKINE. 

colored. It has been colored for the reason which has been referred 
to, happily, I think, in this argument by the advocates of the bill, in the 
phrase that "the eye might aid the palate." It is colored to meet the 
demand— the taste of those who use it. It is colored in different tints 
for the different localities in which it is to be sold. It has always been 
colored. The housewife has colored it in her churn with carrots, and 
the manufacturer has colored it as he deemed proper to meet the 
demands of those to whom he was to offer it. 

1 call the attention of the committee to the fact that there was no 
one substance used for the coloring of butter — there was no standard 
coloring matter — until after the manufacture of oleomargarine had 
been commenced. The manufacturers of oleomargarine colored their 
substance also. The manufacturers of oleomargarine were inventors. 
The manufacturers of oleomargarine, or those who advised them, were 
scientists looking for the best substances which could be used for each 
and every purpose which they desired to accomplish; and they discov- 
ered, or found, or invented — I do not know which — a substance which 
is called annotto, and they used it for the coloring of their product as 
the article best adapted to that purpose. 

Senator Allen. Do the creameries use the same coloring matter? 

Mr. Gardner. That is what I am informed; absolutely the same 
substance. 

Mr. Hoard. May I ask the gentleman a question ''( Is he certain that 
he is historically correct when he states that the oleomargarine men 
invented annotto? 

Mr. Gardner. I do not say that they invented it. I do not know 
whether they invented it or not. They discovered and adopted it as 
the article best fitted for the purpose, it not having been used before 
for that purpose. 

Mr. Hoard. I beg 3"our pardon. I was a cheese manufacturer forty- 
five years ago in New York, and I used annotto. Has oleomargarine 
been in use that long? 

Mr. Gardner. I am arguing from the evidence before this commit- 
tee. I understand the evidence taken by the House committee is here, 
and I am arguing upon that evidence. The truthfulness or the untruth- 
fulness of the persons who gave the evidence I can not vouch for, but 
as an attorney I take the evidence as here and argue from it. There 
certainl}^ is evidence, and the strongest evidence, to the effect that after 
the manufacturers of oleomargarine had shown the desirability of this 
substance for this purpose the manufacturers of butter adopted it, and 
that the manufacturer of butter to-day, who previous to 1886 used all 
sorts of different substances in attempting to color his butter as he 
desired to have it colored, is using annotto and nothing else. Yet, it 
appearing by the evidence that the manufacturer of oleomargarine first 
called this possibility to the attention of the manufacturer of butter, 
the manufacturer of butter to-day claims the tints which are produced 
b}^ this coloring matter as his trade-mark. That is a fair argument, at 
least from the evidence, and the truth or falsity of the evidence 

Senator Allen. Do you claim to have used this coloring matter 
before the creameries used it ? 

Mr. Gardner. That claim is made, as I understand. That is in 
evidence. 

Senator Warren. I think it will develop that the substance called 
annotto was used many years ago in a crude way for coloring butter. 



OLEOMAEGAKINE. 85 

I think it will also develop that by an admixture of ingredients a new 
and better coloring- has been adopted by the oleomargarine manu- 
facturers and that that coloring has been purchased and used in 
creameries. 

Mr. Gardner. That is probably the case; but annotto is too broad a 
term, perhaps. 

Senator Warren. As Governor Hoard has said, annotto, or a sub- 
stance under that name, was used many years ago in coloring both 
butter and cheese. 

Mr. Gardner. My statement is that the substance which is used 
now by the manufacturers both of oleomargarine and of butter to color 
their products was first used by the manufacturers of oleomargarine 
and afterwards adopted by the manufacturers of butter. 

Now, how is it with reference to the coloring of oleomargarine? 
The natural color of oleomargarine is nearly white, very near the nat- 
ural color of ordinary butter. For precisely the same reason that the 
manufacturer of butter colors his product, in order that the eye may 
aid the palate, in order that it may be attractive to his customers, for 
the ver}^ same reason that he colors it sometimes a very light yellow, 
sometimes a very deep yellow, because in order to carry on his busi- 
ness successfully he finds it necessary to meet the demand — for pre- 
cisely those reasons the manufacturer of oleomargarine colors his 
product, and he colors it all sorts of shades to meet all sorts of demands. 
For a certain trade he gives it but a slight tint; for other trade he 
gives it a deeper tint. 

For some of his trade, his export trade, he colors it a deep rich red 
or brown, because the people of the country where that oleo is sent 
demand that the article which they put upon their food shall be of that 
color. He colors it a color which would make it absolutely impossible 
to sell one ounce of it in any part of the United States of America, 
and from which you or I would turn away with loathing, simply 
because there is somewhere a demand for a butter substance of that 
color. It is for simply that reason that he colors it for sale in the 
United States the same color that the manufacturer of butter colors 
his product; and, as I have previously said, the color which in the vast 
majorit}^ of instances is used is a color the desirability' of which was 
first found out and was first applied by the manufacturer of oleomar- 
garine. 

The next reason given for the passage of this proposed act is that 
the sale of oleomargarine will destroy the dairy industr}^ of the United 
States. I say that that is absurd. I say, in the first place, that oleo- 
margarine, no matter how it may be colored, can never compete with 
high-grade, high-priced creamery butter. We need something besides 
color to enable us to do that. The author of this bill here yesterday 
dropped a statement which it seems to me is of the very greatest value. 
He said that in judging of the grade, or quality, or value of butter 
color pointed for 5, while taste pointed for 50. Now, coloring maj' 
make oleomargarine look like l)utter, coloring ma}' make people think 
that oleomargarine is butter, but neither coloring nor anything else 
can make oleomargarine taste like the high-grade creamery butter. A 
man may be deceived once into purchasing it; he is not deceived twice 
into purchasing it, and the man who deceives him does not receive his 
custom. It is absurd to say that this substance, which can not under 
an}' conditions have the flavor which is the item of value in high-grade 



36 OLEOMARGARINE. 

creamery butter, competes with high-grade creamery butter. There- 
fore it seems to me that that is out of the question. 1 will show in a 
moment that, as it seems to me, there is no reason why it should not 
compete with low-grade butter for what it is. 

Further than that, it appears from the testimony taken before this 
committee that the total sales of oleomargarine during the period 
covered by the last report of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue 
amounted to 1 per cent of the total sales of butter of all kinds. If we 
take the statement of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, who, as 
I argued yesterday, is best fitted to judge, not more at any rate than 
one-tenth, 10 per cent of the oleomargarine which was sold, was sold 
as butter. Therefore not more than 10 per cent of the total sales of 
oleomargarine came into competition with the sales of butter; and from 
that it is mathematically evident that the total sales of oleomargarine 
as butter amount to only four-tenths of 1 per cent of the total sales of 
butter in the United States. 

Mr. Knight. What do you call the total sale of butter, please? 

Mr. Gardner. It is given in the report as 2,000,000,000 pounds. 

Mr. Knight. Upon what authority? 

Mr. Gardner. Upon, I think, the estimate of the Commissioner. 

Senator Warren. The estimate of the Agricultural Department is 
1,500,000,000 pounds. 

Mr. Knight. The estimate of the Agricultural Department is 
1,500,000,000 pounds as the production, not the amount put on the 
market. Only about 50 or 60 per cent of that goes on the market. 

Mr. Gardner. By some possibility, taking the gentleman's own 
figures, it might make the sales of oleomargarine at the outside 1 per 
cent of the sales of butter. It could not bring it above that. 

Another fact, which I think is established by the evidence and which 
I think I can truthfully assert without successful contradiction, is that 
in spite of and in the face of the use and sale of oleomargarine the 
price of butter is higher to-day than it has been in twelve years, and 
that in spite of the use and sale of oleomargarine the percentage of 
increase in the sale of butter to-day is greater than the percentage of 
increase in the sale of oleomargarine. Therefore the assertion that 
whatever unsatisfactory condition ma}^ exist in the butter industry is 
or can be due in any large extent to the sale of oleomargarine is an 
assertion which has no foundation in fact. 

Mr. Knight. Ma}- 1 ask upon what you base your claim that the sale 
of butter has increased over the sale of oleomargarine? Where do 
3^ou get your statistics ? 

Mr. Gardner. As I stated to the committee yesterday, I have taken 
this matter up since last Monday and I have not read through this 
i-eport. I can not tell in what item of the report that is found, but 
that statement is made to me, and if necessary (I hope my friend will 
make some memorandum of these questions) it can be substantiated. 

Those are all the reasons which I have heard urged for the passage 
of this bill. Not one of them is valid. It is said that oleomargarine 
is unwholesome. There is no substance sold to the consumer in the 
United States of America to-da}^ which is so absolutely certain of being 
wholesome or the healthfulness of which is certified to by such high 
authority. 

Mr. Hoard. May I ask the gentleman one question ? I understood 
you to say, sir, that an inspector is at the oleomargarine factory to see 
that no unwholesome ingredient is introduced into oleomargarine ? 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 37 

Mr. Gardner. To see what ingredients go into oleomargarine. The 
manufacturer is required to make a monthly statement, under oath, of 
every pound of ingredient lie uses in the manufacture. It is the duty 
of the inspector or the deputy inspector, as I understand it, to verify 
that report and under oath to say that the manufacturer's statement 
is correct or incorrect. 

Mr. Hoard. Do you believe that the manufacturer always states 
the truth concerning the ingredients of oleomargarine? 

Mr. Gardner. Yes, sir; the manufacturers of which I know any- 
thing. That is my belief; it is not worth much one way or the other. 

Mr. Hoard. The department of agriculture of New York has found 
by chemical anal}\sis 11 per cent of paraifin in oleomargarine. That is 
a substance which no known acids have any effect upon. Do you 
believe that the manufacturer made a return to the Government that 
his product contained paraffin ? 

Mr. Gardner. What I believe in that particular is of very little 
importance. 

The Chairman. I suggest that Mr. Gardner be allowed to conclude, 
and then we will hear from some of the men who are actually engaged 
in the business. 

Mr. Hoard. All right. 

Mr. Gardner. As I said, that, it seems to me, is not a valid reason. 
The other reasons which I referred to are no more valid, the reason of 
the small amount of fraud, which can be prevented if the manufacturers 
of butter see lit to prevent it, the reason which is claimed, that yellow 
is the trade-mark of butter, the reason that the sale of oleomargarine 
will destroy the butter industry. That is negative. I have met, so 
far as I was able, all the claims of the advocates of this bill. 

Now, affirmatively, 1 do claim these as reasons why the bill should 
not be passed. I assert, in the first place, that the passage of the bill 
would absolutel}^ destroy the oleo industry, which during the past six- 
teen years under the sanction of the Government of the United States 
has been built up at a vast expenditure of money. 

I assert that the advocates of this bill intend that that shall bo the 
result of this legislation; that it is not intended by this legislation 
merely to prohibit the sale of colored oleo and to make that impossible, 
but it is intended by this legislation to make the sale of any oleomar- 
garine impossible. And I subjnit that if the members of this com- 
mittee will read carefully the argument of my friend on my left and 
the argument of the gentleman on my right and the argument of the 
author of this bill, they will see that determination stamped upon every 
sentiment which those gentlemen have uttered. My friend upon the 
left was obliged, I believe, to present a letter or an affidavit, which 
was read during the discussion of this matter in the House, saying that 
he had not expressed the sentiments which were attributed to him by 
the report. 

Mr. Hoard. No, sir. 

Mr. Gardner. Then some one. 

Mr. Hoard. I never made any affidavit that I know of. 

Mr. Gardner. Then I think a letter from Governor Hoard was 
read. 

Mr. Hoard. No, sir; no communication of the kind was ever made 
by me. 

Mr. Gardner. Then I withdraw that. 



38 OLEOMAEGAEINE. 

Mr. Knight. Somebody forged my name to a letter, and I denounced it. 

Mr. Gardner. I do not know, but, according to tlie report in the 
Congressional Record, a letter was read, I thought, from Governor 
Hoard. Of course I accept his statement. The letter stated that he 
was incorrectly reported in what he said before the committee. 

Mr. Hoard. I submitted my argument in writing, so that whatever 
I said was correctly printed. 

Mr. Gardner. Besides the allegations made by the advocates of 
this bill, what they have done in the States where they had the power 
to carry their theories into effect shows that they intend to destroy this 
industry. In the State of Vermont there is a law which requires that 
no oleomargarine shall be sold unless it is colored pink. 

Mr. Hoard. No; that was the law in the State of New Hampshire. 

Mr. Gardner. That is said to be the law in the State of Vermont 
and in the State of West Virginia. 

Mr. Knight. The New Hampshire law has been repealed. 

Mr. Gardner. The New Hampshire law has been repealed, and it 
is the law of the State of Vermont to-day. 

Senator Hansbrough. It is in the report here. 

Mr. Gardner. It is in the report. 

Mr. Knight. I guess that is true. Two States have that law. 

Mr. Gardner. Occasionally I do make a statement which is accepted 
to be true by my friends on the other side. 

Mr. Hoard. It is news to me. 

Mr. Gardner. There is a good deal that is news to you, no doubt, 
but it is true, notwithstanding, that in the State of Vermont, the State 
which is represented in Congress by the author of this bill, there is a 
law which requires that all of this substance which is sold shall be 
colored pink. Now, this substance can not be colored pink without 
introducing an element into it which makes it a menace to human 
health, which makes it a deleterious substance. The State of Vermont 
has, therefore, legislated not to regulate tins industry, but to destroy 
it. It is absolutely certain that no man would spread upon his bread 
any pink substance. 

Senator Warren. Those laws have been repealed in some of the 
States. 

Mr. Gardner. I do not care whether the law is in force or not; I do 
not care whether the law is operative or inoperative; it shows the pur- 
pose which is entertained by the people who are here advocating this 
bill; a purpose not to regulate this industry, but to destroy it; a pur- 
pose not to have oleomargarine sold as 'outter, but not to have oleo- 
margarine sold at all. That is the purpose which is evidenced by the 
words; it is the purpose that is evidenced by the action which, is louder 
than words, and whether it is the purpose or not it is the inevitable 
result. 

It is the inevitable result for this reason: Oleomargarine can not be 
colored and pay a tax of 10 cents a pound and be sold in competition 
with cheap butter. I have previousl}^ argued to you, and I will not 
repeat myself, the reasons why it seems to me that it can not be sokl 
in competition with high-grade butter. It can not be sold in competi- 
tion with butter which costs over 22 or 23 cents a pound. It can not 
be sold in competition with cheap butter. 

Oleomargarine, which to-day pays a tax of 2 cents a pound, retails 
at from 13 to 15 cents, with a profit, I assert, of much less than 1 cent 



OliEOMARGAEINE. 39 

per pound to the manufacturer, and with a profit to the retailer at the 
lowest rate at which he is willing to handle it, because where he sells 
his oleomargarine it sells in the strictest competition with other oleo- 
margarine. Remade butter, renovated butter, process butter, resur- 
rection butter, as it has been called, the method of manufacture of 
which I understand the committee is to inquire into, it is shown, I 
I think, b}^ the evidence, can be produced for 13 or l-i cents a pound. 
It pays no tax, and oleomargarine, which can only be retailed, as it 
evidentl}^ can be retailed, after the payment of a 10-cent tax, at not 
less than 21 or 22 cents a pound, has got to come into competition, if it 
is sold colored, with this made-over, acid-treated butter, which can be 
sold at a profit at 15 cents per pound. Therefore, colored oleomarga- 
rine is absolutely driven out of the market. 

Mr. Knight. I beg your pardon, but where do you get the figures 
which show the price of renovated butter? 

Mr. Gardner. 1 get those from statements which will be made 
here, if they have not already been made. My clients say that reno- 
vated butter is sold to-day in the city of Providence for 15, 16, and 
18 cents per pound, and colored oleomargarine can not possibly be 
sold at less than 21 or 23 cents a pound if taxed ten cents a pound. 

But gentlemen will say to me that oleomargarine can still be sold 
uncolored. Gentlemen, it can not. We come back to the old ques- 
tion of the eye aiding the palate. The attempt to sell oleomargarine 
uncolored runs counter to a law which is more universal in its opera- 
tion and stronger in its action than any law of Congress — a law of 
human nature — the law of conformity to custom. The people of the 
United States have been accustomed to spreading upon their bread a 
yellow compound. The manufacturers of butter realize it. The 
author of this bill said here yesterday that he considered it was silly 
and foolish and unwise for people to demand an artificiall}" colored 
butter; but he admitted that people did demand an artificially colored 
butter, and that a butter which is not artificially colored, no matter 
how excellent it may be in any other respect, can not be sold in market 
to-day in competition with a butter which is artificially colored. 

It is exactly the same with oleomargarine. No matter though the 
purchaser may be convinced that oleomargarine is absolutely pure, no 
matter though his taste may inform him that it is palatable, if an 
attempt is made to make him use it when it bears a color absolutely 
distinct and different from that which belonged to the article which he 
and his fathers have used for the same purpose he refuses to use it. 
The illustration was used here yesterday with reference to the coat of 
a gentleman. When the author of this bill was asked why the manu- 
facturers of butter colored their product, he said they did it to meet 
the demand; that they did it to comply with a law of conformity to 
custom, and he illustrated it by saying that a member of this committee 
was wearing to-day a black coat. He did it because black suited his 
taste. 

If it were proposed to-day to a member of this committee that he 
should purchase either a black coat of poor quality and high price or 
a bright pink coat of the very best quality at a low price, the poor 
black coat at a high price would be purchased and the excellent pink 
coat at a low price thrown aside. It is silly; yes, it is silly; but it is a 
law of custom which exists more vividly and with greater effect in that 
which we eat than it exists anywhere else. We may violate it in the 



40 OLEOMAEGAKINE. 

matter of dress; we can not violate it, our ej^e will not allow us to vio- 
late it, our education will not allow us to violate it, in regard to what 
we eat. It is absolutely impossible to force upon the market at any 
price a white substance to be used as butter, and therefore if it is pro- 
posed to insist that this substance shall be sold in its natural condition 
and without any coloring- matter you force it absolutely out of sale 
entirely. 

Now, gentlemen, the manufacturer of oleomargarine does not color 
his product in order that it may resemble butter. He wants to sell it 
as oleomargarine. He can not sell it as anj^thing else. When a sale 
for it as oleomargarine is established his business increases and his 
business becomes reputable, but it is absolutely impossible for him to 
carry on that business if he is compelled to put up his product in a form 
in which the public will not take it. We color our oleomargarine for 
exactly the same reason that the manufacturer of butter colors his but- 
ter. As the author of the bill said yesterday, the manufacturer of 
butter must color his butter in order that the people who are accus- 
tomed to spread that yellow substance upon their bread may spread it. 
When we send oleomargarine to South America we color it, as I have 
said, a deep blood red or dark brown, because the people of that coun- 
try like to spread that kind of substance upon their bread. 

Senator Hansbrough. Is that the color of their butter down there? 

Mr. Gardner. I do not know whether it is the color of their butter 
or not; it is what they demand. It is the color of taste. It is a sub- 
stitute for something else that they use as butter. 

Senator Bate. The color and not the taste governs the sale alto- 
gether, then? 

Mr. Gardner. No, sir; I think not. The color is a necessary ele- 
ment, but the taste is even more important. We can not sell yellow 
butter which is rancid because it is yellow, neither can we sell good 
butter which is white because it is good. Both elements must concur 
if we are to make a sale of the product. 

Now, I want to say to you, gentlemen, on behalf certainly of one 
manufacturer whom I represent, and I believe on behalf of every other 
manufacturer, that the manufacturers of oleomargarine, welcome any 
legislation which will render it more difficult and which will make it 
absolutely impossible to sell this substance for anything except what 
it is. We welcome the suggestion that oleomargarine shall be placed 
within the provisions of the pure-food bill which it is proposed to 
adopt. But we do protest against the destruction of our industry. 

There is, I think, now before this committee a bill (it was here at 
the last session) entitled "A bill to define renovated butter, also 
imposing a tax upon and regulating the manufacture, sale, importation, 
and exportation thereof." That bill is upon the files of this committee. 
If that bill is left to slumber upon the tiles of the committee, if this 
substance is not included within the provisions of the bill which is now 
before this committee, then the result of the legislation is to drive 
absolutely away and out of commerce an article which is acknowledged 
to be pure and wholesome and for which there is acknowledged to be 
a demand, and to force upon the whole comnumity as a substitute for 
it an article which is acknowledged, I think, to be deleterious. The 
manufacturers of oleomargarine can manufacture process butter if 
they are driven to do it; but process butter is an article which should 
not under any regulations be permitted to be used as food. 



OLEOMAKGAKINE. 41 

Mr. Knight. If you will give me just a second, let me ask a ques- 
tion. You represent the Oakdale Manufacturing Company? 

Mr. Gardner. I do. 

Mr. Knight. Are they satisfied with the present law on oleomar- 
garine ? 

Mr. Gardner. Yes; they are satisfied with it. 

Mr. Knight. Do they comply with the provisions of it? 

Mr. Gardner. They do. 

Mr. Knight. That is all. 

Mr. Gardner. In concluding, gentlemen, it seems to me that I 
ought to apologize for all the time that 1 have taken up this morning. 
I have argued this morning largely upon the question of expediency. 
I have not endeavored to meet, as perhaps I ought, and as perhaps I 
must meet, the matter which has been referred to this morning by a 
member of the committee — a matter which is so familiar to us all — 
that this legislation is urged upon this committee and urged upon Con- 
gress because it is stated that 5,000,000 people engaged in agriculture 
in the United States desire it. It ought not to be a balancing of the 
numbers who desire it or who do not desire it. It ought to be a matter 
of principle. But it is perhaps necessary to meet arguments of that 
character, and if it is necessary to meet them I ought perhaps to take 
the time to show that not only the interests of a few manufacturers 
and dealers in oleomargarine are here concerned, but that the interests 
of very many other producers in this country are indirectly concerned. 

Oleomargarine is not produced b}^ magic. Into oleomargarine have 
to enter various substances which are the product of the agricultural 
industries and interests of this country. The raiser of hogs, the 
raiser of cattle, and the producer of cotton-seed oil are all interested 
in the growth of the oleomargarine business. The neutral lard which 
is used in the manufacture of oleomargarine, and which comes from 
the hog, is a product which sells at 2i cents per pound higher than the 
only other alternative product which could be made — lard itself — and 
8 pounds of this substance are produced from the hog. That shows 
that for all the hogs that can be utilized for this purpose there is an 
added value of 20 cents to each hog. The report of the Commissioner 
of Internal Revenue for the year ending June 30, 1899, when the pro- 
duction of oleomargarine was considerably less than it is to-day, shows 
that 31,297,251 pounds of neutral lard were used in the manufacture of 
this product. 

Senator Money. What is neutral lard? 

Senator Heitfeld. Leaf lard. 

Senator Foster. How many pounds do 3^ou state were used? 

Mr. Gardner. Thirty-one million two hundred and ninety-seven 
thousand two hundred and fifty-one pounds in that year. So there is a 
vital interest on the part of the farmers who are engaged in the raising 
of hogs that this industry shall not be wiped out of existence. 

Senator Foster. What part of beef enters into it? 

Mr. Gardner. Oleo oil is a product of the beef, and it sells at a 
much larger price than any other product. 

Senator Allen. What would become of these elements if they were 
not used in the manufacture of oleomargarine? 

Mr. Gardner. They would have to be sold at lower prices for other 
purposes — tallow in the case of beef. 



42 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

Senator Money. Will you allow me to ask you a question ? 

Mr. Gardner. Certainly. 

Senator Money. As I came in I heard you speaking about the 
rights of the producers of butter, oleomargarine, renovated butter,^ 
and so on. Have3'OU said anything to the committee about the rights 
of the people who use these things — the consumers? 

Mr. Gardner. I did at considerable length yesterday. 

Senator Money. Excuse me, 1 will get it in your printed remarks. 

Senator Bate. The hearing will be printed. 

Mr. Gardner. There were also during that same year about four 
and a half million pounds of cotton-seed oil used, forming a very large 
outlet for that industry. I wish to call once more the attention of the 
committee — — 

Senator Foster. How much oleomargarine was made that year? 

Mr. Gardner. Ninety-one million pounds. 

Mr. Knight. Eightj^-three million pounds, I guess it was. 

Mr. Gardner, It is given as 91,000,000 pounds. 1 do not know. 
If you dispute the report of the Commissioner I can not help it. 

Mr. Knight. You have not got the right report. 

Mr. Gardner. 1 have the report for the year ending June 30, 1899, 
and 1 have read the figures correctly. 

Mr. Knight. You have read the ingredients and not the product. 

Mr. Gardner. In this connection I wish to call the attention of the 
committee once more to the precise wording of the proposed act which 
is before the committee. It authorizes any State to forbid by law not 
merely the manufacture of anj^ oleomargarine containing coloring 
matter, but any oleomargarine containing an ingredient which makes 
it resemble butter, or look like butter, in the language of the act. I 
am informed that there is a slight tinge to cotton-seed oil which 
makes oleomargarine manufactured from cotton-seed oil a little off the 
white, and which to that extent makes it look like butter. Therefore, 
if this act is left as it is, it is going to have the effect, or it may have 
the effect, if States see fit to comply with the terms given them in the 
act, to forbid the manufacture of any oleomargarine containing cotton- 
seed oil. I do not know whether any substitute for cotton-seed oil 
which is absolutely colorless can be found or not. The bill would 
make it perfectly possible for the legislature of the State of Vermont, 
or the legislature of an}^ State of this Union, to say, "Manufacture 
your oleomargarine if you can, but do not put any cotton-seed oil 
into it." 

Mr. Grout. Do you refer to the proviso to the first section?, 

Mr. Gardner. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Grout. That, allow me to state, is the language of the Supreme 
Court in deciding the Plumley case, and it was incorporated into this 
bill. That first section went through the House four years ago. It 
was incorporated in the bill on the motion of Mr. Williams, of Missis- 
sippi, who then said it made that section of the bill satisfactory to him, 
and that language was taken from the decision of the Supreme Court. 
It is Mr. Justice Harlan's language. 

Mr. Gardner. I ask the lawyers on the committee to read that 
section and tell me if the inference which I have drawn from it is not 
correct. 

Senator Warren. I understood j^ou yesterday to say that butter 
and milk also tend to color oleomargarine. 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 43 

Mr. Gardner. Butter and milk do tinge oleomargarine. Cotton- 
seed oil doe.s tinge oleomargarine. Therefore, if cotton-seed oil is 
allowed to enter into it the State can pass a law which forbids the 
manufacture and sale of oleomargarine at all. 

Gentlemen, 1 ought to have concluded long ago. I should have done 
so if it had not been for these interruptions, which I have been very 
glad to answer as far as I can. In concluding, I should like to ask 
you to forget all these questions of expediency. I should like to ask 
you to forget that there are 5,000,000 people who are mistakenly call- 
ing for the passage of this legislation, 5,000,000 people who, during 
the pendency of these different bills, have been told for the last six 
years that everything that is unsatisfactory in their condition is due 
to oleomargarine, people whose condition can not be benefited at all 
by the passage of this act, but people who believe that it can. 

I should like to ask you to forget that those people are demanding 
it. 1 should like to ask you to forget also that the people whose 
circumstances are to be injuriously affected by the passage of the act 
are protesting against it, and I should like to ask you to go back and 
simply and absolutely consider nothing else but the principle upon 
which this act is based, which we considered yesterday, that it is an 
act which pretends to be a revenue act; that as a revenue act under 
the Constitution of the United States you have a right to pass it; that 
as a revenue act, unless the real purpose of it appears too grossly" upon 
the face of the act itself, the Supreme Court of the United States would 
perhaps uphold it; but that it is not a revenue act; that every gen- 
tleman who appears here in advocacy of it says that the revenue which 
it is calculated to produce is not entitled to any consideration, but that 
it is an act simply and solely to affect competition between two legiti- 
mate articles of manufacture and trade. That is avowed by everyone. 
As such an act, as an act with that purpose, it is an act which those 
who regard the Constitution of the United States as sacred would not 
be induced to pass by any considerations of expediency or by any 
demands of selfish private interests. 

The Supreme Court may say, as they have said before, that they 
can not impugn the motives, purposes, or intentions of the legislative 
branch of the Government. But no less than the members of the 
Supreme Court have the members of Congress taken an oath to uphold 
the Constitution of the United States, and the members of Congress 
to-day who are authorized by the Constitution of the United States to 
levy taxes for the purpose of paying the debts of the United States 
and providing for the maintenance of the General Government know 
in their own consciences that they have no right to levy a tax for the 
purpose of regulating competition between different industries. Gen- 
tlemen, it does seem to me (I can not throw it away or get it out of 
my mind) that the Congress of the United States is asked absolutely 
to disregard the highest obligation which they have assumed. 

I appear here to-day as an advocate. 1 appear as an attorney. I 
ask no more belief in my statements, no more consideration for my 
argument, than is due to the statements and the argument of a paid 
attorney. But to-day, as I contemplate the possible results of this 
act, as I see the possibility of any class of our citizens or persons 
engaged in an}^ kind of trade who i3elieve that their interests in that 
trade ma}' be injuriously affected by some new rival coming time and 
time again to the Congress of the United States and asking that that 



44 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

new industry may be taxed out of existence, as 1 see what legislatioi 
of this kind is likely to lead to, it seems to me that I must throw oil 
for the time being- the character of advocate and appear Isefore 
this committee merely as a citizen, and that 1 must ask them not to 
make a precedent by which the Congress of the United States, under 
the guise of internal-revenue taxation, is legislating in order to destroy 
one industry for the benefit of another, or to affect competition between 
two industries which have both legitimate rights. 

I thank 3^ou, gentlemen, very kindly and heartily for your attention. ^ 

The Chairman. 1 may say that the committee join me in thanking 
you for the very clear and lawyer-like statement of j^our views. I 
wish to ask you one question. As I understood you, you made the 
claim, or admitted, that if this article were to be sold in its natural ' 
color it could not possibly be sold; that as to the ingredients, it might 
be known what they are; that they are all healthful and good, but that 
if left in its natural color it could not be used; that such a restriction 
would destroy the manufacture. Is that the ground? 

Mr. Gardner. That is my belief. 

Senator Money. You said something about the necessity of coloring 
butter in order that it may be sold. 

Mr, Gardner. I say that as long as there is in the market something 
which people want and which they have been accustomed to use you can 
not sell them something which they do not want and which they are 
not accustomed to use. Do not misunderstand me, please. If all butter 
was left uncolored and if all oleomargarine was left uncolored, of 
course both oleomargarine and butter would sell, and they would sell 
upon the same plane. People would still have something to put on their 
bread, although they could not get what the}^ wanted. But butter is 
not left uncolored. Butter is artificially colored yellow. The author 
of this bill insisted yesterday that that was absolutely necessary 
in order to meet the demand. I say as long as there is in the market, 
even at a higher price, or as long as there is in the market even a lower 
grade of the kind which the consumer wants, that will sell as against 
what he does not want. 

The Chairman. Your clients take the ground that not the material, 
but the color, sells the product? 

Mr. Gardner. No, sir. I beg your pardon; my clients take the [^ 
ground that both material and color sell it. They can not sell it 
without good material; they can not sell it without color. Neither one 
will sell it; it must be both. 

Senator Money. You take the same position as to white butter, too? 

Mr. Gardner. Precisely. I do not mean to say that people would 
go absolutely without white butter if the butter manufacturer would 
not give them what they wanted. But the butter manufacturer will 
give them what they want. I simply say that when the manufacturer 
of any article attempts to run counter to demand, to taste, to custom, 
he gets left. I think there is a small demand for very light colored 
butter. 

The Chairman. In some countries I have seen very light butter. 

Mr. Gardner. Precisely. 

The Chairman. It was the fashion, and it was good. 

Mr. Gardner. In some countries perhaps uncolored oleo could be 
sold. We know that in some countries practically black oleo can be 
sold and the people want it; but where the demand is for yellow, neithei 
white nor black can be sold. 



OLEOMARGARINE. . 415 

ORDER OF PROCEDURE. 

Senator Allen. Mr. Chairman, I move that the sessions of the 
committee be continuous during the holidays, to the end that the com- 
mittee may be fully prepared to report promptly on the bill upon the 
reconvening of Congress after the holiday recess. 

The Chairman. I will state that I have told parties who wish to be 
heard, and 1 have told those representing some of the Southern inter- 
ests, that they might be heard as late as the 3d of January. 

Senator Allen. I make the motion because if the report runs over 
to the middle or the latter part of January there is no possibility of 
the bill being considered at the present session of Congress. 

Senator Money. In the first place, there will be no one here during 
the holidays to hear these gentlemen except the chairman. 

The Chairman, 1 was going to say that I thought there would be a 
subcommittee here, and any members of the committee who will be 
here I will name as a subcommittee. 

Senator Money. There will not be any members of the committee 
here but yourself. 

Senator Bate. I hold in my hand some telegrams in regard to the 
matter, and other Senators I know have received similar telegrams, 
and the parties ask that they may be heard here at some time by the 
committee as late as the 15m of January. These parties are from 
Texas, Tennessee, and other States. They did not expect any hearing 
during the holida3^s. Then let us fix the very latest date. They want 
to come here as a committee or a delegation on this question. I may 
differ with them, but, notwithstanding, I think they are entitled to be 
heard. 

The Chairman. Quite a number of dispatches have been received, 
and, curiousl}^ they all seem to name the same time, as though there 
was a little concert. They name the 15th of January. But that is 
no matter. I have replied to them that it would be impossible to 
postpone the hearing as long as that date. Several Senators spoke 
to me yesterday on the subject, and I told them that I could not make 
any promise to extend the hearing after the 3d of January. 

Senator Allen. I will modify my motion and move that the hearing 
be concluded by the 10th of January. 

The Chairman. That gives almost three weeks' notice, and it strikes 
me that it is reasonable. 

Senator Bate. But the holidays intervene. 

The Chairman. But the parties can be preparing their statements. 
We have had a very good one this morning. After that time we shall 
have the appropriation bills, the army bill, and all the other measures 
pressing upon us. We do not know exactly what will be the state of 
the public business. Of course we want to treat everybody fairly, 
but it seems to me that that is the latest time. When the time comes, 
if there is good reason for it, the committee can change their view, 
\ but I think it would be unwise now to name a later time. 
1 Senator Money. In the first place, I think it is unwise to fix a day 
I at all. There ought not to be a termination to information. I do not 
think the conmiittee is likely to be too well informed upon this sub- 
ject. It is very much more important than merely the regulation of 
a competitive struggle between the manufacturers of butter and oleo- 
margarine. There are some millions of people in the United States 



46 OLEOMARGARINE. 

who can not buy butter and who can buy oleomargarine. I think we 
ought to hear all who want to be heard, if they have anything to state. 

Of course we are not to be expected to protract needlessly the ses- 
sions of the committee, but I do not think we ought to fix a time for 
reporting the bill or to terminate the hearing. The session goes off 
on the -ith of March. If the Senate considers this measure to be of 
the importance it is supposed to have by some members of the com- 
mittee, it will give us a hearing, and it is very much better that it 
should be argued out right here than on the floor of the Senate, as far 
as the speedy passage of the bill is concerned. 

Therefore I would prefer, if the Senator from Nebraska will be] 
patient, that he withdraw his proposition and let us determine about a 
day later on when we have heard further and can see what else there 
is to be heard. It is not necessary that we should agree thus far in' 
advance to stop the hearing on the 3d or on the 10th of January. 

Senator Allen. If we should undertake to hear all who wish to be- 
heard on this question we would not get through in three months.^ 
Why not have four or five or half a dozen men selected on either side 
to address the committee? 

Senator Money. When we have heard them we can then judge' 
whether we want to hear an}^ more. We ought not to shut ourselves 
out from the opportunity of being enlightened on the subject. 

Senator Allen. If we extend the hearings beyond the 10th day oi" 
January there is not the shadow of a possibility of acting upon the 
bill at this Congress. 

Senator Money. As far as that argument goes, it is not worth any- 
thing to me, for I would kill it to-day if I could. I am only talking 
for fair play for both sides. 

Senator Allen. I am talking for fair play, too. 

Senator Warren. I presume we will be able to get through entirelj 
by the 10th of January. 1 would say, however, if we should get 
along to the 9th of January, and there should be a considerable num j 
ber of the committee who wanted further light or information, we 
could extend the time. I do not want to tie my hands in the matter. 

Senator Foster. I second Senator Allen's motion. 

The Chairman. The question is upon the motion of Senator Allet' 
that the hearings be concluded by the 10th day of January. 

The motion was not agreed to; there being on a division — ayes 4: 
noes 4. 

Senator Allen. Let us have a yea-and-nay vote. 

Senator Hansbrough. I move that we close the hearings on the 3ci 
of Januar}^ 

Senator Allen. I wish it to appear of record that I made a motior 
to close the hearings on the 10th. 

The Chairman. Shall I put the motion again ? 

Senator Warren. I move that the committee adjourn. 

Senator Hansbrough. I am not inclined to be factious. 

The Chairman. Will you change your vote? 

Senator Hansbrough. I am opposed to extending the hearings 
beyond a reasonable length of time, because we can get all the infor 
mation we may require out of the hearings before the House committee, 

The Chairman. It is moved that the committee adjourn until halJ! 
past 10 o'clock to-morrow. 

Mr. Tillinghast. Do I understand that after to-morrow the hea 
ings will adjourn until the 3d of January? 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 47 

The Chairman. No; that is not decided. 

The motion was agreed to; and (at 12 o'clock and 5 minutes p. m.) 
the committee adjourned until to-morrow, Friday, December 21, 1'JOO, 
hlatlO.SOa. m. 



Friday, Decemher 21, 1900. 
The committee met at 10.30 a. m. 

Present: Senators Proctor (chairman), Hansbrough, Warren, Bate, 
Money, and Heitfeld. Also Hon. William M. Springer, of Spring- 
Held, 111., representing the National Live Stock Association; Frank W. 
Tillinghast, representing the Vermont Manufacturing Company, of 
C.Providence, R. I.; Charles E. Schell, representing the Ohio Butter- 
(jiue Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio; W. E. Miller, representing the 
Armour Packing Company, of Kansas City, Mo.; John C. McCoy, of 
.i Kansas City, Mo.; G. M. Walden, President of the Kansas City Live 
! Stock Exchange; Philip E. Mullen, of Kansas City, Mo., representing 
dthe Armour Packing Company; II. H. Armstrong, of Washington, 
jD. C, representing the Armour Packing Company, and others. 
J "The Chairman. Who wants to be heard this morning? 
J Mr. Miller. Mr. Chairman, I represent the Armour Packing Com 
'pany, of Kansas City. 

\ Senator Hansbrough. As a manufacturer ? 
y Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. You may proceed, Mr. Miller. 

STATEMENT OF W. E. MILLEE. 

Mr. Miller. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee: Our 
iiobject in asking for a hearing before this honorable committee to-day 
'liis to make a final appeal to you and members of the Senate not to kill 
the butterine industry by passing the Grout bill. We shall endeavor 
^not to reiterate anything given in our testimony before the Agricul- 
tural Committee of the House, which we ask yon to consider seriously, 
together with what we present to-day. 

" The butterine business is one of the valuable branches of our pack- 
ing house, in which we have thousands of dollars invested, and have 
■ispent years of valuable time in placing it where it is to-day. We 
desire to impress upon this committee that manufacturers can not 
Ijiexist under the Grout bill. In the first place, uncolored butterine is 
'ilpractically unsalable. It is unsightly and does not appeal to the eye 
[|!of even the poor man. 

: This product has a creamy appearance, and although the laws in 

I many States legalize its sale, yet when we endeavored to sell it in two 

'States, viz, Iowa and California, we had to defend our dealers in suits 

i brought by the dairy commissioner and prove that it was not artifi- 

! dally colored, the slight color coming from the materials. After hav- 

I ing won these cases in the lower courts, we were assured that such 

persecution would continue as long as we offered uncolored butterine. 

Therefore we gave up these States altogether. In our opinion, a large 

•number of States under the Grout bill would take similar action. The 

intention of the dairyman is not to regulate the sale of this product, 

but to kill the industry, both on colored and uncolored butterine. 

It is unreasonable to suppose that we could pay 8 cents additional 
tax and sell this product. The main object which prompts a man to 



48 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 



bu}^ butterine is because it is just as ^ood and a great deal cheaperJ 
than butter. One grade of butterine we make in our factory costs 14^ 
cents a pound; add to this 8 cents additional tax, and you bring it to] 
within 3 cents of the cost of Elgin creamery. Butterine is user^ 
almost exclusively by the poorer class of people. It retails all ove 
the West at from'l2| to 15 cents a pound for low grade, and 18 to 2< 
cents a pound for high grade. We speak of the West because we are 
more familiar with that section. 

The Chairinian. What makes the difference in the grades? 

Mr. Miller. There is a difference in the materials used. In some 
grades we put more creamery butter than we do in others. 

The Chairman. That is the main difference, is it — the quantity o: 
butter that is put in ? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. 

Instead of killing our industry, we are perfectly willing that you 
should enact any law whatsoever which will prevent fraud, providing the 
tax is not increased or the privilege denied us of making it attractive 
in appearance. We favor the Wadsworth or the substitute bill, which 
we considered in the House, or any other ])ill regulating the marking 
or branding of our product, so that it can not be sold for butter, an' 
we will assist the Internal-Revenue Department in enforcing same to 
the letter. 

At this juncture we would like to introduce as evidence an articl 
from Experiment Station Record, United States Department of Agri 
culture, on the nutritive value of oleomargarine: 

"The nutritive value of margarin compared with butter 
E. Bertarelli {Biv. Ig. e San. Fabb., 9 {1898), Ms. U, pp. 538-5^5; 
16, pp. 570-579). — Three experiments with healthy men are reported 
in which the value of margarin and butter was tested when consumed 
as part of a simple mixed diet. In one experiment the value of a mix 
ture of olive oil and colza oil, which is commonly used in Italy in th( 
neighborhood of Turin, was also tested. The author himself was the sub 
ject of one of the tests. He was 24 years old. The subjects of th 
other tests were 2 laboratory servants, one 27 years old, the other 32 
years old. The coefficients of digestibility and the balance of income 
and outgo of nitrogen in the different experiments were as follows: 

Digestion experiments with margarin, butter, and oil. 



Time. 



Coefficients of digestibility. 



Protein. 



Fat. 



Carbo- 
hydrates. 



Nitrogen. 



In In In 
food, urine, feces. 



Gain. 



Laboratory servant, P. G.: 500 gm. 
white bread , 270 gm. veal , 70 gm. 
butter, iSU-iiOO cc. wine 

Laboratory servant, P. G. : 500 gm. 
white bread, 250 gm. veal, 70 
gm. margarin, 250-300 cc. wine. 

Author: 450 gm. white bread, 250 
gm. meat, 70 gm. butter 

Author: 450 gm. white bread, 250 
gm. meat, 70 gm. margarin 

Laboratory servant, F. D. : 824 gm. 
white bread, 250 gm. meat, 61.6 
gm. butter , 

Laboratory servant, F. I).: 859 gm. 
white bread, 250 gm. meat, 61.6 
gm. margarin 

Laboratory servant, F D.: 910 gm. 
white bread. 250 gm. meat, 61.6 
gm. olive and colza oils 



Days. 

5 

5 
6 
6 

5 

5 

5 



Per cent. 
81.75 

79.50 

81.85 
77.80 

85. 32 

82. 92 

83.27 



Per cent. Per cent. 
92. 67 97. 25 



93.90 
94. 25 
93.78 

95. 80 

95. 33 

95.82 



97.07 
97.35 
96.70 

97. 38 

97. 24 

97. 56 



0ms. 

15.7 

15.7 
13.5 
13.5 

16.5 

16.9 



Gins. 

9.6 

10.3 
10.1 
9.6 

13.2 

12.5 



Gins. 

2.6 

3.2 
2.6 
3.1 

2.9 

3.4 

3.5 



Gms. 
3. 
2, 



OLEOMARGARINE. 49 

'"The principal conclusions follow: When properly prepared, mar- 
garin ditfer.s but little from natural butter in chemical and physical 
properties. On an average 93.5 to 96 per cent of fat was assimilated 
when margarin was consumed and 94: to 96 per cent when butter formed 
part of the diet. The moderate use of margarin did not cause any dis- 
turbance of the digestive tract." 

I also submit the report of the Illinois live-stock commission inves- 
tigation regarding tuberculosis. It is as follows: 

"We have before us the fourteenth annual report of the State board 
of live-stock commissioners for the year ending October 31, 1899, and 
in addition there is a bulletin devoted to the question of tuberculosis 
and the tuberculin test, containing a full statement of every tuberculin 
test conducted by the board during the year. In connection therewith 
also excerpts from the writings of scientific investigators with rela- 
tion to the nature of tuberculosis, its contagion and methods of trans- 
mission. It also contains the report of the College of Physicians and 
Surgeons of Chicago upon the milk taken from 41 cows that had reacted 
under the tuberculin test, with a view of ascertaining what percentage 
of the milks under investigation contained or transmitted tubercule 
bacilli. The report shows that tuberculo bacillio were found to exist 
in the milk of 16 different animals out of the 41, or over 39 per cent. 
The conclusions of the scientific investigators in charge of this experi- 
ment were as follows : 

"First. Prolonged searching of the concentrated milk from cows 
showing tuberculosis, but with sound udders, will reveal bacilli in 
about 35 per cent of the cases, 

' 'Second. Bacilli are found with about equal frequency in the sediment 
and in the cream. 

"Third. This milk, when concentrated, will produce tuberculosis in 
the guinea pig in about 25 per cent of the cases. 

"Fourth. Not much dependence can be put on the physical appearance 
of the milk in cases where the udder is not demonstrably involved. 

"Fifth. While the large number of cases in which pus cells were found 
in the milk would indicate that there was beginning involvement of the 
udder, there is no question but what the search for lesions in these 
udders was far more careful than will ever be possible on the living 
cow, and therefore the udder appearances can not be accepted as a safe 
guide. 

"The report also shows that during the period from May 17 to Novem- 
ber 1, 1899, the board tested with tuberculin 3,651 dairy and breeding 
cattle of all ages, of which number 500, or 15.32 per cent, were con- 
demned or destroyed and 41 were isolated or held for retest. 

"In several cases which the board investigated there was positive 
proof of the transmission of the disease through the milk to the calves. 
The board also gives an account of the official investigation and test of 
the herd of Mr. H. B. Gurler, of De Kalb, 111, 

''■He began testing for tuberculosis in 1895, and all the cattle that 
reacted were destro3'cd and the premises were thoroughly disiiifected. 
Since that date the dairy has been conducted on strictly sanitary regu- 
lations; and, also, animals for the dairy are tested hy the tuberculin test 
and all that successfully passed the test were admitted to his herd. 
Tests were also carried on during the years 1896, 189T, 1898, and 1899. 
None of them were found to be afi'ected, excepting during the 1899 test 
some calves were found to be affected. As there were no other aui- 
S. Rep. 2043 4 



50 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 



mals that responded to the test the question was how those calves had 
been affected, and it was found that they had been fed on milk pro- 
cured from a near-by creamery, and the inference was that the creamery 
milk was the cause of the indication. 

"The same cause apparently was found in the case of calves at the 
Kane County almshouse farm, where none of them responded to the 
test, neither of the older cows or the young, excepting six yearlings 
and one yearling bull, and upon the post-mortem examination after the 
test they were found to be diseased. It was proved by a letter from 
the superintendent, Mr. Keyes, that these calves had been fed on milk 
that had been bought at a butter factory." 

I also submit resolutions against farther legislation on Ijutterine, 
which are not in the records of the proceedings before the House. 

NEW YORK BUTTER MARKET. 

Receipts of butter and cheese for six days ending December 11, 1900. 



Cheese. 



Wednesday 

Thursday 

Friday 

Saturday 

Monday 

Tuesday , 

Total six days 

Last ■vveclc, six days 

Same week last year 

Receipts since ISIay 1 

Receipts same time last year 



Packages. 
4,120 
3,206 
5, 357 
3, 463 
7, 297 
10, 083 


Boxes. 
3,066 
7, 015 
5, 112 
5,258 
3, 005 
12, 483 


33, 526 

29, 363 

25,949 

1,376,189 

1,307,365 


35,939 

30, 173 

18,853 

1 , 148, 985 

968,566 



Senator Bate. How many pounds are there in a package 'i 

Mr. Miller. It is supposed to be 60 pounds. The creameries always 
estimate that a package is a tub of 60 pounds. 

We contend that the manufacturers of butter do not need protection. 
AVe regret that it is impossible to get the complete figures on the amount 
of butter produced in the United States. From reports which are 
made public the business is prosperous and increasing. Reports from 
both Missouri and Kansas show a good increase over last year. The 
following, from the New York Produce Review and American Cream- 
ery of Deceml)er 12, show the healthy condition of that market: 

"Conditions affecting the general market have not changed materi- 
ally since our last review, except that we have had an increase of fully 
4,000 packages in the week's receipts. The good prices ruling here 
have attracted a larger part of current productions, and several car- 
loads of storage butter have come forward from Western refrigerators. 
On the whole, trade has been quieter. Consumption has been lessened 
by the full prices asked h\ retailers, and the distribution to out-of-town 
buyers has been quite moderate. This has brought the supply and 
demand closer together and convinced operators that the safety of the 
market lies in very conservative action until after the holidays. Of 
course much depends on the available supply. We have probably 
reached the lowest point of production, and in some sections of the 
country the make is on the increase. Beside this, the home demand is 
lighter, farmers' rolls being more plenty and of better quality, and 
these are going to a good deal of the trade in the local towns and to the 



OLEOMARGARIlsrE. 51 

patrons of the creameries; this results in larger shipments of the fresh 
product. Then, too, there is still a large stock of refrigerator butter 
not only here but at other storage centers, and holders feel that the 
time has come for disposing of as many of these goods as possible. 
Naturally, the freezer butter tills a large place because of the difference 
in price, and this is urged as a reason why no further advance should be 
attempted. In view of the conditions prevailing, we regard our market 
as quite high enough for safety." 

I will also read the following from the Elgin Dairy Report, D. W. 
Willson, editor, under date of November 15, 1900, indicating increased 
business in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, which are 
the four largest butter markets in the United States. The Elgin Dairy 
Report is supposed to be the organ of the creamery people in Illinois. 
This is an article on the increased consumption of butter. It says: 

""Inquiry in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Boston indicates 
an increased consumption of butter by the people who depend upon 
those sources of supply. The reason given for this increased con- 
sumption varies according to the opinion of parties giving the same. 

'"'The New York people claim that the increase in population and 
the better class of goods arriving on the market and the better condi- 
tions prevailing among mechanics and working people has increased 
the consumption of butter in their city. 

" Boston people Hny about the same thing. However, whatever the 
cause may be, it is a gratifying result to all interested in the developing 
and upbuilding of the dair}^ industr}'. We have contended for many 
3^ears that improvement in the quality of butter placed upon the mar- 
ket will induce greater consumption. We all know that if on our own 
tables or on the tables of hotels or boarding houses the butter is good 
we will use more than if the butter is poor. 

" We call attention to the readers of the Report to this increased 
consumption as reported by parties who are handling the goods, that 
it may be an inducement to the makers to put more skill and more 
care into the manufacture of their goods. While the proportion of 
good butter has increased during the past ten years, it is not yet what 
it should be. The reason of this large proportion of medium to poor 
Initter placed upon the market is a problem that the education and 
enlightenment that has been promulgated through the dairy press and 
the dairy associations has not solved." 

Mr. Chairman, good butter needs no legislation to give it a price. 
Good oleomargarine asks no legislation against chemically mixed and 
chemically purified butter. The makers of butter and the makers of 
oleomargarine ought to be equal before the law. Each industry should 
thrive or decay because of its own merit or demerit. Those who wish 
to bu}^ oleomargarine because it is as wholesome and cheaper than 
butter should be free to do so. The dairymen have obtained protec- 
tion against oleomargarine interests because they are more numerous. 
They are protected at the expense of the people, not because they are 
more deserving, l)ut because they are stronger. It is a system of 
might against right, which, if extended, will soon deprive honest 
American citizens of their liberty or hope for constitutional redress. 

The prejudice of the masses comes from the jealousy of the farmer. 
Because of the fear that he might be injured by the production of oleo- 
margarine, the press of this coimtry have given columns to the conten- 
tious of the agricultural interests whenever its representati^•es went to 



52 OLEOMARGARINE. 

State capitals for the purpose of wiping- out the oleo side and fostering 
its own, and on few occasions has it said a friendly word for oleomar- 
garine. Public opinion, biased by this ex-parte work of the press, 
falls into line, and casting upon it eyes of scorn, pins its faith upon 
butter. No unprejudiced person can view our establishment and fail 
to notice one absolute characteristic, cleanliness — such cleanliness that 
the far-famed Holland housewife is put to shame. No one can visit 
the so-called dairies that dot the rural districts and fail to note that 
cleanliness is not a characteristic. Were the oleomargarine manufac- 
turers, the packers, the cattlemen, and the cotton-seed oil producers 
animated ]\v the same strong feeling of self-interest which seems to 
permeate the very being of our farmer friends, and did we use our 
influence with the press of the country, the masses would gain an 
entirely different view. 

Warner Miller, of New York, who was the champion of the butter 
interests when the tax of 2 cents a pound was put on butterine, some 
time afterwards visited Chicago and was incidentally taken through 
our butterine factory, which was then in operation. He had never 
seen butterine made, but the New York dairymen had told him what 
filthy, vile stuff it was. We took special pains to show him every 
detail of its manufacture, and when he had comprehended it all, espe- 
cially its purity and cleanliness of manufacture, he was introduced to 
Mr. P. D. Armour. Senator Miller understood the general conspiracy 
of which he was the deluded victim, and he confessed to Mr. Armour 
that if he had known as much about butterine the year before he would 
have fought such a measure instead of being its champion. 

Our product has been so maliciously misrepresented that many who 
are opposed to it now might also change their views upon close investi- 
gation, as did Senator Miller. Butterine is pure, wholesome, and 
economical; therefore we appeal to you in the name of justice, equity, 
and right that you allow us to exist under the present law or under 
one similar to the Wadsworth or substitute measure discussed in the 
House. 

Just here I would like to call the attention of the comuiittee to the 
methods pursued by the so-called National Dairy Association. They 
found it impossible to win by fair, honest competition. Therefore 
they formed a political organization with Boss Knight, who dictated 
the policy, and also dictated who should come to Congress. Anyone 
w^ho would not agree to vote for the Grout bill was boycotted, maligned, 
and abused. All sorts of vile literature was sent out from Chicago by 
Boss Knight into the district in which the candidate was located. Ask 
Congressman Wadsworth, of New York, or Long, of Kansas, or 
Cowherd, of Kansas City, something about this. 

I will say just here that Congressman Cowherd, from our district, 
was the nominee on the Democratic side, and Brown on the Republican 
side. 

About two weeks before the election a committee from the Produce 
Exchange visited Mr. Cowherd and asked him how he stood on the 
Grout bill. He said he was against it and would vote against it. They 
also visited Mr. Brown, and Mr. Brown tacitly gave them to understand 
that he would vote for the bill. Of course the friends of Mr. Cowherd 
in Kansas City did not think it would be policy for him to favor this 
bill, as there are six or eight packing houses located there, se^'eral of 
them manufacturing butterine. Therefore he did not think it was in 



OLEOMARGAKINE. 53 

his interest to support the bill. These dairy people sent out commit- 
tees in all the precincts and all this territory, and did all sorts of things 
to try to defeat him. 

The same thing is true of Congressman Long. Any one not believ- 
ing ni}' statement can consult these three men and find that this was the 
truth. 

Ail sorts of vile literature was sent out through the district, and I 
am told that it all emanated from Boss Knight, of Chicago. In fact, 
most of the literature which Congressmen and Senators have been flooded 
with emanated from one source. They are printed and the language 
of each is the same. I understand that some postal cards have been 
sent here which were originally sent out by Knight asking for the sig- 
natures of four or five men in the neighborhood. That one party would 
sign for four or five men, and these cards would be sent here to Con- 
gressmen and Senators. 

We feel just this way: Whenever we have got to organize a political 
association to defend our product, the Armour Packing Company, for 
one, will go out of business. We can use our factory for some other 
part of our business. 

I should like to read these resolutions 

The Chairman. Before doing so let me ask you a question: Can 
this difi'erence in the two grades of butterinebe detected by the taste? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Readily? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. The better grades have, of course, more but- 
ter flavor than the cheaper grades. 

Senator Bate. Because you put in more butter? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir; butter and cream. 

The Chairman. I thought it was claimed that it could not be detected 
from the best daily butter anyway. 

Mr. Miller. The best grades you can not tell from the best grades 
of butter. 

The Chairman. You could ? 

Mr. Miller. 1 could. But it would be very hard for anyone to 
detect the difference between the lower grades and the good grades of 
dairy butter. 

Senator Hansbrough. It requires a cultivated taste, does it not? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir; for an inexperienced person it would be very 
hard to distinguish the diflerence. 

Senator Hansbrough. So a low grade could be palmed ofl" on an 
inexperienced or tasteless person as a high grade? 

Mr. Miller. Yes; it is very hard to distinguish between the two. 

The Chairman. What do you say is the difference in price between 
these two grades of butterine? 

Mr, Miller. I simply mentioned one grade. I said we manufac- 
tured one grade that costs us about 14 cents. 

The Chairman. That is the wholesale price? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. 

Senator Bate. That is the lowest grade? 

The Chairman. It is a higher grade. 

Mr. Miller. That is one of the highest grades we make. We have 
a lower grade that costs a little less than that. 

The Chairman. How much less? 

Mr. Miller. Well, a cent and a half to two cents. 



54 OLEOMAEGAEINE. 

Senator Bate. But to increase the tax on it to 8 cents would take it 
practically out of the market? 

Mr. Miller. It would make it practically unsalable. 

Mr. Springer, What percentage of pure butter do 3'ou put in oleo- 
margarine ? 

Mr. Miller. That varies — 25 to 30 per cent. 

Mr. Springer. What are the other ingredients? 

Mr. Miller. Oleo oil, neutral lard, coloring. 

Senator Bate. What coloring do you use? 

Mr. Miller. We use coloring that is manufactured by the Wells- 
Richardson Company, of Burlington, Vt. That is coloring that is sold 
quite universally over the United States. 

Senator Bate. What is the technical name of it? 

Mr. Miller. I do not know the composition of it. We simply buy 
it as improved l)utter coloring. Their process, I think, is secret. I 
do not think they give to the public the formula for making it. 

Senator Hansbrough. That is purchased also by dairymen? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. 

Senator Hansbrough. It is the same coloring matter that is used by 
dairymen ? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. I would sa}^ just here that the Creamery 
Package Company have offices in all the large cities in the United 
States, and 

Senator Bate. Where is the head of that establishment? 

Mr. Miller. In Chicago. They have offices all over the United 
States, and of course they supply the creamery men as well as the 
l)utterine manufacturers. I asked their manager in Kansas City one 
day what coloring he handled, and he said that he handled several 
grades, but he had no call for any but the Wells-Richardson improved 
butter coloring, and that was used exclusively by the butter makers as 
well as by the butterine manufacturers. 

Mr. Springer. Let me ask a question. Do you know whether the 
manufacturers of creamery butter use oleo or neutral lard in their 
manufacture of butter? 

Mr. Miller. I could not say as to that. I know that we would 
refuse to sell a creamery any materials that they would tiy to mix 
with creamery butter. We would not care to be a party to a fraud of 
that kind. 

The Chairman. What grade of butter would be used in the best 
quality of butterine? 

Mr. Miller. The very best creamery butter that we can buy. 

The Chairman. Because a less quantity of it will answer? 

Mr. Miller. Of course it is to give it a fine flavor. I would say 
just here that it has been a fact that the manufacturers for years have 
endeavored to put the very best materials in their butterine; not the 
cheapest, but the very best they could get. We can not use any of 
the baser fats of the steer in the manufacture of oleo oil, because it 
would give it a rank, tallowy taste. We use the very choicest fats of 
the beef. 

Senator Proctor. Can not the cheaper lower grades of fats be puri- 
fied so as to conceal the grade? 

Mr. Miller. They are perfectly pure, but of course they have a 
very tallowy taste. 

The Chairman. And that taste can not be corrected^ 



OLE OM AKGARINE . 5 5 

Mr. MiLLEE. No; not without injuring- the quality of the oil. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Do } ou know anything- about the use of paraffin 
in the making of oleo? 

Ml'. Miller. As I stated before the House, that is unreasonable. 
I can not see how any sane man could believe that for a minute if he 
ever investigated the question. I investigated this fact last winter. 
Good paraffin costs 14 cents a pound, and I can not see any object in 
putting- it in butterine. It would not give it any flavor; it would not 
add to the texture; and we can get materials that do not cost us 14 
cents a pound to put in the product. Therefore I can not see any 
object whatever in using it. I have never heard but one test made, 
and that was made in New York — the one that the dairy people have 
made so much stock of — and 1 expect that that sample was prepared by 
some dairyman. If there was any object to be accomplished, if we 
could decrease the cost of our butterine, if we could improve the 
flavor in any way by using paraffin, some unscrupulous manufacturer 
might do it, but there is no reason for it. There is nothing that 
would be gained by using it. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Then, as a matter of fact, in your establishment 
at least you know positivel}'^ that it is not used? 

Mr. Miller. We have never had a pound of paraffin in our factory. 

Senator Warren. Are there any other factories that you either 
know or suspect of using it? 

Mr. Miller. None whatever. Last winter, when that question 
came up, I got a sample of butterine from eveiy manufacturer in the 
United States, and I had our chemist examine the samples for paraffin, 
and he said he found no trace of it. 

Senator Hansbrough. You do not know of any creameries which 
use butterine or oleomargarine in connection with their product? 

Mr. Miller. Well, it has been currently reported that they did, 
but I do not know of any instance. 

Senator Hansbrough. Current report, of course, is not very good 
testimony. 

Mr. Miller. No. 

Senator Bate. Tell us what are the proportions of the elements, the 
ingredients with which you make j^our material, butterine. 

Mr. Miller. Of course those are trade secrets, more or less. 

Senator Bate. I do not want you to state the secrets, but I wish to 
know how much butter and how much cream you use in manufacturing 
your product. 

The Chairman. Are j^ou not required under the internal-revenue 
laws to state the ingredients? 

Mr. Miller. Of course, but it is given collectively. 

Senator Warren. It is given in the report of the Commissioner of 
Internal Revenue, and is in the evidence taken before the House as it 
came from the Internal-Revenue Department. 

Senator Hansbrough. The specific ingredients? 

Mr. ]\liLLER. Yes, sir. 

Senator Bate. Then what objection is there to giving them? 

Senator Warren. He may not be authorized to give it, but it is 
important that some one should file it. 

Mr. Miller. Such a paper was filed, giving all the materials used 
in all the factories. That would be the average for all the factories. 

Senator Bate. You speak of that which was given in the House? 



56 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr, Miller, Yes, sir. 

Senator Bate, Do you know in whose testimony it will be found? 

Senator Warren. You will find it more quickly by looking for the 
table. It is tabulated matter. 

Mr, Miller, There was a resolution passed by the House calling 
on the Secretary of the Treasury to give the materials used for the 
past year in butterine. You will lind that given by the Secretary of 
the Treasury. It was not in the testimony given by the manufacturers. 

Senator Bate. But when you are silent upon the subject, it may 
create the impression that you have a different formula from what is 
given there. 

Mr, Miller. None whatever. . I will say that it ranges about this 
way: We use about 35 per cent, or say 30 per cent, of oleo oil and 30 
per cent of neutral. The balance would be cream, butter, and salt. 

Mr, TiLLiNGHAST. Cotton-sced oil? 

Mr. Miller, Cotton-seed oil in the cheaper grades. 

Senator Bate. What about beef fat? 

Mr, Miller. That is oleo oil. Oleo oil comes from beef. 

Senator Bate, Do you mix the fat from lard and the fat from beef? 

Mr, Miller, Those are all churned together. 

The Chairman, Those are the later products of the lard and tallow ? 

Mr, Miller, Yes, sir. 

Senator Bate, Do you use steam in pressing them, or how do you 
press them? 

Mr, Miller, The materials? 

Senator Bate, Yes, sir. 

Mr, Miller, They are all heated to a temperature of about 155 to 
160 degrees. 

Senator Bate, Fahrenheit? 

Mr, Miller. Yes, sir. Professor Wiley, the Chief Chemist of the 
Agricultural Department, made a statement before the House com- 
mittee to the effect that this temperature is sufficient to kill any germs 
whatever that might be in these materials. 

The Chairman, What do you use to harden them, to make them 
solid ? 

Mr. Miller, The oil is heated to a temperature of about 155 or 160 
degrees. ^ Then it is placed in presses, and we get two products from 
it, oleo oil and stearin. Stearin is used in the manufacture of candles 
We do not use stearin at all in the manufacture of butterine. 

The Chairman. The latter oils are tallow and lard ? I would not 
suppose that they would have the consistency, that is, they would not 
be solid enough to stand for hard butter, and I understand that oleo 
keeps well in a hot climate. Is there not something used to harden it? 

Mr. Miller. All these materials are churned together, and when 
taken from the churn they are in a liquid form. It is run into vats 
filled with either ice-cold water or cracked ice, and after it has been 
stirred for some time it congeals. 

The Chairman, And remains solid? 

Mr, Miller. Yes, sir. 

Senator Bate, And then it is put in a mold? 

Mr, Miller, Yes, sir; it is then placed in tubs and made in prints 
and rolls. 

This is a petition from the South St, Paul Live Stock Exchange: 

"To the honorable the Senate and the House of Representatives of 
the United States: 



OLEOMAKGAKINE. 57 

"Your petitioner, the South St. Paul Live Stock Exchange, respect- 
fully represents to your honorable body that it is an association of live- 
stock dealers engaged in buying and selling, feeding and shipping, and 
slaughtering live stock, and was organized, among other things, for the 
purpose of promoting the best interests of the live-stock industry of 
the Northwest, jealously guarding the interests of the producer and 
consumer alike. 

"Your petitioner, in behalf of its constituency, desires to enter its 
emphatic protest against the enactment of House bill No. 6, introduced 
by Mr. Tawney, providing for a tax on the manufacture and sale of 
oleomargarine. In support of this protest, a few of the man}^ reasons 
that might be mentioned are hereinafter set forth," 

I will say just here that this petition was drawn when the former 
bill, the Tawney bill, was before the House more prominently than 
the Grout bill. That bill was practically the same as the Grout bill, 
and the petition would of course apply to any further legislation on 
butterine. 

The CiiAiRiNiAN. That we will print with the rest. 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. There is no need to read it unless you care to do so. 

Mr. Miller. Very well, if the committee would not like to hear it. 

Senator Bate. I think that 3^ou had better read it. 

Mr. Miller. All right. The petition proceeds: 

" The measure is a species of class legislation of the most dangerous 
kind, calculated to build up one industry at the expense of another 
equally as important. It seeks to impose an unjust, uncalled-for, and 
unwarranted burden upon one of the principal commercial industries 
of the country. Manufacturers can not assume this added burden and 
continue to sell their product in competition with butter. The passage 
of this measure would throttle competition, render useless the immense 
establishments erected at a great expense for the manufacture of oleo- 
margarine, deprive thousands of employees of the opportunity to gain 
a livelihood, and deny the people, and especially the working people, 
a wholesome article of diet. 

"The butter fat of an average beef animal for the purpose of man- 
ufacturing oleomargarine is worth from $3 to $4 per head more than 
before the advent of oleomargarine. This has increased the value of 
the beef steer and consequently to the profit of the producer. 

" To legislate this article of commerce out of existence, as the pas- 
sage of this law would surel}^ do, would compel slaughterers to use 
this fat for tallow, and depreciate the market value of beef cattle of 
this country $3 to $4 per head, which would entail a loss on the 
producer of this country of millions and millions of dollars. 

"The use of this fat for the purpose set forth is an encouragement to 
the producer to improve his herd and raise a class of thoroughbred cat- 
tle capable of carrying the fat, and thus resulting in a benefit to all. 

" The rights and privileges of the producers of beef cattle should be 
as well respected as those of others, and as they are the beneficiaries 
in the manufacture of this wholesome article of food the}^ should not 
be burdened with unnecessary special taxes levied avowedly for the 
purpose of prohibiting its production. 

"The product of the beef steer should receive at the hands of Con- 
gress no greater exactions than are imposed on competing food prod- 
ucts. The manufacture and sale of oleomargarine is already surrounded 



58 OLEOMAKGARINE. 

with numerous safeguards which Congress in its wisdom has seen fit 
to provide. 

"Experience has taught us that it is just what a large majority of the 
people in this country want, and in behalf of the producers and con- 
sumers of the great Northwest we do solemn]}^ protest against the 
enactment of legislation calculated to ruin a great industr}^ 

"Charles L. Haas, 
^'President South St. Paul Live Stock Exchange. 

"H. B. Carroll, 
" Secretary South St. Paul Live Stock Exchange.'''' 

These are resolutions passed by the Texas Cotton-Seed Crushers' 
Association: 

"Dear Sir: At a meeting of the Cotton-Seed Crushers' Association, 
held in Dallas on Tuesday, November 14, 1899, T. P. Sullivan, of Jef- 
ferson; R. K. Erwin, of Waxahachie; W. R. Moore, of Ardmore, Ind. T., 
and Robert Gibson, secretary, of Dallas, were appointed a committee 
to draft resolutions expressive of the sense of the meeting on the 
matters discussed. The resolutions as submitted were unanimously 
adopted, and are as follows: 

"Marion Sansom, Chairman: 

"The undersigned committee appointed ))y you beg leave to submit 
the following preamble and resolutions: 

"Whereas the line of industrial business represented by this asso- 
ciation is coextensive with the entire area of the cotton cultivated zone 
of our Southern States, and in conjunction with cotton in its various 
uses, represents the wealth of the South; and 

"Whereas Texas represents over 30 per cent of the cotton and cot- 
ton seed annually produced in the United States, any embargo placed 
b}^ legislation on the growth and development of our industry is detri- 
mental to the vast interests committed to our care. It is therefore 
of most vital necessity that all avenues leading to the sale and con- 
sumption of our cotton-oil products should be free and unrestricted, 
and inasmuch as cotton oil is used to a large extent in the manufac- 
ture of butterine, which is a most wholesome and healthful substitute 
for butter; and 

W^hereas a tax at present exists of 2 cents per pound on the manu- 
facture of this most healthful article of food, and that it is contem- 
plated to introduce at the next session of Congress an increased tax of 
10 cents per pound on same: It is, therefore, 

''''Resolved., That this association enter its protest against the existing 
tax of 2 cents per pound on butterine and ask for its abrogation and 
repeal, and against the introduction or adoption of any future tax on 
same as an article of food, as it directly affects our great industry both 
at home and on the continent of Europe, where a cheap and wholesome 
article of food, such as butterine, is appreciated, 

''^Resolved., That we believe the imposition of a special tax of this 
nature is class legislation and should be combated by all the means at 
our command, and that our Senators and Representatives in Congress 
are hereby requested to give us all the necessary aid in this behalf; 
and it is further 

^''Resolved., That the secretary of this association transmit a copy of 
these resolutions to each cotton-oil mill in the South, with the request 



OLEOMAKGAKINE. 59 

that they interest their Senators and Representatives therein, and also 
to our Senators and Representatives in Congress from Texas. 

"T. P. Sullivan, Chairman^ Jefferson^ Tex. 

"R. K. Erwin, Waxahachie^ Tex. 

"W. R. Moore, Ardmore, Tnd. T. 

"Robert Gibson, Secretary.. Dallas., Tex.'''' 

Senator Warren. May I ask a question at that point? You are 
exporting oleomargarine to some extent? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. 

Senator Warren. Can you give us some idea of the percentage of 
the total amount manufactured that is exported ? 

Mr. Miller. About 3,000,000 pounds were exported last year. 

Senator Proctor. Out of what quantity ? 

Mr. Miller. Out of 107,000,000 pounds. 

Senator Bate. Where does it go ? 

Mr. Miller. Most of it to southern tropical climates. It is sold 
in countries where the climate is too warm to permit butter to keep. 
We can pack butterine in hermetically sealed tins, and it will keep for 
two or three j^ears perfectly sweet. 

Senator Warren. Have you been exporting it right along? 

Mr. Miller. We have been doing some export business for the last 
few years. 

Senator Warren. Is that business growing or is it not growing ? 

Mr. Miller. It is not growing very rapidly. The territory, of 
course, is limited. 

Mr. Springer. Do you get a rebate of the tax when 3^011 export it? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. 

Senator Warren. I wish to ask another question which is not in 
connection with that point. 

Mr. Miller. All right. 

Senator Warren. Have you ever given the matter any attention as 
to the sensibility of the product which you manufacture and that of 
butter in taking in the odors of impurities that are surrounding it; for 
instance, in some close mining camp or outpost. Butter, as we all 
know, takes on any odor that ma}^ be existing and becomes rancid 
very quickly from exposure. Do you claim that oleomargarine is 
more hardy or less so ? 

Mr. Miller. It is much more so. It will, perhaps, take up for- 
eign odors. For instance, if you ship a tub of butterine in a car of 
oranges, of course, by the time the butterine reaches its destination it 
will taste like oranges instead of butterine; but it will keep much 
longer than butter. You can put a package of butterine in a room and 
let it sta}' there for three or four months, and it will be perfectly sweet. 
It never gets rancid. It may have lost the butter flavor, but it is still 
sweet. 

The Chairman. How about kerosene? Does not that taint it? 

Mr. Miller. Oh, yes, sir. 

The Chairman. And veiy quickly. I suppose. It will taint either 
butter or butterine. 

Senator Bate. What do you mean by the rebate 3"ou were asked 
about ? 

Mr. Miller. We pay 2 cents a pound tax, j^ou understand, on domes- 
tic goods. Of course, in case we ship out of the countiy we get the 2 
cents a pound back. 



60 OLEOMAKGARINE. 

Senator Bate. On what principle — the reciprocity treaty ? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. It is a provision in the original oleomargarine act. 

Mr. Miller. It is in the original oleomargaine act of 1886. 

Senator Bate. You get a rebate under that act^ 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir; it is simply a drawbacii of 2 cents a pound. 

Senator Bate. Then, in point of fact, j^ou pay no tax on it? You 
get the tax back? 

Mr. Miller. No, sir; we pay no tax on the export. 

Senator Bate. And you pay a tax of 2 cents a pound on what _you 
sell here? 

Mr. Miller. On all that is sold for domestic use. 

Senator Bate. But you do not have to do that on exports? 

Mr. MiLi.ER. No, sir. 

Senator Warren. It is the reverse of the ordinary tariff. 

Mr. Miller. As a matter of fact, it is a fine of 2 cents imposed by 
the daily interests on the article sold here, while when exported it 
does not interfere with the dairy interests and we get a rebate. 

Senator Bate. The law is more lenient to the man who lives abroad 
than at home. 

Mr. Springer. It is the same as the internal-revenue tax on whisky. 
That tax is taken off of whisky when it is exported. 

Mr. Miller. This is a resolution passed by the Sioux Cit}^ Live 
Stock Exchange: 

"Whereas a bill has been introduced in the House of Representa- 
tives known as House bill 6, providing for an amendment of 'An act 
defining butter, also imposing a tax upon and regulating the manufac- 
ture, sale, importation, and exportation of oleomargarine;' and 

"Whereas such a bill, if enacted, is calculated to build up and 
restore one industry at the expense of another by means of uncalled- 
for and unjust taxation; and 

"Whereas the destruction of the oleomargarine industry would 
greatly impair the market value of beef cattle, and would thereby 
deprive the producer of a large amount of revenue: Therefore, be it 

'■"Besolved, That the Sioux City Live Stock Exchange of Sioux City, 
Iowa, emphatically protests against the enactment of the law proposed 
in House bill No. 6. 

"Witness the signatures of the president and secretaiy of said 
exchange and the official seal thereof affixed at Sioux City, Iowa, 
December 28, 1899. 

"J. H. Nason, Fresident. 
" Wm. Magivny, Secretary.'''' 

The Chairman. If you have other resolutions, will it not answer 
your purpose to have them inserted in the record and printed without 
reading them? 

Mr. Miller. That will be satisfactory. These are resolutions passed 
by the superintendents of the oil mills of North and South Carolina: 

superintendents of oil anLLS IN NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA. 

Resolutions against oleomargarine tax offered at meeting of cotton- 
oil mill superintendents. 

"Charleston, S. C, Jidy 6. 

"Cotton oil superintendents from South Carolina and North Carolina 
met yesterday at the Calhoun Hotel for the purpose of organizing the 
cotton-oil mill superintendents' association. 



OLEOMAEGAKINE. 61 

"After the constitution and by-law.s were read and adopted, the fol- 
lowing resolutions were offered by A. A. Haynes: 

^'''' Resolved^ That this association, representing millions of dollars 
of invested capital in the South, strongly protest against national class 
legislation which aims directly at the destruction of competition in 
the manufacture and sale of wholesome and healthful articles of food. 

" ''Resolved^ That we protest strenuously against the passage by Con- 
gress of the Grout oleomargarine bill, which proposes to tax oleomar- 
garine 10 cents per pound, and thus to drive it from the market. 

" ''Resolved^ That this association implores Congress not to destroy 
an industry which now uses nearly 10,000,000 pounds of the best grade 
of cotton-seed oil annually, and thus kill that quantity of our most 
profitable output. 

" ''Resolved^ That we urge the legislatures of South Carolina and of 
other Southern States to remove from their statute books the anti- 
oleomargarine legislation thereon, because such acts are onl}' in the 
interest of the renoA^ated and process butter factories of the North and 
Northwest, and against the hog fats, beef fats, and cotton-seed-oil 
products grown on our Southern farms. 

" 'Resolved^ That a copy of these reselutions be sent to the National 
Provisioner, of New York and Chicago, the indomitable champion of 
the cotton-oil interests, for publication, and that the members of this 
association proceed to secure, if possible, the repeal of the obnoxious 
State laws above referred to. 

" ''Resolved, That this association will do what it can to cause the 
defeat of the Grout antioleomargarine bill in Congress during the 
coming session.'" 

This is a resolution passed by the Mercantile Club of Kansas City, Mo. 

Senator Bate. They are all to the same pui-port? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. 

eansas city, kans., mercantile club. 

The Mercantile Club, 

Kansas Clty^ Kans.^ March IJf.^ 1900. 

At a recent meeting of the Mercantile Club the following resolution 
was adopted: 

"Whereas bills have been introduced in the Senate and House of 
Representatives as follows: H. R. No. 6, bv Mr. Tawney, of Minne- 
sota; H. R. No. 43, by Mr. Davidson, of Wisconsin; H. R. No. 3717, 
by Mr. Grout, of Vermont; H. R. No. 6445, by Mr. Glynn, of New 
York; H. R. No. 2049, by Mr. Allen, of Nebraska, increasing the 
present tax of 2 cents a pound on butterine to 10 cents per pound; and 

"Whereas such legislation, if enacted, is calculated to build up one 
industiy at the expense of tearing down and ruining another, and will 
in effect amount to the giving of a monopoly to the industry sought to 
be benefited b}^ such legislation at the expense of another b}' means 
of uncalled-for taxation; and 

"Whereas the destruction of the oleomargarine or butterine indus- 
try would greatly impair the market value of beef cattle, doing great 
injustice to cattlemen of Kansas, and would be a severe blow to the 
manufacturing interests of Kansas City, United States of America: 
Therefore, be it 



62 OLEOMARGAEIlSrE. 

''Eesolved, That the Mercantile Club of Kansas Cit}-, Kans., protest 
against the enactment of the law proposed in said bills, to the end that 
just competition in the manufacture and sale of food products be 
maintained."" 

We ask your careful consideration of the same, believing, as we do, 
that the subject is one of great importance. The sale of butterine is 
already regulated by the act of 1886, and an increase in the tax would 
simply kill a great industry, in which millions of dollars are invested 
and many thousands of meii employed. Therefore, we feel confident 
that on examination you will find many more people benefited by the 
furnishing to them of a wholesome and attractive substitute for butter 
than could possibly be benefited by the giving of a monopoly to the 
dairy interests. 

Yours, very truly, W. E. Griffith, Secretanj. 

Here are resolutions passed \>\ the Commercial Club of Kansas City: 

KANSAS CITY, MO., COMMERCIAL CLUB. 

"To the hmiorablc the Senate and the House of Representatives of the 

United States: 

"The Commercial Club of Kansas City respectfully represents that 
it is an organization composed of over 700 business men of Kansas 
City, Mo.; that the business interests represented by its members 
comprehend the principal jobbing and manufacturing plants of Kansas 
City. The population of Kansas City and its adjacent territory, com- 
prising one commercial city, is nearly or quite 300,000, and within a 
radius^of 100 miles there is a population of 3,000,000. Kansas City occu- 
pies the tenth place in the amount of l)ank clearings in this country. 
We have nine States and Territories that regard Kansas City as then- 
banking center. The commercial organization is constantly watchful in 
advancing the commercial interests of Kansas Cit}^ and seeks to protect 
these interests when threatened by adverse legislation. As an associa- 
tion it desires to enter its emphatic protest against the enactment of 
H. R. bill No. (), which was introduced in the House of Representatives 
December 1, 1890, by Mr. Tawne}", of Minnesota, providing for an 
enactment of 'An act defining butter, also imposing a tax upon and reg- 
ulating the manufacture, sale, importation, and exportation of oleo- 
margarine;' that this measure, if passed, will build up one industry at 
the expense of tearing down and ruining another industry, and will in 
effect amount to the giving of a monopoly to the industry sought to 
be benefited by such legislation; that the bill above referred to, if 
it becomes a law, will reduce the value to the farmers and raisers of 
cattle an average of %-2 per head and a corresponding decrease in the 
value of hogs. 

"The use of the fat of beef, as well as the use of thousands of gallons 
of milk daily, and the other fats used in making oleomargarine, not 
only increases the value of every beef animal, Ijut every milch cow 
and ever}'^ hog, and acts as an encouragement to the owner and raiser 
of cattle and hogs to improve his herd and raise the grade of his live 
stock so that they will carry more of this animal fat and will in the end 
raise the standard and the grade of cattle and hogs throughout the 
entire United States. The farmers and cattle raisers of the United 
States are directly interested in such legislation as depreciates the value 



OLEOMAEGAKINE. 63 

of eveiy animal that they now own and eveiy animal that should be 
raised hereafter. 

"It is but just that the ricrhts and privileges of the producers of cat- 
tle and hogs should be duly considered and respected as well as should 
the desire of a certain class whose only object and purpose in legisla- 
tion of this kind is to decrease the supply of butter substitutes, thereby 
increasing the demand for l)utter and the price thereof. 

" Oleomargarine, as now manufactured, is just as wholesome as but- 
ter, and many chemists have declared it to be even more so. It is sur- 
rounded by the numerous safeguards which Congress has seen tit to 
provide, and it is a cheap, pure, and wholesome substitute for butter. 
Its cheapness in price allows it to become a sul)stitute for expensive 
butter, and it is used by millions of poor people in the United States 
who are una])le to pay the price demanded for creamer}^ product. 

"Oleomargarine has by experience proven to be just what a great 
majority of the people in this country want, and in the name of the pro- 
ducers of cattle and of hogs we do solemnly protest against the enact- 
ment of legislation calculated to cheapen the price of cattle and hogs, 
ruin the manufacture of oleomargarine, and deprive countless thousands 
of poor people from the use of a cheap but wholesome, nutritious, and 
acceptaljle article of food. 

"E. M. Clendening, Secretary. 

"March 8, 1900." 

Are there any further questions that any Senator would like to 
ask me? 

Mr. ScHELL. You spoke a moment ago of a resolution in favor of 
the dairy interests emanating from the same source. 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. 

Mr. SoiiELL. Is that true of these resolutions which you are offering ? 

Mr. Miller. No, sir; they were spontaneous. 

Senator Hansbrough. Nonpolitical? 

Senator Bate. How is that? I did not get 5^our question. 

Mr. ScHELL. I asked whether the same rule applied to these resolu- 
tions that Mr. Miller had said applied to the resolutions emanating in 
favor of dairy interests, all from one source. He said no, that they 
are from different sources and are voluntary. 

Senator Hansbrough. Congressman Tawney, in a speech in the 
House, said very positively that the most strenuous efforts were made 
in his district to defeat him on account of the fact that he was a friend 
of the Grout bill. 

Mr. Miller. I will say that I am thoroughly familiar with all that 
has gone on among butterine manufacturers, and there ncA'er was an 
effort of anj^ description exerted in Mr. Tawney's district to defeat 
him. 

Senator Hansbrough. It is simply a question of veracity between 
Mr. Tawney and j^ourself. 

Mr. Miller. I do not think we have a friend located in Mr. Tawney's 
district. There never was a letter written that I know of, or any 
influence brought to bear upon a man in opposing him. 

Senator Bate. There was in other districts, I suppose? 

Mr. Miller. None whatever. We have no political organization to 
try to elect members to Congress who are in favor of our interests — 
none whatever. 



64 OLEOMARGAEINE, 

Senator Hansbrough. What would have happened to Mr. Cowherd 
in Kansas City had he proclaimed himself in favor of the Grout bill? 

Mr. Miller. I do not know what would have happened. I know if 
the packers had not come to his rescue he would have been hopelessly 
snowed under. He was the only Democrat elected in the county. We 
were taking no part in electing any candidate on either side, but as Mr. 
Cowherd had expressed himself as favoring our interests we felt it our 
duty to come to his rescue. 

The Chairman. You voted, I hope, for some one, did you not? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir; I did; but we made no attempt whatever in 
the last year to elect any one to Congress who favored our interest. 

Senator Bate. Then you voted for 3^our interest, not on principle, 
in that case? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir; in that particular case we did. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN C. M'COY. 
Mr. McCoy. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee- 



Senator Hansbrough. Do you represent a manufacturing industry, 
or do you appear as attorney for a manufacturing industry? 

Mr. McCoy. No, sir; I am not an attorney. I am simply an indi- 
vidual — a private citizen — and I am here, as 1 will state to you directly, 
in two capacities. I will say that I have been handicapped all my life 
by the misfortune of not being able to express my feelings in pul)lic 
the way I should like to do. I am not a public speaker, and I therefore 
ask the privilege of reading what I have prepared on this subject. 

The Chairman. Certainl3\ 

Mr. McCoy. I will say also that I have been very badly handi- 
capped since I left Kansas City a few days ago, as I have been quite 
sick ever since, and I have had very little time to make any prepara- 
tion whatever. 

I wish to say, gentlemen, that I appreciate the honor of being per- 
mitted to appear before your committee, and regret my inexperience 
and lack of ability will prevent me from presenting my views on this 
important subject as I feel them. I am here before you in a dual 
capacity — as an individual, a Western farmer, stock raiser, a commis- 
sion merchant for the sale of cattle, hogs, and sheep, and as a repre- 
sentative of the Kansas City Live Stock Exchange, the members of 
which handled during this year of 1900 over 6,000,000 head of live 
stock, valued at over ll25, 000,000. I feel that the importance of the 
industry with which I am connected and the most important bearing 
the bill under discussion will have on it should be sufficient apology 
for my trespassing upon your time. 

I am at a loss, however, gentlemen, to know what to say to you. 
Since the first introduction of the Grout bill in the House up to the 
present time the matter has been so thoroughlj^ discussed in the public 
press, before committees, by a flood of literature of all kinds, that it 
does not seem possible that a newarguuient could be presented, though 
I know there are man}^, like myself, desirous of doing all possible 
to prevent what seems to us so unjust a measure. 

Because I have taken such a deep interest in the matter the field 
seems to have been thoroughly covered. A large number of the most 
celebrated chemists of this country, including Prof. H. W. Wiley, 
Chief Chemist of the United States Department of Agriculture, have 



OLEOMARGARINE. 65 

testified that the ino-redients of oleomarg-arine are healthful and nutri- 
tious and that the product contains nothing deleterious to health. 
The same gentlemen have also testified that the coloring matter used 
in its manufacture is the same that is used by the makers of butter all 
over this country, and it is used by both for the same purpose. The 
manufacturers of the article have testified under oath time and again 
as to what ingredients go to make up the product until it has become 
known to almost every intelligent man in this country. Its purity 
and cleanliness are, I believe, unquestioned, even by its opponents, the 
creamery butter manufacturers, and a committee of your own body, 
the United States Senate Committee on Manufactures, of which the 
Hon. W. E. Mason was chairman, after a most thorough investigation 
of the subject, reported '"'that the product known as oleomargarine is 
healthful and nutritious, and no further legislation is necessary," and 
the great mass of testimony taken by that committee is available to 
this committee. 

All of this being well known to your honorable bod}^, or at least mat- 
ters of public record, what can I add to the argument why this bill should 
not become a law ? Possibly nothing but to add my vigorous protest in 
the name of the stock raisers of the great West against the passage of 
such selfish, unjust, and ultra class legislation. 

I admit that we of the West are hardly up with the times and are slow 
to take hold of and adopt all the new-fangled notions that are so rapidly 
brought forth in this age of progress, but having been taught from 
our infancy to love our country and honor the Constitution, God for- 
bid that we should ever cast aside the clause that "gives equal rights 
to all and special privileges to none" and take up with the spirit of 
class legislation such as is attempted and exemplified in this bill. 

1 do not think there is any sane man who has given this bill any 
serious consideration whatever but believes that this bill is aimed 
at the life of the oleomargarine industr}^, to legislate it out of existence, 
so as to give the butter makers (and by the butter makers I do not 
mean to say the great mass of farmers and farmers' wives who make 
butter, for they cut little figure in this matter) exclusive right to 
produce an article of diet to be spread upon l)read to make it more 
palatable, to gain a monopoly on one of the most valued necessities of 
life. It has been asserted by those that have investigated the subject 
that in the average household butter comes second in the expense list 
for provisions. 

It is larger than the outlay for bread or coffee or sugar, and is exceeded 
only by the meat bills. One of the most serious problems before the 
American people to-day is the one of trusts and monopolies. 

However much political economists and intelligent men ma}' differ 
on that great subject, most serious consideration should be given before 
a way is prepared whereby such an important article, one that comes 
into the daily life of the rich and poor alike, whether it be upon the 
dainty rolls of the millionaire or the coarse but wholesome corn bread 
of the laborer, can be made the subject of absolute control in the hands 
of mercenar}^ men. 

Legislate out of existence practicallv their onl}^ competitor, oleo- 
margarine, and would not the creamery interests be able to control 
the supply of butter in this country as it is now claimed the}'' are able 
to control the price of creamery butter^ 

A more thorough organization nor a more extensive one does not 

S. Rep. 2043 5 



66 OLEOMARGARINE. 

exist to-day than that of the creamery associations, as we have dis- 
covered by their work in favor of this bill out West, 

The gentleman who just preceded me has told you of the methods 
that have been used by the creamery interests in furthering their own 
interests by mixing into politics. 1 know it to be a fact that almost 
every little creamery on the prairies of Kansas and Nebraska has been 
flooded for a year with all sorts of literature and postal cards urging 
them to write to their Congressmen and Senators to support this Grout 
bill, and if the members of this committee are flooded with requests 
of that character from their constituents they may know exactly where 
they have emanated. 

Senator Hansbrough. Where have they emanated ? 

Mr. McCoy. From the National Dairy Association headquarters at 
Chicago. 

Conscious of their power and organization I think the gentlemen 
deserve credit for not framing their bill as follows: 

"j5e it enacted hy the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled, That all articles 
known as oleomargarine, gravy, goose grease, or any substance to be 
spread upon bread to make it palatable, as good as butter or cheese, not 
the usual product of the dairy and not made exclusively of pure and 
unadulterated milk and cream shall be absolutely prohibited," etc. 

Although this bill is aimed at the life of the oleomargarine industry, 
we believe that it will if enacted into a law seriously cripple one, with 
which by comparison both oleomargarine and its opponent butter pale 
into insignificance, that of the live-stock industry. Neither myself or 
the people I represent are directly interested in the manufacture of 
oleomagarine or of butter, and interested only so far as our interests 
areaft'ected and our inherent love of personal liberty and freedom, but 
we ask you gentlemen not to allow one great industry to be ground 
between the warring factions of these two opposing industries. It has 
become a matter of genei'al information, and is also in evidence before 
this committee, that the two principal ingredients of oleomargarine are 
the caul fat of the beef steer and the leaf fat from the hog. 

Senator Bate. What do 3^ou mean by caul fat? 

Senator Warren. It is kidney fat, the best qualit}'. 

Mr. McCoy. It is kidne}" fat, and, as Mr. Miller, who just preceded 
me, explained, it is purer fat, a higher grade of fat. 

Senator Bate. That is what he said, but he did not give it the name 
of caul fat. 

Mr. McCoy. The average beef steer contains about 50 pounds of 
caul fat, and the average hog about 8 pounds of leaf fat. The market 
price to-da,y for caul fat for oleomargarine purposes is about 10 cents 
per pound, while tallow is worth about 6 cents; and the leaf fat for 
oleomargarine purposes 8^ cents per pound, and for lard onl}^ 6 cents. 
Those are xqyj close approximate values. 

There has been slaughtered in Kansas City since January 1, 1900, to 
date over 1,000,000 cattle, producing, approximately, 50,000,000 pounds 
of oleo oil, worth to-da}^ for oleomargarine purposes 10 cents per 
pound, or $5,000,000. Were it not for the demand the manufacture 
of oleomargarine has created for oleo oil, this product would have been 
sold for tallow at 6 cents per pound, netting $3,000,000, a difference 
of $2,000,000, or |2 per head for each animal slaughtered. 

During the period just mentioned there were slaughtered at Kansas 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 67 

City approximately 3,000,000 hogs, producing about 24,000,000 pounds 
of leaf fat, worth for oleomargarine purposes, at 8i cents per pound, 
$2,040,000. The demand for this product as an oleomargarine ingre- 
dient removed, it would have been sold for lard at 6 cents per pound, 
or $1,440,000, a difference of $600,000, or 20 cents per head for each 
hog slaughtered. 

Had it not been possible to use these two products for oleomarga- 
rine purposes instead of tallow and lard, it would have cost the farm- 
ers marketing their stock at Kansas City this year $2,600,000. The 
same is true at all the principal live-stock markets in proportion to 
their receipts. The five large Western markets — Chicago, Kansas 
Citv, St. Louis, Omaha, and St. Joseph — have handled since January 
1, 1900, to date, 6,500,000 cattle and 16,300,000 hogs. Of that number 
at least 75 per cent of the cattle, or 4,875,000, were slaughtered, and 
practically all of the hogs. A difference of $2 per head on the cattle 
and 20 cents per head on the hogs would mean a loss to the Western 
farmers on their marketing of cattle and hogs for the vear 1900 of 
$13,000,000. But, gentlemen, carry the reasoning still further. The 
Government report shows that on January 1, 1900, there were in the 
United States 27,610,000 cattle other than milch cows, or cattle avail- 
able sooner or later for beef. A depreciation of $2 per head on them 
would mean $55,220,000. The same authority gives the number of 
hogs in theUnited States on January 1, 1899, approximately, 38,650,000. 

The Chairman. Would it reduce the value of the milch cow to have 
the manufacture of oleomargarine stopped? I thought you included 
all the cattle. 

Mr. McCoy. No, sir; I included only the cattle other than milch cows. 
The Government makes a distinction. It would reduce the value of 
the milch cow, because the ultimate destination of all cattle is the block. 
Milch cows are used for a long time for milk purposes, but unless they 
should happen to die of old age, which the farmer generally sees is not 
the case, the ultimate destination of the milch cow is the block. 

Senator Warren. You have entered into a calculation as to the 
price of cattle other than cows. We assume, without your stating* it, 
that when a cow comes to the block she brings relatively that much 
more, whether $2 or $1. Now, on the other side of the question, 1 
want to get your opinion as to what the effect is liable to be upon the 
price of cows if the manufacture of oleomargarine is continued or if 
it is discontinued. Would the discontinuance of the manufacture of 
oleomargarine raise the price of cows; and if so, how much^ Would 
the continuance of the present amount manufactured, or double the 
amount, we will say, reduce the price of cows, and how much, in your 
opinion ? 

Mr. McCoy. In my opinion it would reduce the value of the milch 
cow at the same time that it reduced the value of the beef steer. 

Senator Warren. No; 3'ou misunderstand me. I want to know 
whether the manufacture of oleomargarine reduces the price of the cow. 

Mr. McCoy. No, sir. 

Senator Warren. In other words, do you consider that through the 
manufacture of oleomargarine 3^ou are reducing the price of butter on 
the market to a point that will reduce the price of the cows that pro- 
duce the butter i 

Mr. McCoy. I think I can answer that question, if the Senator will 
allow me, by a statement on that line that 1 made before the House 
committee. 



68 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Senator Warren, In the concrete, I want to know if the sale of oleo- 
margarine is lowering the price of butter, or displacing the sale of 
butter, or reducing the price of cows. 

Mr. McCoy. You mean the price of cows instead of the price of 
butter ? 

Senator AVarren. Yes; a reduction in the price of butter through 
the manufacture of oleomargarine would, of course, reduce the price 
of cows naturally. 

Mr. McCoy. 1 think this will answer the question: 

The Orange Judd Farmer, published in the State of New York, an 
agricultural journal of exceptionally high standing, and one that has 
enjoyed the confidence of the agricultural community for a decade, in 
a recent issue says: 

"Cows are worth 50 per cent more now than during the ten years 
preceding 1897, and are fully as high as during the boom of 1884—85." 

Is that along the point '^ 

Senator Warren. That is along the point, but it does not touch it 
exactly 3^et. 

Mr. McCoy. The article proceeds: 

"Last summer cheese got back to old-time prices. Butter has of 
late sold much above the quotations of four or five years ago. Even 
milk sold in market is stiffening in prices and may go up to those of 
the early eighties, and will go there with organized persistency by 
producers and reasonable cooperation from the trade." 

Senator Warren. That, I understand, is with reference to the con- 
dition of the business, but not with reference to the effect of the 
manufacture of oleomargarine. That is from some reports 

Mr. McCoy. No. ' ' But during the period when we had a boom and 
increased the value of milk and butter and cows" 

Senator Warren. What are you reading from, please? 

Mr. McCoy. I am reading an extract from the Orange Judd Farmer, 
and that same paragraph or article is in the report of the House com- 
mittee. 

Senator W^ arren. W^hat is the pamphlet from which you are reading ? 

Mr. McCoy. It is a statement of evidence before the House com- 
mittee. 

A reduction of 20 cents per head on the hogs of the United States 
would mean a loss of $7,730,000. Thus it will be seen that if this bill 
becomes a law the stock raisers of this country will suffer a deprecia- 
tion in the value of their property of $62,750,000. By what course of 
reasoning can the creamery interests ask us to suffer a depreciation of 
almost $63,000,000 in our property that they may gain an advantage 
over a fair and honoi'able competitor^ Wh}' should my State, the 
State of Missouri, suffer a depreciation of $2,776,230 on its beef cattle 
when it has only 659,731 milch cows all told ? And so, gentlemen, each 
member on this committee, I care not from what State he comes, can 
take the number of cattle in his State and in two minutes figure what 
the loss to his cattle-growing constituents would be. 

I ask you, gentlemen, in all candor and fairness, is it right that this 
Government should come in by its lawmaking power and legislate in 
favor of one section as against the other ? For the cattle-growing States 
and the dairy States are almost as clearly defined as if the one was red 
and the other blue on the map. Or should they legislate in favor of 
one agricultural industry as against the other? For every ingredient 



OLEOMARGARINE. 69 

that enters into the manufacture of oleomaragarine is as much a prod- 
uct of the American farm as is the milk from which cow butter is 
made. If a precedent is set by the enactment of this bill into a law, 
will not our friends from the South introduce a bill at the coming ses- 
sion of Congress as follows? 

^" Be it enacted hy the Senate and House of Representatives^ etc.^ That 
all sugar known as beet sugar, or any substance in the semblance of 
sugar not the usual product of the old, time-honored sugar cane, be 
taxed 2 cents per pound unclaritied and 10 cents per pound when clarified 
a beautiful white in imitation of genuine cane sugar, as it is now 
clarified to meet the tastes of the consumer," 

Or wmU not the rubber manufacturers ask that the manufacturers of 
celluloid goods be prohibited from making any article in imitation of 
rubl)er? And so, gentlemen, where will such legislation end? These 
gentlemen ask you to prohibit us from using three or four of the 
pure, healthful, and nutritious products of our farms and ranges, blend- 
ing them into a palatable article of diet to be used, when a man wants 
to do so, in the place of cow butter. And j'et the same gentlemen, or 
rather the principal dairy States, will take the cotton and wool that 
we raise and, b}^ dipping in certain solutions, so change its texture that 
it can be woven into most beautiful fabrics that they send to us unso- 
phisticated people out West to be used in the place of silk. The gen- 
tlemen object very strenuously to the use of the "word "butterine"" as 
tending to deceive, and yet they call this beautiful slick and shiny 
goods ''silkaline." 

The advocates of this bill object to taking the same ingredients that 
enter into the composition of cow butter (though in a different form) 
and compounding them into an article of food in every way as good, 
but the same gentlemen will take a small portion of the wool from our 
Western sheep, mix it with a very large proportion of Southern cot- 
ton, and send it back to us gullible Westerners as being all wool and a 
yard wide. 

Much has been said on both sides of this question in regard to the 
color in oleomargarine and in cow butter; and 1 believe it has been 
conceded that both interests use the same material for that purpose, 
and both use it to accomplish the same ends — that of giving to the 
consumer something that he wants, something that the Constitution 
gives him as a free-born American citizen the right to use, so long as it 
does not injure him nor trample upon the rights of others, and some- 
thing that will make his bread go down with that pleasing sense of 
satisfied taste so essential to good digestion and preservation of health 
and life. To assert that food taken to nourish does not have to be 
pleasing to the eye as well as to the taste seems ridiculous and reflect- 
ing upon the common sense and intelligence of this committee. If it 
were not so I will ask the gentlemen on the other side why they do 
do not use the good old-fashioned brown sugar, usually a good, rich, 
dark brown — the color of mahogany — that possesses strength and 
flavor far bej^ond the clarified pure white sugars of the present day. 
I will guarantee our friends here, the advocates of this bill, have used 
none other than the pure white sugar for 3'ears. You all know vfhj 
they use it, and so do they. They prefer it of that color as being more 
pleasing to their taste and better satisfying their pride. People want 
oleomargarine and butter colored yellow for the same reason. 



70 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

There is one subject on which I may be able to give the committee 
some information, and that pertains to the purity and healthfulness of 
the two principal ing-redients of oleomargarine — that of the cone fat 
and the leaf fat. Under the most excellent system of governmental 
inspection inaugurated a few years ago by the Bureau of Animal 
Industr}^, the liability of diseased cattle and hogs being used for food 
has been reduced to a minimum. On our market, and the same is true 
at all other large abattoirs (except in Chicago a little different but I 
believe a more stringent method is used), Government inspectors who 
are under a chief, who has to be a graduate of a veterinary college and 
stand an examination, go through the stock yards and take from the 
cattle received all such as show signs of any disease or as in any 
manner unfit for human food. As cattle are sold and go to the scales 
two of these inspectors examine them as the}^ pass between them and 
cut out and condemn all that in their judgment should be. After the 
cattle go to the slaughtering establishment they are again given an 
ante-mortem inspection. After they are killed they are again given 
a post-mortem inspection, and if found healthy and free from any 
disease that would be injurious or a menace to the public health, a cer- 
tificate of inspection is placed on each carcass. The same is true of 
hogs, except the certificate is not placed on the carcass. 

So I am here to-day, gentlemen, to assert with all the force that I 
am able to command that when either our cow-butter friends or the 
agrarian party in Germany, both of whom seem inclined to strike a 
blow at the cattle products of this country, claim an inferiority or 
unhealthfulness of those two principal ingredients of oleomargarine 
or the meat products of this countr}", they perpetrate a base slander 
and not warranted by the facts. Your own Department of Agricul- 
ture in its Yearbook published January 1, 1899, said the health of 
animals and of men is very largely dependent upon the use of sanitary 
precautions and the enforcement of sanitary regulations. As a certain 
disease (therein named) in animals is reduced, so will that disease in 
man be proportionately decreased. Along that line we are ready to 
meet our butter and creamery friends at any time, I understand that 
the present tax of 2 cents per pound on oleomargarine brings in a 
revenue to the Government of about $2,000,000 per annum. Oleomar- 
garine destroyed, the factories closed, it having become so generally 
known that the cool fat from every steer and the leaf fat from every 
hog can be so used by an}^ ordinary intelligent man, would not our 
creamery operators, if not a large number of farmers, take advantage 
of the situation, oleomargarine be still extensivel}" made, and the Gov- 
ernment l)e deprived of the revenue ? What means will be taken to 
see that it is not done ? 

The cattle growers of this country have never but once, so far as 1 
know, had to appeal to the Congress for protection of their industr}?^, 
and that was a few years since when we appeared before the agri- 
cultural committees of both Houses to ask for relief against foreign 
embargoes on American meats. I am glad to say that I see here to-day 
several members of this committee that were present at that hearing. 
But I say, gentlemen, that the cattle-growing States of this country, 
which are largely of the West and South, are watching with anxious 
eyes the outcome of this measure. They would keenly feel the effect 
of such legislation, and I do not believe our creamery friends, or, to 
put it more plainly, the dairy States, are in a position to thus injure us. 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 7l 

Germany and several other European countries have already shut 
out our canned meats and seriously hampered the free importation of 
our cattle and dressed meats. They have a measure now before the 
Reichstag- to exclude American wheat, which would seriously touch 
the hearts and purses of farmers of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, 
Nebraska, Kansas, Idaho, the Dakotas, and California. And as they 
are gradually shutting out one of our great industries after the other, 
can our butter-producing people expect to escape for very long? 
Fights between competing industries are not desirable at this time, 
but rather a united people, for in union there is strength, and it will 
take, within the next few years, the united efforts of the producing 
portion of this most wonderfully productive country to combat the 
jealous and selfish interests of the less favored nations on the globe. 
Let us be fair and just to one another, and be the better prepared to 
combat a common enemy. 

Mr. Chairman, I just wish to file the resolutions and the memorial 
of the Kansas City Live-Stock Exchange, of which I am a represent- 
ative. 

The Kansas City Live-Stock Exchange, 

Kansas City^ Mo. , Fehruary 8, 1900. 

The following preamble and resolutions were unanimously adopted 
by the board of directors of the Kansas City Live-Stock Exchange at 
a regular meeting held February 6, 1900: 

" Whereas certain bills have been introduced in the House of Rep- 
resentatives of the United States looking for the enactment of a law, 
by way of taxation, whereby the manufacture, sale, importation, and 
exportation of oleomargarine will be ruined; and 

''Whereas such bills, if passed and allowed to become laws, will 
build up one industry at the expense of tearing down and ruining 
another, the logical effect of which will be the granting of a monopoly 
to the industry sought to be benefited; and 

"Whereas the destruction of the oleomargarine industry will reduce 
the value of cattle and hogs to the farmers and raisers thereof, as well 
as work a hardship upon millions of poor people who are unable to 
pay the fancy prices asked for butter: Therefore, be it 

Resolved., That the Kansas City Live-Stock Exchange, of Kansas 
Cit}^, Mo., earnestly protest against the enactment of the law pro- 
posed relating- to oleomargarine; and be it further 

Resolved, That the board of directors of this exchange be requested 
to memorialize the Congress of the United States against the passage of 
a law or laws inimical to the live-stock industry, and that a copy 
of these resolutions be sent to the honorable the Senate and the House 
of Representatives of the United States." 
Respectfulh', yours, 

W. S. Hannah, President. 

We have addressed the following to the honorable the Senate and 
House of Representatives of the United States: 

"The Kansas City Live-Stock Exchange, located at Kansas City, Mo., 
respectfully represents that it is an association composed of raisers, 
owners, and buyers and sellers of live stock, whose interests extend to 
and cover a great portion of the West and Southwest of the United 
States, and whose business, as represented by the individual members 



72 OLEOMARGARINE. 

of the association, deals almost exclusively in tlie live-stock industry. 
As an association it desires to enter its emphatic protest against the 
enactment of House bill No. 6, which was introduced in the House of 
Representatives December 4, 1891), by Mr. Tawney, of Minnesota, pro- 
viding for an amendment of 'An act defining butter, also imposing a 
tax upon and regulating the manufacture, sale, importation, and expor- 
tation of oleomargarine.' That this measure, if passed, will build up 
one industry at the expense of tearing down and ruining another 
industry and will in effect amount to the giving of a monopoly to the 
industry sought to be benefited by such legislation. That the bill 
above referred to, if it become a law, will reduce the value, to the 
farmers and raisers of cattle, an average of $4 per head and a corre- 
sponding decrease in the value of hogs. 

"The use of the fat of 'beef,' as well as the use of thousands of gal- 
lons of milk daily, and the other fats used in making oleomargarine, 
not only increases the value of every beef animal, but every milch cow 
and every hog, and acts as an encouragement to the owner and raiser 
of cattle and hogs to improve his herd and raise the grade of his live 
stock so that they will carr}^ more of this animal fat, and will in the 
end raise the standard and the grade of cattle and hogs throughout 
the entire United States. The farmers and cattle raisers of the United 
States are directly interested in such legislation as depreciates the 
value of every animal that they now own and every animal that should 
be raised hereafter. 

"It is but just that the rights and privileges of the producers of 
cattle and hogs should be duly considered and respected as well as 
should the desire of a certain class whose only object and purpose in 
legislation of this kind is to decrease the supply of butter substitutes, 
thereby increasing the demand for butter and the price thereof. 

"Oleomargarine, as now manufactured, is just as wholesome as but- 
ter, and many chemists have declared it to be even more so. It is sur- 
rounded b}' the numerous safeguards which Congress has seen fit to 
provide, and it is a cheap, pure, and wholesome substitute for butter. 
Its cheapness in price allows it to become a substitute for expensive 
butter, and it is used by millions of poor people in the United States 
who are unable to pay the price demanded for creamery product. 

"Oleomargarine has, by experience, proven to be just what a great 
majority of the people of this country want, and in the name of the 
producers of cattle and of hogs we do solemnly protest against the 
enactment of legislation calculated to cheapen the price of cattle and 
hogs, ruin the manufacture of oleomargarine, and deprive countless 
thousands of poor people of the use of a cheap but wholesome, nutri- 
tious, and acceptable article of food. 

"Board of Directors of the 

KA.NSAS City Live Stock Exchange. 
"By W. S. Hannah, President. 

"Attest: 

"R. P. Woodbury, Secretary.'''' 

ORDER OF procedure. 

The Chairman. Who is ready to proceed to-morrow morning? 

Mr. Walden. Mr. Chairman, if you will allow me just a moment, 
I will not take any of your time. I desire to be heard extensively on 
this subject. I came quite a long distance for that purpose, and as 



OLEOMARGARINE. 73 

the time for adjournment is just at hand I should like to be heard after 
the holidays on this su))ject. I represent such a vast interest — the 
Kansas City Live Stock Exchange, of which I am the present presi 
dent, with perhaps some 400 members, that loan millions of dollars 
annually to the cattle growers, feeders, etc.— I say the interest is so 
large that the few moments allowed now before adjournment will not 
give me time to present the evidence. 

The Chairman. Allow me to interrupt you. As you have come 
such a long distance, would it not be better that you should be heard 
now 'i We shall be still more busj^ after the holidays. We can give 
you a hearing this afternoon or to-morrow morning. The Senate will 
probably adjourn quite early to-day. 

Mr. Walden. Unfortunately, I am here on another mission that will 
require all my time during to-morrow. 

Senator Hansbrough. What length of time would you like to have? 

Mr. Walden. Possibly an hour or more. 

The Chairman. I have just learned of the death of the wife of the 
President pro tempore of the Senate, and it is quite likel}' that the 
Senate will adjourn immediately, and we can come right back here. 

Mr. Springer. If that is so, it adjourns you over the holidaj^s ? 

The Chairman. Certainly. 

Senator Money. But it does not adjourn this committee. 

The Chairman. The committee may remain in session. I will appoint 
a subcommittee. We shall pro))ably meet this afternoon. I suggest 
to Mr. Walden that he appear at 2 o'clock this afternoon. 

Mr. ScHELL. Ma}' I ask whether the conmiittee will sit during the 
holidaj's ? 

The Chairman. Certainly; it will be obliged to do so. 

Mr. ScHELL. 1 leave for Cincinnati this afternoon. I want to be 
heard, and 1 should like to be heard some time between January 3 
and 10. 

The Chairman. We shall have a hearing on the 3d of eTanuary, but 
the state of business is such that our hearings then will have to be 
hurried. It will not be possible to give the time then that we are 
ready to give now and during the holidays, so that matters will have 
to be put in writing and go into the record without reading to a con- 
siderable extent. The army bill is of pressing importance, and that 
measure will come up immediataly after the holiday recess. Three 
members of this committee are upon the Committee on Military 
Affairs. So you can see the urgency which compels us to close this 
hearing as soon as possible after the 3d of January. 

Mr. ScHELL. Youv honor, I see all that, and I appreciate it. How- 
ever, there is one thing that is apparent to me and apparent to every 
member of the committee. It is that there is no organized opposition 
to this bill. Everybody comes in and talks at random. That condition 
will continue unless we are allowed some time to organize and get 
together. We will not be before this committee properly unless we 
are allowed some time to get together and agree on the objections that 
should be urged and agree on somebody to present those objections. 

The Chairman. Well, we shall have a hearing the 3d day of Janu- 
ary. We want to give you all the time we possibly can, 3'ou know, 
and to be just as liberal in that respect as possible. It was for that 
purpose that I thought we had better have the committee open during 
the holidays. But still we shall have a hearing on the 3d of January. 



74 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Senator Bate. Mr. Chairman, will you not agree to have hearings 
later than that date ''i The proposition yesterday was to keep the hear- 
ings open until the 10th of January, and we differed about it. I wanted 
to have the time extended to the 15th. I have telegrams waiting to 
be answered, and the parties desire to he heard the 15th of January. 

The Chairman. I do not think it would be right to give that time; 
that is only six weeks before final adjournment. 

Senator "Bate. Then what time shall 1 indicate to them? 

The Chairman. I think they should appear here on the 3d of Janu- 
ary; probably we shall not finish the hearing on that date, but we will 
continue it. I think everybody should be here the 3d of January. 

Senator Bate. Between the 3d and the 10th? 

Senator Money. I have answered the dispatches 1 have received to 
the effect that the parties should come at once; that nobody knew when 
the hearings would close. I received dispatches of the same tenor. 

Senator Bate. I expect that I had better state to them that they 
must be here between the 3d and the 10th, because the proposition of 
Senator Allen yesterday was to close the hearing on the 10th. 

Mr. Walden. Am I to understand that the hearing will be contin- 
ued between the 3d and 10th of January ? 

The Chairman. It w411 be open on the 3d and continue as long as 
we think we can give you time — not later than the 10th, but I think it 
will be concluded that week. The 3d is on Thursday, and I hope to 
conclude it that week — in three days. 

Senator Bate. But let us understand that, Mr. Chairman, and see 
what gentlemen desire. I want to know it myself. No one will be shut 
out or excluded up to the 10th of the morith, and if we can get through 
before the 10th we will do it. Let us have that understood. 

The Chairman. I am not prepared to say that. There will be nobody 
excluded up to some date, say the 6th, covering the 3d, Ith, and 5th. 
We shall have to be able to close it in that time, because the hearings 
have been very full before the House, and anyone can appear during 
the holidaj's and have all the time he wants. 

Senator Hansbrough. Do I understand that it is the intention of 
the Chair to appoint a subcommittee to sit during the holidaj^s? 

The Chairman. I will appoint a subcommittee now, consisting of 
yourself. Senator Dolliver, and Senator Heitfeld, or any number of 
you, and any other members of the committee maj" come in and take 
an equal part. I expect to be here myself most of the time. 

Senator Hansbrough. I wish to ask, for information, if it is intended 
to postpone the hearing to suit the individual convenience of all the 
gentlemen who I see would like to have all the month of January in 
which to be heard? I do not see the necessity of appointing a subcom- 
mittee at all. It would be well for the whole committee to adjourn 
until those gentlemen get together and decide when they would like to 
have us consider this measure. 

Mr. Sohell. That would save the time of the committee. 

Senator Hansbrough, I say that from the standpoint of the gentle- 
men who desire to be heard. 

The Chairman. This committee is in the nature of a court, and these 
gentlemen are here as witnesses and advocates. 

Senator Hansbrough. We have not summoned them, however. 

The Chairman. They must come at our convenience. 

Senator Hansbrough. I thought so. That is right. 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 75 

The Chairman. Still, we wish to give them all the fair time we 
possibly can. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Perhaps 1 misunderstood the matter yesterday 
when it was before the committee; but I know it was my understand- 
ing, and it was the understanding of most of those who were here, that 
the hearings would be continued from the 3d until the 10th. It was, 
therefore, thought by most of those opposed to the bill that there 
would be no hearings during the holida3^s. Those who are here, like 
myself, are men who have a great deal to do at the end of the year, 
and we feel as if we must be home at that time. Of course the busi- 
ness of the committee is of more importance to us than our business 
at home, but at the same time we can not help urging that our busi- 
ness at home demands immediate and vigorous attention at this closing 
season of the year. 

For that reason I had anticipated that after to-day we might go 
home and appear on the 3d of January, when we will so consolidate 
our forces as to take as little time as possible before the committee. I 
can say for one that if I had the time from now until the 3d or 4th or 
5th — along there somewhere — I would speak before the committee on 
some day, and I assure you now my only purpose in speaking before 
the committee is to be of some assistance to it. 

In addition to everything that has been said, I should like to have 
the privilege of giving my own digest of what the evidence up to date 
has shown, and I should also like to give, in a mathematical calcula- 
tion, exactl}^ the result indicated by one qviestion of the gentleman 
to-day, which is the result to the farmer. 

Senator Hansbrough. When will 3^ou be ready to do that? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. At any time on the 3d or any day thereafter. I 
will take one hour. 

The Chairman. Of course the dairy interest is entitled to a hearing 
to make any rebutting statements they may wish to present after your 
hearing. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. I Understand. 

The Chairman. I think we will settle it in this wa}^: We will give 
you three days — Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, the 3d, 4th, and 5th 
of January. I think that is a reasonable time. I will come here at 
night, if you wish, and hold sessions all night; I do not care. Do you 
not think that that is a sufficient and reasonable time ^ 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. I have no objection to that. I think it is reason- 
able, and I think with that time sessions during the holidays would be 
entirely unnecessary. However, 1 speak only for myself. 

The Chairman. I will ask another question. Is there anyone here 
who would like to be heard during the holidays or this afternoon? 

Senator Heitfeld. Mr. Chairman, I should like to say a word as one 
of the members of the subcommittee. I have not been asked whether 
I could be here. I will be in the city, but I could not give an hour 
to-morrow or Monday. Thereafter I am willing to sit as long as may 
be desired. 

The Chairman. Perhaps the subcommittee might hear anyone who 
is ready. 

Mr. ScHELL. Allow me to suggest that as far as I am personally 
concerned, and I think it will be the case with most of the people Avho 
are here, this matter came on us so suddenly that if I were to attempt 
to talk on the subject now and do my side of it justice it would take 



76 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

several hours, and I think, from what I have seen of the subject, if I 
were given time 1 could reduce all I want to say in about a twenty- 
five minutes' talk. 

The Chairman. Is there anyone here who wishes to be heard now 
or during the holidays? 

Mr. Springer. Mr. Chairman, let me say a word. I have been 
informed by the president of the National Live Stock Association, 
which represents all these varied associations in the West, that letters 
have been addressed to the chairman and other members of this com- 
mittee requesting the privilege of that association to be heard through 
a committee to be appointed by them at their coming national conven- 
tion at Salt Lake City, and that they could not get their committee 
here before the 1st of February. 

The Chairman. That is entirely out of the question. Judge. Con- 
gress can not wait for the live-stock association. I think these gentle- 
men will admit that we are trying to be fair and to give them all the 
time we can. 

Mr. Springer. I should like to explain the reason of their request- 
ing that time. They are now engaged in assembling and preparing for 
assem])ling at a national convention at Salt Lake City on the 15th, 16th, 
17th, and 18th of January. It will be a convention containing repre- 
sentatives of all the cattle-growing interests and live-stock interests of 
every kind of the West and of the whole country, really. New York 
State is represented, as well as others. In that convention they expect 
to take some definite action and appoint a committee. 

In the meantime I have been requested to represent the association 
here and ask that all the time be given to them that is possible for the 
purpose of presenting their views. They have never been heard as an 
association. They have never gone into politics nor into any business 
of this kind. They have stood still and watched the operations of the 
gentlemen who are engaged in the manufacture of oleomargarine until 
they see that their interests would be vitally afi'ected, stricken down in 
many respects, by this proposed legislation, and for the first time they 
desire to appear before the legislative department of the Government 
and present their protest against this proposed legislation, and they 
wish to do it in a way that will at least set forth the varied interests 
which this great association represents. 

Senator Hansbrough. When will they be ready to go on? 

Mr. Springer. As I stated, they meet in convention on the 16th of 
January. 

Senator Money. While dividing out time here I must claim some 
time for the cotton-seed oil men. Everyl)ody knows that cotton-seed 
oil is much better than butter, oleomargarine, beef, or anything else. 
You all use it on your tables as olive oil, and you ought to use more 
of it. While they do not want to compel the use of cotton-seed oil, at 
any rate they want to be heard, and they want you to give them a 
chance, I know. 

The Chairman, Certainly. Already several Southern Senators have 
spoken to me about that interest and I have told them that its repre- 
sentatives might be heard on the 3d of January. 

Senator Money. I will telegraph them to come on at once, and some 
of them will be here during the holidays. 

The Chairman. Some of them have expressed themselves as satisfied 
with that date. Judge Springer, I should like very much to accom- 



OLEOMAKGARINE. 77 

modate you on old scores between us, but I think we do all we can 
consistently with proper attention to the public business b}^ postpon- 
ing the hearing to the 3d of January. I have communicated with the 
live-stock association at Denver and told them that that was the best 
we could possibly do. No one has given any notice to appear, and if 
there is no one here who wishes to be heard to-day we will adjourn the 
full committee luitil the 3d of January, but the subcommittee will be 
here subject to call. If anyone notifies the clerk of the committee that 
he would like to be heard during the holidays, the clerk will summon 
the subcommittee. 

The committee (at 12 o'clock meridian) adjourned until Thursd;iy, 
January 3, 1901, at 10.30 a. m. 



Thursday, January 3, 1901. 

The committee met at 10.30 a. m. 

Present: Senators Hansbrough (acting chairman), Warren, Foster, 
Bate, and Heitfeld. 

Also, Hon. W. D. Hoard, president of the National Dairy Union; 
C. y. Knight, secretary of the National Dairy Union; H. C. Adams, 
dairy and food commissioner of Wisconsin; George L, Flanders, 
assistant commissioner of agriculture of New York; James Hewes, 
president of the Produce Exchange, Baltimore, and vice-president of 
the National Dairy Union, of Maryland; W. A. Rogers, representing 
the Agricultural Society of Northern New York; F. B. Richardson, 
assistant commissioner of agriculture, fifth agricultural division, of 
New York; S. B. Medairy, of Baltimore, representing dairy interests; 
E. B. Norris, master of the State Grange of New York; Hon. Wm. 
M. Springer, of Illinois, representing the National Livestock Associa- 
tion; Frank M. Mathewson, president of the Oakdale Manufacturing 
Company, of Providence, R. I.; Charles E. Schell, representing the 
Ohio Butterine Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio; W. E. Miller, repre- 
senting the Armour Packing Company, of Kansas Cit}', Mo.; John F. 
Gelke, representing Braun & Fitts, of Chicago, 111., and others. 

The Acting Chaikman. Judge Springer will now be heard. 

STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM M. SPRINGER. 

Mr. Springer. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I 
appear Vjefore 3"ou in behalf of the National Live Stock Association. 
A list of the associations that compose the National Assotdation is 
printed in the hearings before the House Committee on Agriculture, 
which reported the pending bill, on pages 75 and 76. They number 
126 associations in all, and comprise a majority of all the live stock 
organizations now existing in this country, and they represent a capi- 
tal of over $600,000,000. The association held a national convention 
at Fort Worth, Tex., in January a year ago. Here is a book contain- 
ing the proceedings of the convention at Fort Worth. 

Another national convention of the association will be held in Salt 
Lake City, Utah, on the 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th of the present 
month (January, 1901). 

The Fort Worth convention adopted a memorial to the Congress of 
the United States, which is as follows: 



78 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

"Memorial, No. 1. — Oleomargarine Legislation. 

" To the honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States: 

"Your orator, the National Live Stock Association, respectfully 
represents unto your honorable body that it is an organization com- 
posed of over one hundred and twenty-five of the principal stock 
raisers, feeders, and breeders' organizations and those of allied inter- 
ests located throughout the United States, and was organized, among 
other things, for the purpose of promoting the best interests of the 
live-stock industry as a whole. 

"Your orator, in behalf of its constituency, desires to enter its 
emphatic protest against the enactment of House bill 6, introduced 
in the House of Representatives December 4, 1899, by Mr. Tawney, 
providing for an amendment to ' an act defining butter, also impos- 
ing a tax upon and regulating the manufacture, sale, importation, and 
exportation of oleomargarine,' and in support of its protest desires 
to record a few of the many reasons in support of its contention. 

"This measure is a species of class legislation of the most dangerous 
kind, calculated to build up and restore one industry at the expense 
of another, equally as important. It seeks to impose an unjust, 
uncalled-for, and unwarranted burden upon one of the principal com- 
mercial industries of the country for the purpose of prohibiting its 
manufacture, thereby destroying competition, as the manufacturers 
can not assume the additional burdens sought to be imposed by this 
measure and sell their product in competition with butter. The 
enactment of this measure would throttle competition, render useless 
the immense establishments erected at great expense for the manu- 
facture of oleomargarine, deprive thousands of employees of the oppor- 
tunity to gain a livelihood, and deny the people, and especially the 
workingmen and their dependencies, of a wholesome article of diet. 

"In oleomargarine a very large proportion of the consumers of this 
country, especially the working classes, have a wholesome, nutritious, 
and satisfactory article of diet, which before its advent they were 
obliged, owing to the high price of butter and their limited means, to 
go without. 

"The 'butter fat' of an average beef animal, for the purpose of 
making oleomargarine, is worth from %?> to $4 per head ufore than it 
was before the advent of oleomargarine, when the same had to be used 
for tallow; which increased value of the beef steer has been added to 
the market value of the animal, and consequently to the profit of the 
producer. 

"To legislate this article of commerce out of existence, as the pas- 
sage of this law would surely do, would compel slaughterers to use 
this fat for tallow, and depreciate the market value of the beef cattle 
of this country %?> to $4 per head, which would entail a loss on the 
producers of this country of millions of dollars. 

"The use of this fat for the purpose set forth is an encouragement 
to the producer to improve his herd and raise a class of grade or thor- 
oughbred cattle capa1)le of making and carrying this fat rather than 
the common or scrub animal which is so hard and unprofitable to fat- 
ten, and the cattle raiser or producer has come to know the value of 
this product, and that the amount of the increase in the market value 



OLEOMA EG AKINE. 79 

of his matured animal depends somewhat on the value of the ' butter 
fat ' carried by the animal. 

" The rights and privileges of the producers of beef cattle should be 
as well respected as those of others, and as they are the beneficiaries 
in the manufacture of this wholesome article of food, the}^ should not 
be burdened with unnecessary special taxes or needless restrictions in 
the manufacture of this product other than is absoluteh^ necessary for 
the support of the Government and the proper governmental regula- 
tions surrounding the handling of the same. 

"This product of the 'beef steer' should receive at the hands of 
Congress no greater exactions than that imposed upon competing food 
products. It is already surrounded b}^ numerous safeguards, which 
Congress in its wisdom has seen fit to provide, stipulating severe pun- 
ishment for selling same under misrepresentation. It has, by experi- 
ence, proven to be just what a large majorit}^ of the people of this 
country want, and in behalf of the producers and consumers of this 
great country we do solemn!}' protest against the enactment of legisla 
tion calculated to ruin a great industry and to deprive not only the 
working classes but many others of a cheap, wholesome, nutritious, 
and acceptable article of food." 

This memorial was discussed in open convention and adopted by a 
rising vote. 

In order to show the spirit of the convention and the great interest 
manifested in the subject, I will read, with permission of the commit- 
tee, extracts from some of the speeches on the adoption of the memorial. 
Colonel Hobbs, who is the editor of the National Provisioner, a paper 
published in Chicago and New York in the interest of stock raisers, 
said: 

" Mr. President, I would like to make a few remarks. I do not want 
to be personal or talk sharp, but our chief chemist is a practical pack- 
ing-house chemist. He has been in packing houses of the West for 
the last fifteen years. We have had him analyze a large number of 
samples of butterine. These samples were from every Government 
inspected butterine or oleomargarine manufactor}" in the United 
States. We have done this to test the melting point. It has been 
said that 102 is its melting point, while the temperature of the stomach 
is only 98. Therefore it could not be melted in the stomach. There 
were many other objections raised that we wanted to investigate. I 
want to state that we have analyzed samples taken from trade and 
from factories, and that the melting point of butterine is just under 
91 degrees and up to 97 degrees, the latter the highest melting point 
of the crudest butterine made in any Government inspected factory in 
the United States — and mind you, nobody else has a legal right to 
make it. It does not need parafiin to hold it up. 

" The melting point of a pound of choice dair}" butter was 91*^ and a 
shade over. The melting point of the best butterine is 91° and just 
under 91°. 

"In butterine is used beef and hog products and cotton-seed oil — 
all of the highest and best products — so that there is not an unhealthy 
element in it. The hog product that goes into it, the beef product 
that goes into it, and the cotton-seed oil are the highest and purest 
products. It is the same as butter — chemically the same. 

" If Congress passes this 10 per cent bill, it will simply kill the but- 
terine industry; it will hit the cotton-seed industry; it will hit every 



80 OLEOMAKGAEINE. 

hog and every cow in this country. There is 27 per cent of milk in it. 
It will hit every steer in this country, and I want to ask this convention 
to pass this memorial with a rising vote and send it to Washington to 
defeat this iniquitous bill. 

"Butter is higher than ever before. It is now 27 cents per pound. 
Butter never was shorter in this country than now. Let the butter 
people go and stop that condition before they ask to kill an existing 
industry that is helping the farmers of this country. I thank you." 

This was followed by applause, and one delegate said "Amen," which 
may indicate the feeling which was manifested. 

Mr. Sotham, of the American Hereford Breeders' Association, of 
Chillicothe, Mo., said: 

"We have no objections, as beef raisers, to the contention of the 
dairymen if butterine or oleomargarine is sold for just what it is, but 
I think, and you all seem to, that it is wrong to put a tax on a product 
which is exactly the same as butter, pronounced exactl}' the same by 
the best chemical process; and while we would be willing to establish 
the product on the best footing if sold for just what it is, as butterine, 
we also want to see the dair3mien hold in mind a matter in which we 
are interested with them. Every time 3^ou get a miserable and inferior 
butter, of farm butter, these fellows straightway^ call it oleomargarine, 
w^hile the fact is the product of these packing houses to-day is better 
than two-thirds of the butter that is produced in this country. Any 
of us would rather have it on our tables." [Applause]. 

This fact I do not know and will not vouch for. 

The motion was then carried by a rising vote, there being but 3 
votes in opposition to the adoption of the memorial. So that may be 
considered as being before this committee as the unanimous expression 
of those who have been engaged in cattle raising, which embraces also 
the hog industry and the other live-stock interests. 

The book containing the proceedings of the convention furnishes 
some valuable statistics in reference to the cattle industry of the United 
States. On page 82 will be found statistics of the number and value 
of milch cows and other cattle in the United States January 1, 1900. 

Milch cows, 16,292,000; average value, $31.60, and total value, 
1514,812,106. Other cattle, 27,610,054; average value, 124.97, and 
total value, $689,486,260. The number ot other cattle exceeded the 
number of milch cows 11,308,800, and their value exceeded the value 
of milch cows $174,674,154. 

The National Live-Stock Association has not heretofore appeared 
before any committee of Congress, through its own representatives, to 
oppose the legislation contained in the pending bill. 

Several of the members of the National Association appeared before 
the House Committee on Agriculture, and their remarks will be found 
in the hearing-s of that committee which are before you. 

This is the volume which was laid before you by Representative 
Grout, and I call the attention of the committee to some of the remarks 
in this book, beginning on page 70. 

I also call your attention to the remarks of John S, Hobbs, editor of 
the National Provisioner, of New York and Chicago, on pages 130 to 
141. It contains much valuable information on the subject now before 
this committee. 

Also to the statement of Mr. J. A. Hake, president of the Live- 
stock Exchange of South Omaha, Ncbr., printed on pages 167 to 166 
of the House hearings, which contains valuable statistics. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 81 

As I do not desire to repeat any of the statements which have been 
made before the House committee, as this committee has the printed 
hearings before it, I will only call attention to some of the remarks 
before the House committee. 

There is one point, however, to which I desire to call the attention 
of the committee, and that is the unanimity with which all those who 
oppose the passage of the pending bill declare that its passage will 
destroy the oleomargarine industry in the United States. The testi- 
mony on this point is so clear and emphatic that there can scarcely be 
any doubt of the fact. The persons who have testified upon this point 
are engaged in the business or have thoroughly investigated it. They 
know whereof they speak, and Congress ought to give their testimony 
the most serious consideration. 

But the friends of the bill declare their purpose to destroy the indus- 
try. They have framed the bill with that end in view, and having the 
framing of it with that end in view, they ought to have been able to so 
express themselves as to carry out their purpose. 

I call attention to a portion of the minorit}^ report of the Committee 
on Agriculture of the House, which is before you, in which Mr. 
Adams, the pure-food commissioner of the State of Wisconsin, in his 
testimony before the committee, March 7, 1900, said: 

"There is no use beating about the bush in this matter. We want 
to pass this law and drive the oleomargarine manufacturers out of the 
business." 

Mr. Adams. Mr. Chairman 

Mr. Springer. Mr. Adams is here and can state for himself. 

Mr. Adams. Will the gentleman allow me ? 

Mr. Springer. Certainly . 

Mr. Adams. I think it is proper at this time to state that the state- 
ment in the report of the minority as quoted, and properly read by the 
gentleman, is absolutely and unqualifiedly false. I made no such state- 
ment. There was no stenographer present at that hearing. I have 
never had any such idea. I simpl}^ stated that our purpose was to stop 
the fraud in the sale of colored oleomargarine and nothing more; that 
we had no purpose to stop the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine, 
but simply of the colored imitation — counterfeit product. 

Mr. Springer. I so understood the gentleman. There is no other 
kind of oleomargarine made except colored oleomargarine. 

Senator Heitfeld. Judge, did you quote from the report of the 
minority ? 

Mr. Springer. Yes, sir; it is a part of their proceedings I was quot- 
ing, and that has been put before the committee by Mr. Grout. I 
assumed it was correct or I should not have referred to it. But I have 
in my hand a newspaper entitled "Hoard's DaiiTman," a recent pub- 
lication, in which there is an extract from an address of Mr. Adams, 
who has just spoken to the committee, before the Wisconsin Dairy- 
men's Association, in which I find this statement: 

"Now, why do we want this tax? I will tell 3'ou wh3\ Because 
oleomargarine, which is colored in imitation of 3'ellow Ijutter, is a 
counterfeit, which the average purchaser can not detect, and it is placed 
upon the tables of the people and consumed by men and women who 
ask for butter and think they are getting it, and we want to put a tax 
upon the article so high that they can not place it upon the markets of 
this country in imitation of butter." 

S. Rep. 2043 6 



82 OLEOMARGARINE. 

That I presume is correct, 

Mr. Adams. That is absolutely correct. 

Mr. Springer. That is correct. In this connection, therefore, I 
desire to say that I believe it will be the testimony of all those gentle- 
men engaged in the manufacture of oleomargarine that all the product 
made in this countiy is colored practically in imitation of butter. 
There may be some that is not colored, but the manufacturers gener- 
ally regard it as necessary to color it in order to make it salable. 

Other statements were made before the Committee on Agriculture 
of the House, and of similar purport to that which I have read. 

Mr. Knight. Mr. Chairman, if I may be pardoned, there is a state- 
ment credited to me which appears there that not only was never made 
before any committee, but it purports to be a letter written by me to 
a Virginia dairyman, and which was never written by me. I never 
heard of it and never thought of anything of the kind. If it has ever 
appeared it is a forger}-. I denounced it so before the House com- 
mittee and it appeared as such in the Congressional Record. 

The Acting Chairman. It has appeared in the Congressional Record ? 

Mr. Knight. As soon as I saw the minority report I telegraphed 
to Congressman Grout to lay the matter before the House, that that 
purported letter, if there was ever any ground for it, was a forgery. 
I was not prepared to say that someone in the office might not have 
sent it out in my absence while I was here. But at the time it pur- 
ports to have been written I was in Washington and not in Chicago, 
and I was sending out no literature from here. When I went home I 
questioned my clerks and assistants there and could find no record of 
such a letter having ever been written to anybody, or of anj^one who 
ever had any idea of sending it out. 

Mr. Springer. I, of course, assume that matters which appear in an 
official document are there with some responsible authority, and I 
usually quote them without apology; but the gentleman's statement is 
to be considered as controlling in this matter. 

Mr. Knight. The point was raised and never has been met. 

Mr. Springer. I do not desire to hold the gentleman or anyone 
else responsible for any statements which he has not made. It is a 
very commendable course on the part of these gentlemen that they 
should desire that the committee would understand exactly what they 
have stated, and that they should not be misrepresented. 

Before entering upon the discussion of the pending bill, I desire to 
enter ni}- protest against the course pursued by some of the gentlemen 
who favor the passage of the bill. 

I read from the argument of ex-Governor Hoard, of Wisconsin, 
printed on the first page of the hearings. If this is not correctly 
printed, the Governor is present and he can correct it. I will take it 
back if it is not stated correctly. This report states, as coming from 
Governor Hoard, the following: 

"The oleomargarine combine consists of less than twenty manufac- 
turers, who have entered into a conspiracy to break down these State 
laws, and, by bribing merchants, by deception of all kinds, by sub- 
sidizing cit}' newspapers, by employing leading politicians, to so neu- 
tralize the efi'ect and administration of those laws that they may force 
their counterfeit upon the public. These manufacturers are assuming 
to override all law. They stand behind all infractions of State and 
national laws, and furnish money for the defense of their agents when 
arrested. 



OLEOMARGAKINE. 83 

"On one side stands one of the greatest of our agricultural inter- 
ests, together with the millions of consumers who are tired of being 
swindled, 

"On the other side stands the oleomargarine trust, engaged in 
manufacturing a counterfeit, depending on law^breaking, falsehood, 
and deception for its success, backed up with millions of capital." 

I do not represent the manufacturers of oleomargarine, but I do 
insist that neither the manufacturers of oleomargarine nor the repre- 
sentatives of the live-stock interest or the cotton-oil industry of the 
United States should be arraigned before this committee as, in the 
language which I have read, guilty of such disreputable practices as 
are alleged. 

Mr. Hoard. May I interrupt the gentleman 'i 

Mr. Springer. Certainl3^ 

Mr. Hoard. I will say, Judge Springer, that the statement there 
made is based on the testimony of the dairv and food commissioners 
of the United States, who have met those very propositions and facts 
in their work — the absolute bribery of merchants — offering to place 
certified checks in my own State on deposit, to defend merchants 
against the infraction of our State laws if the}^ would take up the sale 
of oleomargarine. 

Mr. Springer. 1 assume that I have correctly quoted you? 

Mr. Hoard. You have, entirely. 

Mr. Springer. The gentleman has not disclaimed it, as was done in 
the other case. But other methods have been adopted by the friends 
of this bill against which I desire to enter m}^ solemn protest, and that 
is the system of bringing undue influence to bear upon the constituents 
of those who have had the courage to act in Congress so as to carry 
out their convictions upon this great question. When the chairman 
of the Committee on Agriculture of the House of Representatives was 
a candidate for reelection at the last election, circulai's were sent into 
his district bearing the signature of the gentleman who is here, Mr. 
Knight. I will not ask the committee to consider those circulars, 
unless the gentleman here states that this paper emanated from him 
[handing paper to Mr. Knight]. 

Mr. Knight [examining paper]. That was a letter written to Mr. 
P. P. Hubbard, of Perry, N. Y. 

Mr. Springer. By you? 

Mr. Knight. Yes, sir; a letter, and not a circular. 

Mr. Springer. A letter ? 

Mr. Knight. A personal letter written to Mr. Hubbard. 

Mr. Springer. Mr. Hubbard was a constituent of Mr. Wadsworth? 

Mr. Knight. Yes, sir. He wrote to me and asked me about Mr. 
Wadsworth's position, and I answered it. liou have got the letter. 

Mr. Springer. This, then, is the answer that was given so as to rep- 
resent the course of Mr. Wadsworth. The letter is as follows: 

"The National Dairy Union, 
"Office of the Secretary, 188 South Water Street, 

''Chicago, III, October 18, 1900. 
"Mr. P. P. Hubbard, Perry, JSF. T. 

"Dear Sir: You ask me to what extent Congressman Wadsworth 
opposed the Grout bill. Well, if you have ever been in court and 
observed a lawyer defending a criminal j'ou can understand how he 
fought for the oleomargarine makers. He was the most active oppo- 



84 OLEOMARGARINE. 

nent we had in Congress. He spent more time lobbying against our 
bill than even the acknowledged agent of the oleomargarine makers — 
Lorimer, of Chicago — to whose tender mercies Wadsworth consigned 
the Grout bill when it was referred to his committee, that it might be 
smothered. 

"As to Wadsworth's bill, offered as a substitute for the Grout bill, 
it is nothing more nor less than a deep-laid plan to bi'eak down com- 
pletely all anticolor laws, including New York. His bill makes 
1-pound packages original packages so they can be sold under pro- 
tection of the interstate-commerce laws by the retailer with a $48 
license. Only wholesalers paying $480 can sell an original package 
now, and they can't sell less than 10 pounds. While no oleomarga- 
rine is made in his State, he has conceived a great affection for the 
kind of oleomargarine that is an exact counterfeit of butter, forbidden 
by New York, and which defrauds the public everywhere, and the 
only kind we are seeking to suppress. 

"Wadsworth's friends in Congress were amazed at his attitude in 
this matter. His conduct was unprecedented. No Congressman 
representing a Northern agricultural district has ever been known to 
take such an aggressive stand against the farmers of his district in 
face of such floods of petitions, and no support whatever from his own 
people in his position. 

"Wadsworth, with his bill, is the most dangerous eneni}- the dairy- 
men have in the world. As chairman of the Agricultural Committee 
he has certain prestige. If he is returned to Congress by the votes 
of the farmers of his district, thereby winning their approval of his 
course, it will be bad for us. His reelection, unless with a greatly 
reduced majority, will be a victory for the stock yards and oleomarga- 
rine fraud of Chicago, and a death knell to the farmer's influence in 
Congress. 

"The National Dairj^ Union, however, is not in politics, and its 
officers happen to be of the same political faith as Wadsworth. Our 
organization is merely for the purpose of urging measures in protec- 
tion of the farmer who keeps cows, and furnishing information to them 
regarding the records of Congressmen upon such measures. 

"Respectfully, yours, ..^^^^ Y. Knight,_ 

'"''Secretary National Dairy Unions 

The result of that election is a very emphatic protest against the 
methods used to defeat him. He succeeded in being reelected at this 
time by an increased majority of over 3,000 above the vote he received 
two years ago, and had 8,000 majority in his district to return him to 
the next Congress. 

Mr. Knight. Judge Springer, do you know how far he ran behind 
his ticket? 

Mr. Springer. I do not. 

Mr. Knight. I do. 

Mr. Springer. Hegotvotesenough, however, to give him a majority 
of about 9,000 in his district. 

Mr, Flanders. The official returns of the State of New York have 
not been printed, but the i-eturns in the agricultural papers in the State 
of New York show that he ran 2,000 behind. I will not state this as 
a positive fact, because the ofiicial returns are not in, but that is the 
statement made and the general understanding among the people. 

Mr. Springer. There were various circulars sent abroad in his 



OLEOMARGARINE. 85 

district having as their object his defeat for the reason that he exer- 
cised his judgment upon this measure and used his influence to secure 
the passage of another bifl, to which I call the attention of this com- 
mittee, and which I believe will meet every objection that has really 
an}^ foundation in it. 

I desire to discuss this bill on its merits. I concede to every Senator 
and Representative in Congress the right to an honest difi'erence of 
opinion with other Senators and Members. The constituents of Sena- 
tors and Members of the House will recognize the right of their 
representatives to express their honest convictions, and all eft'orts to 
threaten Senators and Members of the House with popular condemna- 
tion should be reprobated. 

The Committee on Manufactures of the Senate has recently investi- 
gated the subject of the adulteration of food products. It has submitted 
an able report on the subject, accompanied with all the testimony. 
The report is known as Senate Report No. 616, first session Fifty-sixth 
Congress, and was submitted to the Senate on February 28, 1900. 

I call the attention of the committee to the conclusions reached b}^ 
the Committee on Manufactures of the Senate at this very Congress. 
That part of the report on this subject will be found printed on pages 
7 to 9, and is as follows: 

"In regard to butterine or oleomargarine it is not claimed by any of 
the witnesses before your committee that it is in any way deleterious 
to public health. On the contrary all expert evidence upon this point 
strongly confirms the testimony of the manufacturers of this article, 
to the eflect that it is a healthful food product. The testimony shows 
that this product is the result of a combination of beef and pork fats, 
butter, cream, and milk with coloring matter, which is similar to that 
universall}^ used by farmers and dairies engaged in the manufacture of 
butter for the coloring of that product. As under the resolution 
under which this committee is operating it is made one of its duties to 
investigate food products and to ascertain what is sold that is deleteri- 
ous to the public health, your committee made every effort to obtain 
information upon this branch of the subject, and in addition to oral 
testimony there were submitted authorities of an expert character, as 
follows: 

"Henry Morton, Stevens Institute Technology, New Jersey: 

" 'It contains nothing whatever which is injurious as an article of diet; but, on the 
contrary, is essentially identical with the best fresh butter.' 

" S. C. Caldwell, chemical laboratory, Cornell University: ' Possesses 
no qualities whatever that can make it the least degree unwholesome.' 

"Charles P. Williams, analytical chemist, Philadelphia: ' It is a pure 
and wholesome article of food, and in this respect, as in respect to its 
chemical composition, is fully the equivalent of the best dairy butter.' 

"Henry A. Mott, analytical chemist. New York: 'Essentially iden- 
tical with butter made from cream, and perfectly pure and wholesome 
article.' 

"J. S. W. Arnold, medical department. University New York: 'A 
blessing for the public, and in every way a perfectly pure, wholesome, 
and palatable article of food.' 

" W. O. Atwater, Wesleyan University, Connecticut: ' It is perfectly 
wholesome and healthy, and has a high and nutritious value.' 

"Scientific American: ' Oleomargarine is as much a farm product as 
beef or butter, and is as wholesome as either.' 



86 OLEOMAKGAKINE. 

"Prof. Charles F. Chandler, New York City: 'The product is palat- 
able and wholesome, and I regard it as a most valuable article of food.' 

"Prof. George F. Barker, University of Pennsylvania: 'It is per- 
fectly wholesome, and is desirable as an article of food.' 

"It has been claimed by some that the coloring- matter alluded to is 
a by-product of coal tar, and that if taken into the himian stomach it 
might be dangerous to health; but, upon the evidence taken before 
3^our committee, there appears to be no foundation for prohibiting its 
use in the manufacture either of butter or oleomarg-arine. 

"As to the right of manufacturers to color their oleomargarine, it 
would appear from the tenor of late decisions in United States and 
States courts that the legislative branch would exceed its power by 
prohibiting the use of such coloring matter in the manufacture of 
either butter or oleomargarine, and in the opinion of your committee 
such legislation would be void, for lack of uniformity were permission 
granted to use coloring matter in one of these products to the exclu- 
sion of its use in the other. 

"There have been several recent decisions by the Supreme Court of 
the United States, the most prominent being the case of Schollen- 
berger y. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in which it is held that 
oleomargarine has been recognized for nearly a quarter of a century 
in Europe and the United States as an article of food and commerce, 
and has been so recognized by acts of Congress. The court refers to 
the act of August 2, 18S6 (M Stat., 209), 'An act defining butter, 
also imposing a tax upon and regulating the manufacture, sale, impor- 
tation, and exportation of oleomargarine.' One description of oleo- 
margarine contained in this act includes, 'all mixtures and compounds 
of tallow, beef fat, suet, lard, lard oil, vegetable oil, annatto and other 
"coloring matter, intestinal fat, and otfal fat made in imitation of butter.' 
The decision in the Schollenberger case holds, ' that the manufacture 
of oleomargarine by the compounding of the ingredients named in 
this quotation from the act of August 2, 1886, is recognized by Con- 
gress as being a lawful business and that the oleomargarine so produced 
is a lawful article of commerce. ' 

"It was claimed b}^ some of the witnesses before your committee 
that the present laws are inadequate to carry out the original intention 
of legislatures, and that under the operation of the various laws regu- 
lating the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine it is sometimes sold 
to consumers as butter. Some of the witnesses who testified before 
your committee stated ' that having asked for butter, there were occa- 
sions when oleomargarine had been given them instead of the former 
article.' The examination of the retailers of oleomargarine and butter 
who came l)efore your committee tends to show that consumers of 
these articles know which of these products they are purchasing, but 
in many instances do not wish it known that they are using oleomarga- 
rine, and it is the testimony of manufacturers of oleomargarine before 
your committee that there is no instance of any consumer having ever 
brought action to prosecute dealers for having sold them oleomargarine 
instead of butter. This testimony has not been contradicted, nor has 
any proof of its accuracy been oft'ered. 

"There has been much evidence and argument before your com- 
mittee as to whether the manufacture of oleomargarine is detrimental 
to the interests of the farmers of the country. The evidence shows, 
however, that all of the ingredients entering into the composition of 
both butter and oleomargarine are the products of our farms, with the 



OLEOMARGAKINE. 



87 



possible exception of the coloring matter, the use of which is infini- 
tesimal in both cases. 

''"The resolution under which this committee was appointed does not 
authorize investigation except: 

"First. What food is sold that is deleterious to the public health; and, 

"Second. What food is sold in fraud to the consumer. 

"The committee finds from the evidence before it that the product 
known commercially as oleomargarine is healthful and nutritious, and 
that no additional legislation is necessary." 

There is no minority report of the Committee on Manufactures upon 
the pure-food bill, so called. 

Mr. Knight. Judge Springer, may I interrupt you for a moment? 

Mr. Springer. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Knight. Senator Hansbrough will probably recall the fact that 
Senator Mason made a statement on the floor of the Senate toward the 
latter part of the last session that subsequent developments have con- 
vinced him that he was mistaken in the premises. That is now a mat- 
ter of record in the Congressional Record. He said it had developed 
that there was a great deal of fraud in oleomargarine that he did not 
know about, and he had changed his conclusions as to that matter. 
That you will find in the Congressional Record, and 1 will attempt to 
look it up. 

Mr. Springer. Senator Mason is a Senator, and when this matter 
comes before the Senate he will have an opportunit}^ of stating whether 
he retracts any part of the official report he has made, and it will rest 
on his statement. 

Mr. Knight, I simply desire to call attention to that fact. 

Mr. Springer. I have collected some statistics in reference to oleo- 
margarine, which will be of interest to the committee and to all others 
who desire to be thoroughly imformed on the subject. 

PRODUCTION OF OLEOMARGARINE. 

The report of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue for the fiscal 
year ending June 30, 1900, shows that the production of oleomargarine 
for that year was 107,045,028 pounds, and that the tax of 2 cents a 
pound paid to the Government thereon amounted to $2,543,785.18. 

The following table of production and total receipts from all oleo- 
margarine sources for each fiscal year since November 1, 1886, the date 
the oleomargarine law took efl'ect, is interesting as showing the extent 
of operations in the country: 





Total produc- 
tion. 


Amount re- 
ceived. 


On hand November 1, 1886 


Pounds. 
181,090 

21,513,537 
34, 325, 527 
35, 664, 026 
32,324,032 
44,392,409 
48,364,155 
67,224,298 
69, 622. 246 
56, 958, 105 
50,853,234 
45,531,207 
67,516,136 
83,130,474 
107, 045, 028 




During the fiscal year ended June 30 — 

1887 (from November 1, 1886) 


S723, 948. 04 


1888 


864, 139. 88 


1889 


894, 247. 91 


1890 


786, 291. 72 


1891 


1,077,924.14 


1892 


1,266,326.00 


1893 


1,670,643.60 


1894 


1,723,479.90 


1895 


1,409,211.18 


1896 


1, 219, 432. 46 


1897 


1,034,129.60 


1898 


1, 315, 70S. 54 


1899 


1,950,618.56 


1900 


2,543,785.18 






Total 


754, 645, 50-i 


18,485,886.61 







88 OLEOMAEGAKINE. 

THE INGREDIENTS OF OLEOMARGARINE. 

The House of Representatives at its last session called upon the Sec- 
retary of the Treasuiy for information as to the kind of material used 
in the manufacture of oleomargarine in the United States, the amount 
of each ingredient, and the per cent that each bears to the total amount 
of oleomargarine produced in the country for the period named. In 
response to this resolution the Secretary, through the Commissioner 
of Internal Revenue, on May 14, 1900, furnished the following state- 
ment : 

Quantities and kinds of ingredients iised in the, production of oleomargarine in the United 
States for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1899; also the percentage each ingredient bears 
to the whole quantity. 



Material. 


Pounds. 


Percent- 
age each 

ingredient 
bears to 

the whole. 




31,297,251 

24,491,769 

4,367,614 

486,310 

148, 970 

110, 164 

8,963 

5,890 

2, .550 

14,200,576 

6,773,670 

4,342,904 

1,668,319 

3,527,410 


34.27 




26.82 


Cotton-seed oil 


4.77 




.63 


Coloring matter 


.16 


Sugar 


.12 




.01 


Stearin 


.007 


Glucose 


.003 


Milk 


15. .55 


Salt 


7.42 


Butter oil 


4.76 


Butter 


1.72 


Cream 


3.86 






Total 


91,322,260 


100 







Or, more definitely stated, the quantity, character, and value of 
ingredients used in the production of oleomargarine for the time speci- 
fied above are as follows: 



Material. 


Pounds. 


Value 

per 
pound. 


Total value. 


Neutral lard 


31,297,251 

24,491,769 

8,700,418 

486,310 

148, 970 

100, 164 

8,963 

5,890 

2,550 

14, 250, 576 

6, 772, 670 

1,568,319 

3,527,410 

4,342,000 


Cents. 
8 
9 
6 

10 

20 
4 

10 
8 
3 
1 
1 

20 
5 
6 


12, 503, 780. 08 
2, 144, 917. 69 


Oleo oil 


Cotton-seed oil 


622, 025. 08 


Sesame oil 


4, 863. 10 


Coloring matter . 


29, 296. 00 


Sugar 


4, 406. 50 


Glycerin 


896. 30 


stearin 


459. 60 


Glucose 


76 50 


Milk 


142, 006. 76 

67,726.70 

313,663.80 

176 370 50 


Salt 


Butter 


Cream 


Butter oil 


260 520. OU 







Average value per pound of materials, 7.09 cents. 
Average cost of packages (extreme), one-half cent per pound. 

Highest possible cost all expenses connected with manufacturing, 1 cent per pound. 
Internal-revenue tax, per pound, 2 cents. 

Total cost to manufacturer of finished product, average, 10.59 cents. 

Finished product quoted at from 11^ cents for lowest grade to 18 cents for highest quality, averag- 
ing, probably, 14 cents per pound. 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 



89 



STATES WHICH HAVE PROHIBITED OLEOMARGARINE AND THEIR 
POPULATION, 1890 AND 1900. 

I have obtained from the Director of the Census a statement of the 
population of the United States for the census years 1890 and 1900. 
The statement is as follows: 

[States marked with a dash (thus, — Alabama) are those in which 
laws have been passed forbidding the sale of oleomargarine colored in 
semblance of butter.] 

Population of the United States by States and Territories, 1890 and 1900. 



States and Territories. 



Indians not 
taxed, 1900. 



The United States . 



76,304,799 



63, 069, 766 



-Alabama 

Arkansas 

-California 

-Colorado 

-Connecticut 

-Delaware 

Florida 

-Georgia 

Idaho 

-Illinois 

Indiana 

-Iowa 

Kansas 

-Kentucky 

Louisiana 

-Maine 

-Maryland 

-Massachusetts . . . 

-Michigan 

-Minnesota 

Mississippi 

-Missouri 

Montana 

-Nebraska 

Nevada 

-New Hampshire. 

-New Jersey 

-New York 

North Carolina . . 
-North Dakota . . . 

-Ohio 

-Oregon 

-Pennsylvania ... 

Rhode Island 

-South Carolina .. 

-South Dakota 

-Tennessee 

Texas 

-Utah 

-Vermont 

-Virginia 

-Washington 

-West Virginia ... 
-Wisconsin 

Wyoming 



1,828,697 
1,311,564 
1,485,053 

539, 700 

908, 355 

184, 735 

528, 542 
2, 216, 331 

161, 772 
4,821,550 
2, 516, 462 
2,231,853 
1, 470, 495 
2, 147, 174 
1, 381, 625 

694,466 
1, 190, 050 
2, 805, 346 
2,420,982 
1,751,394 
1,551,270 
3, 106, 665 

243, 329 

1,068,539 

42,335 

411,588 
1,883,669 
7,268,012 
1,893,810 

319, 146 
4,157,545 

413, 536 
6,302,115 

428, 556 
1, 340, 316 

401,570 
2,020,616 
3, 048, 710 

276, 749 

343,641 
1,854,184 

518, 103 

958, 800 

2, 069, 042 

92, 531 



Total for 45 States 74,610,523 



TERRITORIES. 



Alaska 

Arizona 

District of Columbia. 

Hawaii 

Indian Territory 

New Mexico 

Oklahoma 



Total for 7 Territories . 



Persons in the service of the United States stationed abroad. 
Indians, etc. , on Indian reservations, except Indian Territory, 



63,441 
122, 931 
278, 718 
154, 001 
391,960 
195, 310 
398, 245 



1,604,606 
189,670 



76,304,799 



1,513 

1, 128 

1,208 

412 

746 

168: 

391 

1,837 

84, 

3,826 

2, 192 

1,911 

1,427 

1,858 

1,118 

661 

1,042 

2,238 

2,093 

1,301 

1, 289 

2, 679, 

132 

1,058 

45 

376 

1,444 

5, 997 

1,617 

182 

3, 672 

313, 

5,258: 

345: 

1, 151 

328, 

1,767 

2, 235, 

207 

332, 

1, 655 

349 

762: 

1, 686 

6o: 



017 
179 
130 
198 
258 
493 
422 
353 
385 
351 
404 
896 
096 
635 
587 
086 
390 
943 
889 
826 
600 
184 
159 
910 
761 
530 
933 
853 
947 
719 
316 
767 
014 
506 
149 
808 
518 
523 
905 
422 
980 
390 
794 
880 
705 



62,116,811 



32,052 

59, 620 
230, 392 

89, 990 
180, 182 
153, 593 

61,834 



807, 663 



145,282 



1,549 
597 



2,297 



10, 746 
"i,'665 



4,711 
"4 '692 



10, 932 



1,472 



2,631 
'i'657 



44,617 



24,644 



56,033 
2,937 
5,927 



89,641 



1 Including an estimated population of 14,400 for certain military organizations and naval vessels 
stationed abroad, principally in the Philippines for which the returns have not yet been received. 



90 



OLEOMAKGAEINE. 



According to the population of 1890 the States which have prohibited 
the sale of colored oleomargarine contained a population of 50,117,4-iO, 
while the States and Territories whose laws permit such sale, merely 
requiring that the oleomargarine be branded, marked, or labeled so as 
to distinguish it, contained a population of only 12,604,790. The Dis- 
trict of Columbia, with 230,392 population in 1890, is embraced in the 
latter list. 

According to the population of 1900 the States which have prohibited 
the sale of colored oleomargarine contained a population of about 
60,000,000, while the thirteen other States contained a population of 
14,671,001. 

QUANTITY CONSUMED IN EACH STATE. 

The Secretar}^ of the Treasury has furnished a statement of the quan- 
tity of oleomargarine shipped into the several States and Territories, 
and probably consumed therein, during the fiscal year ending June 30, 
1899. A table showing similar information for the year ending June 
30, 1900, could not be prepared in time to be of use to this committee 
during the consideration of the pending bill. 

I have marked a dash before the States in which laws have been 
passed prohibiting the sale of oleomargarine colored in imitation of 
butter. The number of the dealers in each State is given, and the per- 
centage of the whole product consumed in each State. The table is as 
follows: 



Quantity of oleomargarine shipped into each Slate for fiscal year ended June 30, 1899. 



State or Territory. 


No. of 
deal- 
ers. 


Pounds. 


Per cent 
of total. 


State or Territory. 


No. of 
deal- 
ers. 


Pounds. 


Per cent 
of total. 




21 
5 

35 
5 


226, 053 

18,080 

380,389 

78,767 

74,923 

1,123,537 

134,255 

40,475 

816,848 

590,225 

495, 004 

18,638,921 

58,224 

3. 923. 228 


0.28+ 

.02+ 

.48- 

.10- 

.09 + 

1.41- 

.17- 

.05 + 

1 02+ 

.74+ 

.62 + 

23.39- 

.07+ 

4.92+ 

.19+ 

.10 + 

2.08 + 

1.87 + 

1.31- 

.13- 

2.25- 

2.61 + 

2.63- 

1.69- 

3.93 + 

.13+ 

.56- 


— Nebraska 

— New Hampshire. 

— New Jersey 

New Mexico 

— New York 

Nevada 


73 

19 

296 

12 

14 


1,024,985 

455, 583 

5,875,975 

115.850 

222, 788 

625 

110,244 

7,710 

8,830,969 

117, 398 

41,250 

11, 433, 341 

3,594,984 

258, 159 

55,432 

714, 640 

1,518,264 

8,4.50 

2,990 

1,159,400 

63,345 

1,206,865 

714, 742 

39, 547 


1.29- 


Alaska 


.57+ 


Arkansas 


7.37+ 


Arizona 


.15- 


— California 


.28- 




55 

5 

48 

61 

82 

61 

2,020 

3 

306 


.00+ 


— Connecticut 

— Delaware 


North Carolina . . 

— North Dakota . . . 

— Ohio 


9 

18 

1,005 

10 

3 

717 

333 

24 

4 

83 

162 


.14- 
.01- 




11.08+ 


Florida 


Oklahoma 

— Oregon 


.15- 




.05+ 


— Illinois . . 


— Pennsylvania ... 
Rhode Island 

— South Carolina . . 

— South Dakota 

—Tennessee 

Texas 

— Utah 


14.35- 


Idaho 


4.51 + 


Indiana 


.32+ 


Indian Territory . . 
— Iowa 


21 ! 152,278 
3 79. 922 


.07- 
.90- 


Kansas 


186 
217 
140 

17 

58 
108 
109 

30 
231 

17 


1,658,544 

1,490,577 

1,043,502 

102, 274 

1,791,950 

2,083,889 

2,092,521 

1,343,865 

3,133,313 

104, 622 

446, 022 


1.91- 


— Kentucky 


.01 + 


Louisiana . . 


— Vermont 


1 
121 

6 

172 

23 

5 


.00+ 




1.45+ 


— Maryland 


— Washington 

— West Virginia . . . 

— Wisconsin 

Wyoming 

Total 


.08- 


— Massachusetts 

Michigan 

— Minnesota 


1.51 + 
.90- 
.05- 


Mississippi 

Montana 


79, 695, 744 


100. 00 















The information contained in this statement is valuable and instruct- 
ive. Itsho^vs the effect upon the consumption of oleomargarine which 
is produced by State legislation. In Rhode Island, having a population 
of 428,556 by the census of 1900, the consumption of oleomargarine 
for the year ending June 30, 1899. was 3,594,984 pounds. This 
amounted to over 8 pounds per capita. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 91 

The Acting Chairman. Havo they a State law in Rhode Island pro- 
hibiting it? 

Mr. Springer. No, sir; in that State it is allowed to be sold, desig- 
nated as oleomargarine, with proper marks and brands. A gentleman 
who addressed the committee the other day explained how it was — 
that there was a sign up in the windows of every store stating that 
oleomargarine was sold there, and that its sale as such was understood. 

In Vermont, having a population of 343,641, the consumption was 
only 2,990 pounds, or practically nothing. The principal reason for 
this difference in consumption is that in Rhode Island the sale of 
oleomargine, colored in imitation of butter, is permitted if marked and 
branded as such. In Vermont oleomargarine, colored in imitation of 
yellow butter, is prohibited, and when sold at all it must be colored 
pink. 

In Illinois, where there is hostile legislation, yet there were con- 
sumed in the State during the year 1899 over 18,000,000 pounds. 
But the courts were generall}^ opposed to the enforcement of the 
law, and it was practically ignored. The production in that State 
for that year amounted to over 38,000,000 pounds. But in New York, 
where there is strongly repressive legislation, and where we may 
assume from the result produced the law was fairly well executed, the 
consumption amounted to only 222,788 pounds. The population of 
the State is over 7,000,000. The consumption is well-nigh completely 
suppressed. If the laws of New York had been the same as those of 
Rhode Island, the consumption might have reached 8 pounds per 
capita, or 56,000,000 pounds. 

The total production of oleomargarine in the United States for the 
3'ear ending June 30, 1900, was 107,045,028 pounds. This was a con- 
sumption of only 1.4 pounds per capita. Without repressive laws 
in any of the States the consumption might have been as great per 
capita as in Rhode Island. This would have increased the demand 
for oleomargarine for consumption in the United States per annum to 
over 600,000,000 pounds. It is not surprising, in view of these facts, 
that the friends of the pending bill desire the enactment of the first 
section, which will place oleomargarine under the repressive laws of 32 
States in the Union, with a fair prospect of securing equally oppressive 
legislation in the remaining 13 States. 

The apprehension of the dairymen of the United States that their 
industry will be seriously injured by the production and consumption 
of oleomargarine is not well founded. It is stated in the minority 
report of the House Committee on Agriculture on the pending bill 
that the production of butter in the United States at this time amounts 
to about 2,000,000,000 pounds per annum, and that the production of 
oleomargarine is l)ut little over 4 per cent of that of butter. This does 
not threaten serious competition. A possible consumption in the 
United States of 8 pounds per capita, as in Rhode Island, would not 
seriously injure the butter industry, for the reason that the consump- 
tion of oleomargarine would be confined in the main, under proper 
regulations, to those who do not use butter, by reason of its high price. 
Greater comforts would be possible with no perceptible injury to any 
class of our people. 

But even if butter should be brought into sharp competition with 
oleomargarine sold under proper regulations, the producers of milk and 
of dairy and creamery butter have no right to complain. Every iugre- 



92 OLEOMARGARINE. 

client of oleomargarine is the product of our farms and ranches. Those 
who produce the ingredients of oleomargarine are just as much entitled 
to a fair held and open competition as are those who produce milk and 
butter. The consumers of the country are entitled to the best that the 
country affords and at the most reasonable prices that home competi- 
tion in production can afford. The opposition to oleomargarine is as 
unreasonable as is that to improved processes of production and to 
labor-saving machinery. The time has long since passed when the 
machine must be destroyed because it saves labor and cheapens pro- 
duction. If American genius can invent some means of producing 
butter or any other article of consumption which will add to human 
comfort and happiness, such article is entitled to equal rights before 
the law with all other articles of like character, even if the old is driven 
out of the market and the new material entirely supplants it. 

The Acting Chairman. Judge, is not that what would happen to 
the American cow? If she became more valuable for oleomargarine 
than for butter, would she not be driven out? 

Mr. Springer. Yes, that is possible; but she would go to the 
slaughterhouse, where she would oe utilized to veiy great benefit in 
feeding the hungry people of the world. A gentleman who addressed 
the committee a few days ago stated that all cows were sent to the 
block sooner or later. 

The Acting Chairman. Then would not the oleomargarine people 
be required to discover some new method of producing calves ? 

Senator Heitfeld. An incubator might be used. 

Mr, Springer. An incubator process might be invented, as sug- 
gested by the Senator from Idaho. But if the honorable chairman will 
consult those gentlemen whom I have the honor to represent here, on 
their ranches upon the vast prairies of the West, he will find that most 
of the calves which mature into beef cattle are produced by the cows 
on the ranches which are not used for dairy purposes. 

Senator Heitfeld. Judge, are you not surprised that a farmer from 
North Dakota does not know that daiiy cows are not those that produce 
the calves — that it is the range cows ? 

Mr. Springer. The range cows are those that produce most of them. 
All calves from dairy cows as a rule are sent to slaughter as soon as 
they are old enough to be of value as veal. 

The Acting Chairman, I supposed it was necessary for a cow to 
become a calf producer before producing milk. 

Senator Heitfeld. That is true, but most of the dairy calves, per- 
haps three-fourths of them, go right to the slaughterhouse, 

Mr, Springer. Those that we relj^ on to produce beeves are raised 
on ranches, and the cows are not used as milch cows. But, however 
this may be, I reassert what I stated before, that the law-making 
power can not interfere with the industries of the country so as to 
strike one down and build up another merely by reason of the fact 
that one of them is getting the advantage of the other by adopting 
improved processes of production so as to cheapen the price of the 
product to the consumer. That doctrine has long since been exploded, 
and it never will reappear again, I hope, in this country. If you want 
to see the fulfillment of the doctrine of repressive legislation to pre- 
vent improved processes go to China, and you will find a country that 
regards the machine as the enemy of labor. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 



93 



THE LAW OF THE CASE. 

I desire to call the attention of the committee to the law of this case, 
and 1 trust that I shall not weary your patience on a subject so impor- 
tant as that. 

I have been engaged during the past five years in interpreting the 
laws of my country and in enforcing them, and having occupied the 
position of a judge I realize more fully that it is the duty of all persons 
to look to the law, and, when the law points out the course, to follow 
it. So I shall ask this committee to follow the law as announced by 
the Supreme Court of the United States. 

Two recent opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States in 
reference to oleomargarine are of the highest importance in consider- 
ing the pending bill. To these opinions I will ask the committee to 
give special consideration. 

The first opinion was handed down in the case of Plumley v. Massa- 
chusetts, in 1894. The second opinion was handed down in 1898, and 
was in the case of Schollenberger v. Pennsylvania. The opinions were 
given upon the oleomargarine laws of the States of Massachusetts and 
Pennsylvania. The sections of those laws which were construed by 
the Supreme Court are as follows: 

THE MASSACHUSETTS AND PENNSYLVANIA STATUTES COMPARED. 



Massachusetts oleomargarine statute of 
March 10, 1891, which the Supreme 
Court of the United States held to be 
valid, in Plumley v. Massachusetts, 
155 U. S. , 461-482. Decided December 
10, 1894. 

Sec. 1. "No person, by himself 
or his agents or servants, shall 
render or manufacture, sell, offer 
for sale, expose for sale, or have 
in his possession with intent to sell, 
any article, product, or compound 
made wholly or partly out of any 
fat, oil, or oleaginous substance, or 
compound thereof, not produced 
from unadulterated milk or cream 
from the same, which shall be in 
imitation of yellow butter pro- 
duced from pure unadulterated 
milk or cream from the same: 
Provided^ That nothing in this act 
shall be construed to prohibit the 
manufacture or sale of oleomarga- 
rine in a separate and distinct 
form, and in such manner as will 
advise the consumer of its real 
character, free from coloration or 
ingredient that causes it to look 
like butter." 



Pennsylvania oleomargarine statute of 
May 21, 1885, which the Supreme Court 
of the United States held to be invalid, to 
the extent that it prohibits the intro- 
duction of oleomargarine from another 
State and its sale in the original pack- 
age, in Schollenberger v. Pennsylvania, 
171 U. S. , 1-30. Decided May 26, 1878. 

"No person, firm, or corporate 
body shall manufacture out of any 
oleaginous substance, or any com- 
pound of the same, other than 
that produced from unadulterated 
milk or cream from the same, any 
article designed to take the place 
of butter or cheese produced from 
pure unadulterated milk or cream 
from the same, or of any imita- 
tion or adulterated butter or cheese, 
nor shall sell or offer for sale, or 
have in his, her, or their posses- 
sion with intent to sell, the same 
as an article of food." 



94 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

The difference between these two sections was that in the Massa- 
chusetts law the phrase was, "shall be in imitation of yellow butter 
produced from pure unadulterated milk or cream from the same," etc., 
while in the Pennsylvania law, which was declared unconstitutional, 
the language was, "Designed to take the place of butter or cheese." 

An examination of the pleadings in these cases reveals the fact that 
the oleomargarine sold in each case was in the original package in 
which it was imported into the State, and that all the provisions of the 
act of Congress of August 2, 1886, had been complied with in each 
case. 

In the Massachusetts case it was admitted in the pleadings that the 
article sold was that forbidden by the statute; it was therefore made 
in imitation of yellow butter; but that it was marked and distinguished 
by all the marks, words, and stamps required of oleomargarine by the 
laws of Congress and those of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 

In the Pennsylvania case it was conceded that the oleomargarine 
sold was manufactured out of an oleaginous substance, not produced 
from unadulterated milk or cream, and was designed to take the place 
of butter as an article of food; " but the fact that the article was oleo- 
margarine and not butter was made known by the defendant to the 
purchaser, and there was no attempt or purpose on the part of the 
defendant to sell the article as butter, or any understanding on the 
part of the purchaser that he was l>u3nng anything but oleomargarine." 

The Supreme Court, in its opinion in the Schollenberger case, refer- 
ring to the decision and opinion in the Plumley case, said: 

"This court held that a conviction under that (Massachusetts) 
statute for having sold an article known as oleomargarine, not pro- 
duced from unadulterated milk or cream, but manufactured in imita- 
tion of yellow butter produced from pure unadulterated milk or cream, 
was valid. Attention was called in the opinion to the fact that the 
statute did not prohibit the manufacture or sale of all oleomargarine, 
but only such as was colored in imitation of yellow butter produced 
from unadulterated milk or cream of such milk. If free from colora- 
tion or ingredient that caused it to look like butter, the right to sell it 
in separate and distinct form and in such manner as would advise the 
consumer of its real character was neither restricted nor prohibited. 
The court held that under the statute the party was onW forbidden to 
practice in such matters a friaud upon the general public, that the 
statute seeks to suppress false pretenses and to promote fair dealing 
in the sale of an article of food, and that it compels the sale of oleo- 
margarine for what it reallj^ is by preventing its sale for what it is not." 

The court further held — that is, the court in the Schollenberger 
case — in reference to the Plumley case: 

"It will thus be seen that the case was based entirely upon the the- 
ory of the right of a State to prevent deception and fraud in the sale 
of any article, and that it was the fraud and deception contained in 
selling the article for what it was not, and selling it so that it should 
appear to be another and a different article that this right of the State 
was upheld. The question of the right to totally prohibit the intro- 
duction from another State of the pure article did not arise, and, of 
course, was not passed upon." 

The only difference in the texts of the two statutes in question is 
found in these phrases: In the Massachusetts statute these words are 
used: "Any article * * * which shall be in imitation of yellow 



OLEOMAKGARINE. 95 

butter produced from pure unadulterated milk or cream from the same." 
In the Pennsylvania statute these words were used: '"An}^ article 
designed to take the place of butter or cheese produced from pure una- 
dulterated milk or cream from the same." Or, to narrow the distinc- 
tion still further, in one case the words used were: "In imitation of 
3^ellow butter;" in the other, ""designed to take the place of butter." 

Notwithstanding this finel}' drawn distinction in the meaning of the 
two statutes in question, the entire opinion of the Supreme Court in 
the Schollenburger case does substantiallj^ overrule the Plumlej' case. 
Attention is called to the following quotations from the opinion of the 
court in the Schollenburger case. I read from volume 171, of United 
States Supreme Court Reports. Mr. Justice Peckham delivered the 
opinion of the court. At the bottom of page 7 and at the top of page 
8, the court stated as follows: 

"In the examination of this subject the first question to be consid- 
ered is whether oleomargarine is an article of commerce. No affirma- 
tive evidence from witnesses called to the stand and speaking directl}^ 
to that subject is found in the record. We must determine the 
question with reference to those facts which are so well and univer- 
sally known that courts will take notice of them without particular 
proof being adduced in regard to them, and also by reference to those 
dealings of the commercial world which are of like notoriety. 

"Any legislation of Congress upon the subject must of course be 
regarded b}^ this court as a fact of the first importance. If Congress 
has affirmativel}^ pronounced the article to be a proper subject of 
commerce, we should rightly be influenced b}^ that declaration." 

The court then proceeded, to show that Congress had recognized it 
as a legitimate article of commerce. The court then pointed out the 
various provisions of the act of Congress of August 2, 1886 (26 Stat., 
209), imposing a tax of 2 cents a pound upon oleomargarine, and con- 
cluded its sj^nopsis of the act with the following statement, on page 9: 

"This act shows that Congress at the time of its passage in 1886 
recognized the article as a proper subject of taxation and as one which 
was the subject of traffic and of exportation to foreign countries and 
of importation from such countries. Its manufacture was recognized 
as a lawful pursuit, and taxation was levied upon the manufacturer of 
the article, upon the wholesale and retail dealers therein, and also upon 
the article itself." 

The court then referred to the fact that oleomargarine was well 
known as an article of food and is dealt in as such to a large extent 
throughout this countr}' and in Europe. The court quoted, with 
approval, the following case and opinion thereon: 

"In Ex parte Scott and others the circuit court for the eastern dis- 
trict of Virginia {Q6 Fed. Rep., 15), speaking by Hughes, district 
judge, said: ' It is a fact of common knowledge that oleomargarine has 
been subjected to the severest scientific scrutiny and has been adopted 
bj" ever}' leading government in Europe, as well as America, for use 
b}' their armies and navies. Though not originally invented by us, it 
is a gift of American enterprise and progressive invention to the 
world. It has become one of the conspicuous articles of interstate 
commerce and furnishes a large income to the General Government 
annually. * * * It is entering rapidly into domestic use, and the 
trade in oleomargarine has become large and important. The atten- 
tion of the National Government has been attracted to it as a source 



96 OLEOMARGARINE. 

of revenue. * * * Provincial prejudice against this now staple of 
commerce is natural, but a city of the size and prospects of Norfolk 
as a world's entrepot ought not to be foremost in manifesting such a 
prejudice.'" 

Summing up on this branch of the case the court said, on page 12: 

"The article is a subject of export, and is largel}- used in foreign 
countries. Upon all these facts we think it apparent that oleomarga- 
rine has become a proper subject of commerce among the States and 
with foreign nations. 

"The general rule to be deduced from the decisions of this court is 
that a lawful article of commerce can not be wholly excluded from 
importation into a State from another State where it was manufactured 
or grown. A State has power to regulate the introduction of any 
article, including a food product, so as to insure purit}" of the article 
imported, but such police power does not include the total exclusion 
even of an article of food." 

The court then reviewed the previous decisions of the Supreme 
Court bearing on this subject. Referring to the opinion of the court 
in Railroad Company v. Husen (95 U. S., 465, 469), the following 
principle was asserted: 

"The court said that a State could not, under the cover of exerting 
its police powers, substantiall}' prohibit or burden either foreign or 
interstate commerce. Reasonable and appropriate laws for the inspec- 
tion of articles, including food products, were admitted to be valid; 
but absolute prohibition of an unadulterated, healthy, and pure article 
has never been permitted as a remedy against the importation of that 
which was adulterated and therefore unhealthy or impure. 

******* 

"Conceding the fact, we yet deny the right of a State to absolutely 
prohibit the introduction within its borders of an article of commerce 
which is not adulterated and which in its pure state is healthful, simply 
because such an article in the course of its manufacture may be adul- 
terated by dishonest manufacturers for purposes of fraud or illegal 
gains. The bad article may be prohibited, but not the pure and 
healthy one. 

' ' In the execution of its police powers we admit the right of the 
State to enact such legislation as it may deem proper, even in regard to 
articles of interstate commerce, for the purpose of preventing fraud 
or deception in the sale of any commodity, and to the extent that it 
may be fairly necessary to prevent the introduction or sale of an adul- 
terated article within the limits of the State. But in carrjdng out its 
purposes the State can not absolutely prohibit the introduction within 
the State of an article of commerce like pure oleomargarine. It has 
ceased to be what counsel for the Commonwealth has termed it — a newly 
discovered food product. An article that has been openly manufac- 
tured for nearly a quarter of a century, where the ingredients of the 
pure article are perfectly well known and have been known for a num- 
ber of years, and where the general process of manufacture has been 
known for an equal period, can not truthfull}^ be said to be a newly 
discovered product within the proper meaning of the term as here 
used. 

* * * * * * * 

"If properly and honestly manufactured it is conceded to be a 
healthful and nutritious article of food. The fact that it may be 



OLEOMARGARINE. 97 

adulterated does not afford a foundation to absolutely prohibit its 
introduction into the State. Although the adulterated article may 
possibly, in some cases, be injurious to the health of the public, 3'et 
that does not furnish a justification for an absolute prohibition. A 
law which does thus pronibit the introduction of an article like oleo- 
margarine within the State is not a law which regulates or restricts 
the sale of articles deemed injurious to the health of the communit}', 
but is one which prevents the introduction of a perfecth^ healthful 
commodity mereh' for the purpose of in that way more easil}^ prevent- 
ing an adulterated and possibly injurious article from being introduced. 
We do not think this is a fair exercise of legislative discretion when 
applied to the article in question." 

At this point, the hour of 12 having arrived, the committee took a 
recess until half past 2 o'clock, at which time it reassembled. 

The Acting Chairman. Judge, you may proceed. 

Mr. Springer. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, when the committee 
took a recess 1 was reviewing the decision of the Supreme Court in 
what is known as theSchollenberger Case. 1 had quoted some of the 
passages in that opinion and there are one or two others to which I 
ask 3'our attention. On pages 22 and 23 of the volume from which I 
was quoting (171 U. S.) is this reference to the very celebrated case 
decided by the Supreme Court a few years ago, known as the Original 
Package Case. That case is reported in 135 U. S., page 100, and is the 
case of Leisy v. Hardin. The Supreme Court of the United States, 
referring to that case, in the Schollenberger opinion, savs: 

"The case of Leisy y. Hardin (135 U. S., 100, 124) went a step 
further than the Bowman Case and held that the importer had the 
right to sell in a State into which he brought the article from another 
State in the original packages or kegs, unbroken and unopened, not- 
withstanding a statute of the State prohibiting the sale of such articles 
except for the purposes therein named and under a license from the 
State. Such a statute was held to be unconstitutional as repugnant 
to the clause of the Constitution granting power to Congress to regu- 
late commerce with foreign nations and among the several States- 
Mr. Chief Justice Fuller, in speaking for the court, said: ' Under our 
decision in Bowman y. Chicago and Northwestern Railway, they had 
the right to import this beer into that State ; and in the view which 
we have expressed, they had the right to sell it, by which act alone it 
would become mingled in the common mass of property within the 
State, Up to that point of time, we hold that in the absence of Con- 
gressional permission to do so the State had no power to interfere, 
by seizure or any other action, in prohibition of importation and sale 
by the foreign or nonresident importer.' The right of the State to 
prohibit the sale in the original package was denied in the absence of 
any law of Congress upon the subject permitting the State to prohibit 
such sale. There is no such law of Congress relating to articles like 
oleomargarine. Such articles are therefore in like condition as were 
the liquors in the cases above cited. 

''Subsequent to the decision in the Leisy case and on the 8th of 
August, 1890, chapter 728, 26 Stat. L., 313,' Congress passed an act, 
commonly known as the Wilson Act, which provided that upon the 
arrival in an}- State or Territor}- of the intoxicating liquors trans- 
ported therein they should be subject to the operation and effect of the 
laws of the State or Territory enacted in the exercise of its police 
power to the same extent and in the same manner as though such 
S. Rep. 2013 7 



98 OLEOMARGARINE. 

liquors had been produced in such State or Territory, and that they 
should not be exempt therefrom by reason of being introduced therein 
in original packages or otherwise. This was held to be a valid and 
constitutional exercise of the power conferred upon Congress." 

Senator Bate. If I understand, they did not have the right to tax it 
until after the original package was broken, or there was a sale hj the 
importer or agent, and it became mingled with the common property 
of that State. 

Mr. Springer. When it became mingled with the common property 
of the State it was subject to the State law then. The court continues: 

"In re Rahrer, petitioner, 140 U. S. , 545. In the absence of a Con- 
gressional legislation, therefore, the right to import a lawful article of 
commerce from one State to another continues until a sale in the orig- 
inal package in which the article was introduced into the State." 

This opinion will account for the effort being made by the friends of 
this bill to secure the passage of what is known as the first section of 
the pending bill. It is an effort to place oleomargarine within the 
police powers of the State, the same as was done with intoxicating 
liquors by the Wilson Act of 1890. The Supreme Court in concluding 
its opinion upon this subject in the Schollenberger case held as follows: 

"How small may be an original package it is not necessary to here 
determine. We do say that a sale of a 10-pound package of oleomarga- 
rine, manufactured, packed, marked, imported, and sold ander the 
circumstances set forth in detail in the special verdict was a valid sale, 
although to a person who was himself a consumer. We do not say or 
intimate that this right of sale extended beyond the first sale by the 
importer after its arrival within the State." 

And, further: 

"The right of the importer to sell can not depend upon whether the 
original package is suitable for retail trade or not. His right to sell 
is the same, whether to consumers or to wholesale dealers in the article, 
provided he sells them in original packages. This does not interfere 
with the acknowledged right of the State to use such means as may be 
necessary to prevent the introduction of an adulterated article, and for 
that purpose to inspect and test the article introduced, provided the 
State law does really inspect and does not substantially prohibit the 
introduction of the pure article, and thereby interfere with interstate 
commerce. It can not, for the purpose of preventing the introduction 
of an impure or adulterated article, absolutely prohibit the introduc- 
tion of that which is pure and wholesome. The act of the legislature 
of Pennsylvania under consideration, to the extent that it prohibits 
the introduction of oleomargarine from another State and its sale in 
the original package, as described in the special verdict, is invalid." 

Mr. Justice Gray and Mr. Justice Harlan dissented from this opinion. 

There is another case, following this immediatelv, known as the case 
of Collins V. New Hampshire. It is reported on page 30 of the same 
volume (171 U. S.). To that opinion I desire to call your attention, 
for it raises and disposes of another point involved in this legislation. 
The Supreme Court in its opinion in the Collins Case, page 34, says: 

' ' If this provision for coloring the article " — 

I will state, by the way, that the New Hampshire law at that time 
required oleomargarine to be colored pink. That was held iji valid — 
"If this provision for coloring the article were a legal condition, a 
legislature could not be limited to pink in its choice of colors. The 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 99 

legislative fancy or taste would be boundless. It might equalh^ as 
well provide that it should be colored blue or red or black. Nor do 
we see that it would be limited to the use of coloring matter. It 
might, instead of that, provide that the article should only be sold if 
mixed with some other article which, while not deleterious to health, 
would nevertheless give out a most offensive smell. If the legislature 
have the power to direct that the article shall be colored pink, which 
can only be accomplished by the use of some foreign substance that 
will have that effect, we do not know upon what principle it should be 
confined to discoloration, or why a provision for an offensive odor 
would not be just as valid as one prescribing the particular color. The 
truth is, however, as we have above stated, the statute in its necessary 
effect is prohibitory, and therefore, upon the principle recognized in 
the Pennsylvania cases, it is invalid." 

The same justices dissented in this as in the other case. 

I now invite the attention of the committee to the provisions of the 
pending bill. The first section of the bill is, in my opinion, the most 
objectionable of any of its provisions. It is as follows: 

"''Be it enacted^ etc.^ That all articles known as oleomargarine, but- 
terine, imitation butter, or imitation cheese, or any substance in the 
semblance of butter or cheese not the usual product of the dairy and 
not made exclusively of pure and unadulterated milk or cream, trans- 
ported into a*iy State or Territory, and remaining therein for use, 
consumption, sale, or storage therein, shall, upon the arrival within the 
limits of such State or Territory, be subject to the operation and effect 
of the laws of such State or Territory enacted into the exercise of its 
police powers to the same extent and in the same manner as though 
such articles or substances had been produced in such State or Terri- 
tory, and shall not be exempt therefrom by reason of being introduced 
therein in original packages or otherwise: Provided^ That nothing in 
this act shall be construed to permit any State to forbid the manufac- 
ture or sale of oleomargarine in a separate and distinct form and in 
such manner as will advise the consumer of its real character, free 
from coloration or ingredient that causes it to look like butter." 

This is for the purpose of getting around the decisions of the Supreme 
Court in the Leisy Case and in the SchoUenberger Case, which held dis- 
tinctly that you could not prevent an original package from going into 
a State and being sold in the original package to a consumer. If this 
provision should become a law, it would breathe the breath of life into 
the statutes of 32 States of the IJnion, which are now practically void by 
reason of the recent opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States 
in the SchoUenberger Case. A synopsis of these laws is given in the 
hearings before the House Committee on Agriculture on the Grout 
bill, pages 11 to 17. 

The attention of this committee is called to some of these State 
enactments. 

The law of California prohibits the manufacture or sale of oleomar- 
garine colored to imitate butter. Patrons of eating places shall be 
notified if substitutes for butter or cheese are used; and its use in State 
charitable institutions is prohibited. 

In Connecticut the law prohibits the sale of oleomargarine unless 
free from coloring matter which causes it to look like butter. The 
use of imitation butter in public eating places, bakeries, etc., must be 
made known by signs. 

L.ofC. 



100 OLEOMARGARINE. 

In Iowa the law is practically the same as in Connecticut. The use 
of colored oleomargarine in hotels, bakeries, etc. , must be made known 
by signs. 

In Maryland the manufacture, sale, and use in public eating places 
of any article in imitation of butter is prohibited. Mixtures of any 
animal fats or animal or vegetable oils with milk, cream, or butter 
shall be uncolored and marked with the names and percentages of 
adulterants, and this information shall be given to purchasers. 

In New Jersey oleomargarine in imitation of pure, yellow butter 
is prohibited. But if it is free from artificial color and in original 
package, encircled by a wide black band bearing the name of the 
maker, and having the name of the contents plainly branded on them 
with a hot iron, its sale is permitted. Ketail sales must be accom- 
panied with a printed card containing ingredients and naming maker, 
and the purchaser must also be orally informed of the character of the 
article at the time of sale. 

In New York the manufacture of oleomargarine in imitation of but- 
ter is prohibited, and no article intended as an imitation of butter shall 
be colored yellow. 

In Vermont the manufacture or sale of oleomargarine in imitation 
of butter is prohibited. Imitation butter for use in public eating 
places or for sale shall be colored pink. 

In West Virginia there is a pink-color law. 

In Wisconsin the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine in imitation 
of yellow butter is prohibited; but free from any color its sale is per- 
mitted, but it shall not be sold as butter. Signs must be displayed in 
selling places and on wagons, and hotels, etc., using it must notify 
guests. Its use is not permitted in charitable or penal institutions. 

In Pennsylvania the statute of May 21, 1885, which was pronounced 
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in the 
Schollenberger case, has been supplemented by the act of May 5, 1899, 
which prohibits the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine made in 
semblance of butter. The act of 1885 used the words, ' ' designed to take 
the place of butter. " The legislature has evidently endeavored to bring 
its statute within the ruling in the Schollenberger case, but I am inclined 
to the opinion that the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of 
Plumley v. Massachusetts (155 U. S., 462) was due to defective 
pleadings in the case. If Plumley had in his petition alleged that, 
at the time and place charged, he offered for sale and sold one 
package containing 10 pounds of oleomargarine manufactured in 
the State of Illinois and shipped to him as the agent of the man- 
ufacturers, packed, sealed, marked, stamped, and branded in accord- 
ance with the requirements of the act of Congress of August 2, 1886; 
that said package was an original package, as required by said act, and 
was of such form, size, and weight as is used by producers or shippers 
for the purpose of securing convenience in handling of merchandise 
between dealers in the ordinary course of commerce; and that said 
form, size, and weight were adopted in good faith, and not for the pur- 
pose of evading the statutes of Massachusetts; that at the time alleged 
the oleomargarine sold by defendant remained in the original package — 
being the same package — with seals, marks, stamps, and brands 
unbroken in which it was packed by the manufacturers in Illinois and 
thence transported to the city of Boston; and that said package was 
not broken nor opened on the premises of defendant, and that as soon 



OLEOMAKGAEINE. 101 

as it was sold it was removed from the premises, as was alleged and 
proven in the Schollenberger Case. The decision of the Supreme Court 
would undoubtedly have been the same as in the latter case. The right 
to import from foreign countries and from other States any legitimate 
articles of commerce and sell the same in the State into which they are 
imported in the original packages has been recognized and sustained 
by the Supreme Court of the United States for seventy-five years by 
an unbroken line of decisions. In the leading cases of Gibbons v. 
Ogden (0 Wheaton, 1), and Brown v. Maryland (12 Wheaton, 419), the 
opinions were written bj^ Chief Justice John Marshall, the most illus- 
trious jurist our country has produced. In those cases the great Chief 
Justice delivered opinions which haA^e become classics in our jurispru- 
dence, and no jurists who value their reputations as such will ever have 
the temerity to assail their soundness. 

I desire to call the attention of the committee to one of the opinions 
of Chief Justice Marshall on this subject, in 12 Wheaton, in the case 
of Brown against Maryland. This case was decided in 1827: 

""It may be doubted whether any of the evils proceeding from the 
feebleness of the Federal Government contributed more to that great 
revolution which introduced the present system than the deep and 
general conviction that commerce ought to be regulated by Congress. 
It is not, therefore, matter of surprise that the grant should be as 
extensive as the mischief, and should comprehend all foreign commerce 
and all commerce among the States. To construe the power so as to 
impair its efficacy would tend to defeat an object in the attainment of 
which the American public took, and justl}^ took, that strong interest 
which arose from a full conviction of its necessity. 

"What, then, is the just extent of a power to regulate commerce 
with foreign nations and among the several States^ This question 
was considered in the case of Gibbons y. Ogden (9 Wheat., 1), in which 
it was declared to be complete in itself, and to acknowledge no limita- 
tions other than are prescribed by the Constitution. The power is 
coextensive with the subject on which it acts, and can not be stopped 
at the external boundary of a State but must enter its interior. We 
deem it unnecessary now to reason in support of these propositions. 
Their truth is proved b}' facts continually before our eyes, and was, 
we think, demonstrated, if the}^ could require demonstration, in the 
case already mentioned. 

''If this power reaches the interior of a State, and may be there 
exercised, it must be capable of authorizing the sale of those articles 
which it introduces. Commerce is intercourse; one of its most ordi- 
nary ingredients is traffic. It is inconceivable that the power to 
authorize this traffic, when given in the most comprehensive terms'with 
the intent that its efficacy should be complete, should cease at the 
point when its continuance is indispensable to its value. To what pur- 
pose s'' ould the power to allow importation be given, unaccompanied 
with the power to authorize a sale of the thing imported ? Sale is the 
object of importation, and is an essential ingredient of that intercourse 
of which importation constitutes a part. It is as essential an ingre- 
dient, as indispensable to the existence of the entire thing, then, as 
importation itself. It must be considered as a component part of the 
power to regulate commerce. Congress has a right, not only to 
authorize importation, but to authorize the importer to sell." 



102 OLEOMAEGAEINE. 

In the case of Leisy /'. Hardin (135 U. S., 100-124) the right to 
import into and sell beer in original packages in the State of Iowa, in 
the face of the local prohibitory law, was recognized and upheld. 
After the decision in that case Congress was appealed to by the Sen- 
ators and Representatives in Congress from States which prohibited 
the importation and sale of intoxicating liquors, and they secured the 
passage of an act on the 8th of August, 1890, known as the Wilson 
Act (26 Stat., 313), which provided that upon the arrival in any State 
or Territory of intoxicating liquors transported therein they should be 
subject to the operation and effect of the laws of the State or Terri- 
tory enacted in the exercise of its police power to the same extent and 
in the same manner as though such liquors had been produced in such 
State or Territory, and that they should not be exempt therefrom by 
reason of being introduced therein in original packages or otherwise. 

In the case In re Rahrer (140 U. S. , 545) this act in reference to 
intoxicating liquors was held to be a valid and constitutional exercise 
of the power conferred upon Congress. 

But in the absence of Congressional legislation the right to import 
a lawful article of commerce from one State to another continues until 
a sale in the original package in which the article was introduced into 
the State. (Schollenberger v. Pennsylvania, 171 U. S., 23.) 

The friends of the pending bill now seek to place oleomargarine 
upon the same plane upon which Congress placed intoxicating liquors. 
The articles are entirely different. The one is recognized everj^where 
as a proper subject of police regulation, and each State should be left 
free to legislate upon the subject as it may see fit. 

The Acting Chairman. Will jon permit me right here ? 

Mr. Springer. Yes, sir. 

The Acting Chairman. A very large number of States have passed 
laws which practically make oleomargarine a contraband article? 

Mr. Springer. Yes. 

The Acting Chairman. Only a few States have passed laws making 
liquor a contraband article. 

Mr. Springer. That is true. 

The Acting Chairman. I simply wanted to call your attention to 
that fact as you went along. 

Mr. Springer. It was for the purpose of permitting the States 
which have passed prohibitory liquor laws to have the benefit of those 
laws that Congress passed the act of 1890 and took intoxicating liquors 
out of the list of legitimate articles of commerce and permitted them 
to be subject to the police powers of the States. This legislation in 
reference to intoxicating liquors is not of a kind that is applicable to 
oleomargarine. Oleomargarine is universally conceded to be a whole- 
some article of food and a legitimate article of commerce. In this 
connection I desire to state that that statement does not depend upon 
my affirmance or upon the affirmance of any committee of this body. 
It has been so held hy the Supreme Court of the United States, and 
that is the law of the land until it has been reversed. Congress, there- 
fore, has no more right to place oleomargarine under the police power 
of the State than it has to place the manufacture and sale of woolen 
goods, iron, or tin plate under the police power of the States, enabling 
them thus to suppress, if they please, the manufacture of such articles. 

This brings us to the consideration of two of the provisions of the 
Constitution which are applicable to the pending bill. The first is 



OLEOMARGARINE. 103 

paragraph 2 of section 10 of Article VIII, and the other is paragraph 
3 of section 8 of Article I. I call the attention of the committee and 
of every lawyer in the Senate and the House and the country to these 
provisions. They are as follows: 

" No State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts 
or duties on imports or exports except what ma}' be absolutel}" neces- 
sary for executing its inspection laws; and the net produce of all duties 
and imposts laid by any State on imports or exports shall be for use of 
the Treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject 
to the revision and control of the Congress." Art. VIII, sec. 10, 
par. 2. 

Now bear in mind that this is the clause of the Constitution which 
is invoked in justification of the first section of the bill. It must rest 
there, or it can not rest an}^ place in the Constitution of the United 
States. The next provision is, "Congress shall have power * * * 
to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several 
States, and with the Indian tribes." (Art. I, sec. 8, par. 3.) 

The confusion which has arisen in the minds of many jurists and 
statesmen in construing these constitutional provisions is due to a 
misconception of the police powers of the States. 

The police powers of the States are inherent in the States themselves, 
and can not be exercised or controlled by Congress. Neither of the 
constitutional provisions just read can be construed as granting to 
Congress the power to interfere with or regulate matters in a State 
which are the proper subject of police regulation or power, nor can 
either of them be construed as implying that there are certain police 
powers which the States may not exercise without the consent of 
Congress. 

In this connection I desire to call the attention of the committee to 
a decision of the Supreme Court in 125 U. S., page -189. This is the 
case of Bowman v. The Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company 
In that case the court, referring to a previous decision of the court on 
the subject, said : 

'■'"Upon this point the observations of Mr. Justice Catron in the 
License Cases (5 How. , 504, 599) are very much to the point. Speaking 
of the police power, as reserved to the States, and its relation to the 
power granted to Congress over commerce, he said : ' The assumption 
is that the police power was not touched by the Constitution, but left to 
the States, as the Constitution found it. This is admitted ; and when- 
ever a thing, from character or condition, is of a description to be 
regulated by that power in the State, then the regulation may be made 
by the State, and Congress can not interfere. But this must alwa^^s 
depend on facts subject to legal ascertainment, so that the injured may 
have redress ; and the fact must find its support in this, whether the 
prohibited article belongs to, and is subject to be regulated as part of, 
foreign commerce or of commerce among the States. If, from its 
nature, it does not belong to commerce, or if its condition, from putres- 
cence or other cause, is such when it is about to enter the State that 
it no longer belongs to commerce, or, in other words, is rot a com- 
mercial article, then the State power may exclude its introduction, 
and as an incident to this power a State may use means to ascertain 
the fact; and here is the limit between the sovereign power of the State 
and the Federal power — that is to say, that which does not belong to 
commerce is within the jurisdiction of the police power of the State 



104 OLEOMARGARINE. 

and that which does belong- to commerce is within the jurisdiction of 
the United States ; and to this limit must all the general views come, 
as I suppose, that were suggested in the reasoning- of this court in the 
cases of Gibbons v. Og-den, Brown v. The State of Maryland, and New 
Yorku Miln.'" 

And further, the Supreme Court, in the case of Railroad Company 
V. Husen (95 U. S., 465), used this language: 

"While we unhesitatingly admit that a State may pass sanitary laws 
and laws for the protection of life, liberty, health, or proyjerty within 
its borders; while it may prevent persons and animals suffering- under 
contagious or infectious diseases, or convicts, etc., from entering the 
State; while, for the purpose of self -protection, it may establish quar- 
antine and reasonable inspection laws, it may not interfere with trans- 
portation into or through the State beyond what is absolutely necessary 
for its self-protection. It may not, under the cover of exerting its 
police powers, substantially prohibit or burden either foreign or inter- 
state commerce." 

Again, in the Bowman case the court said: 

"If so, it has left to each State, according to its own caprice and 
arbitrary will, to discriminate for or against every article grown, pro- 
duced, manufactured or sold in any State and sought to be introduced 
as an article of commerce into any other." 

Just as this bill proposes to do. 

"If the State of Iowa may prohibit the importation of intoxicating 
liquors from all other States it may also include tobacco or any other 
article, the use or abuse of which it may deem deleterious. It may 
not choose even to be governed b}^ considerations growing- out of the 
health, comfort, or peace of the community. Its policy may be directed 
to other ends. It ma}^ chose to establish a system directed to the pro- 
motion and l)enetit of its own agriculture, manufactures, or arts of any 
description, and prevent the introduction and sale within its limits of 
any or of all articles that it ma}^ select as coming into competition 
with those which it seeks to protect. " 

Just as is done in this case. The court holds that that can not be 
done. 

In view of these opinions of the Supreme Court, what is the proper 
construction to be given to the constitutional provisions I have quoted? 

What is the meaning of the words " imposts or duties on imports or 
exports ? " Chief elustice Marshall, in his opinion in the case of Brown 
V. Maryland (12 Wheaton, 1:36), answers this question. He said: "An 
impost or duty on imports is a custom or tax levied on articles brought 
into a country, and is most usually secured before the importer is 
allowed to exercise his right of ownership over them." The constitu- 
tional provision, then, which says "no State shall, without the con- 
sent of Congress, lay any duties on imports" means that the States 
can not impose customs duties or taxes on imports without the consent 
of Congress. That is all that is meant. And it is further provided 
that the net produce of all such duties shall be for "the use of the 
Treasury of the United States." 

Is there any semblance between that authority as defined by Chief 
Justice Marshall and the authorit}^ undertaken to ])e conferred by the 
first section of the bill, which simply says that the article of oleomar- 
garine shall be placed under the supervision of the State laws passed 
in the exercise of their police power, which State laws, as has been 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 105 

pointed out, are generally of a nature to prohibit entirely the intro- 
duction and sale in the State of oleomarg-arine colored in semblance of 
butter. 

Mr. Hoard. Is there any such issue before this committee? 

Mr. Springer. No, sir; but I am calling attention to the fact that 
you are seeking to exert the power which relates to duties on imports 
as authority for enacting a law placing the manufacture and sale of 
oleomargarine in the States under this provision of the Constitution, 
so that it can interfere with the introduction of these articles into the 
State. 

No duties were to be laid on imports by a State ' ' except what may 
be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws." These are 
the duties that the States may levy upon articles coming into the State 
which are legitimate articles of commerce. The States may pass laws 
for the inspection of all products which ma}^ come into them from other 
States or from foreign countries. Such laws are a proper exercise of 
the police power of the States. But, as was said by the Supreme Court 
in the case of Railroad Company v. Husen (95 U. S., 465), "the police 
power of a State can not obstruct foreign or interstate commerce beyond 
the necessity for its exercise; and under color of it objects not within 
its scope can not be secured at the expense of the protection afforded 
by the Federal Constitution." The States can provide for reasonable 
inspection, but can not obstruct interstate or foreign commerce or 
burden it beyond the requirements of the inspection. 

The power of Congress to pass the first section of the pending bill 
can not be invoked or justified under this provision of the Constitu- 
tion. Congress is not giving its consent to the States to lay duties on 
imports, which duties, if laid, should be paid into the Treasur}'^ of the 
United States. 

The consent of Congress is not given for the purposes contemplated 
in the provision to which attention has been called. 

Mr. Hoard. Have any of the States asked the right to lay imposts 
on oleomargarine? 

Mr. Springer. No, sir; none of them. 

Mr. Hoard. Is there any mention of such fact in the proceedings? 

Mr. Springer. None whatever; but that is the only power you can 
ask for — the right to do that under this provision in the Constitution. 

Mr. Hoard. Is that included in the Wilson Act? 

Mr. Springer. It is included in the Wilson Act so far as intoxica- 
ting liquors are concerned, which were to be subject to the police 
power by reason of the very nature of the subject itself. 

The Acting Chairman. This is a revenue measure. 

Mr. Springer. 1 will come to that point in a moment and discuss it 
further on. Therefore I ask gentlemen of the committee and Congress 
to consider the scope of the provision of the Constitution, and unless 
section 1 can be brought within the provisions of that section it has 
no place in the Constitution upon which it can rest. 

Now, can it rest upon any other provision? The other constitu- 
tional provision involved is the power of Congress to regulate com- 
merce with foreign nations and among the several States. This power 
is given to Congress alone. There is no exception or qualification to 
this grant of power. Congress alone can exercise it. The power can 
not be delegated by Congress to the States. If it had been intended 
to permit the States to exercise this power under any circumstances 



106 OLEOMARGARINE. 

the Constitution would have so provided. But it did not so provide. 
As was said by the Supreme Court in the case of Robl)ins r. Shelby 
Taxing- District (120 U. S., 189), "that, in the matter of interstate 
commerce, the United States are but one country and are and must be 
subject to one system of regulation and not to a multitude of s^^stems. 
The doctrine of the freedom of that commerce, except as regulated by 
Congress, is so firmly established that it is unnecessary to enlarge 
further upon this subject." 

That is the decision of the Supreme Court — that under the commerce 
clause Congress alone can pass the laws that are to regulate the inter- 
state and foreign commerce, and it can not delegate that power to the 
States. Is there a delegation of such power in section 1 of this bill? 

The right to pass the first section of the pending bill can not be 
derived from the commerce clause of the Constitution. In fact, there 
is no power given in the Constitution, either directly or by implication, 
for the passage of this first section. Its passage will be, in my opinion, 
a plain and flagrant violation of the Constitution of the United States. 
There is no warrant in the Constitution for such legislation, and if 
enacted into law the courts must hold it null and void. 

So much for the first section of the bill. 

The second and only other section of the bill is as follows: 

"That after the passage of this act the tax upon oleomargarine, as 
prescribed in section S of the act approved August 2, 1886, and enti- 
tled ' An act defining butter, also imposing a tax upon and regulating 
the manufacture, sale, importation, and exportation of oleomargarine,' 
shall be one-fourth of 1 cent per pound when the same is not colored 
in imitation of butter; but when colored in imitation of butter the tax 
to be paid by the manufacturer shall be 10 cents per pound, to be lev- 
ied and collected in accordance with the provisions of said act. " 

This section invokes the taxing power of the Constitution not for 
the purpose of raising revenue, but for the purpose of suppressing the 
manufacture of oleomargarine colored to resemble butter. 

I want it distinctly understood that I have not contended, and I do 
not know that anyone else contends, that the object of this bill is to 
suppress the manufacture of uncolored oleomargarine, but all of the 
gentlemen opposing the bill and favoring it concede that it will work 
to the destruction of the manufacture of oleomargarine colored in the 
semblance of butter, and that is the object of the bill. 

The eighth section of Article I of the Constitution is as follows: 

"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, 
imports, and excises to pa}^ the debts and provide for the common 
defense and general welfare of the United States." 

The "general welfare" to which reference is made is that welfare 
which is provided for and set forth in the text of the Constitution 
itself, and not that welfare which is left to the discretion of the law- 
making power. This is universally conceded. To hold otherwise 
would destroy all the limitations and restrictions of the Const 'tution. 
The power, then, to lay and collect taxes, duties, and imposts is given 
in order to provide the means "to pay the debts and provide for the 
common defense and general welfare of the United States," as author- 
ized in the Constitution. Will any Senator or Representative in Con- 
gress say, upon his oath, that this section of the pending bill is being 
enacted "to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and 
general welfare of the United States ? " Is this proposed taxation for 



OLEOMARGAKINE. 107 

a constitutional purpose? Has it any warrant or foundation in the 
Constitution ? 

Ttiere is alread}^ pending in the Senate a House bill to reduce the 
revenue, for the reason that the existing revenue laws are bringing into 
the Treasury a large surplus — a surplus of many millions of dollars. 
Revenue is not the object. What, then, is the object? There can be 
but one answer to this question, nameh", the placing upon yellow oleo- 
margarine a tax so burdensome that it can not be paid, and thereby the 
loss of the revenue now being collected and the destruction of the 
industry" which is taxed. 

But it may be said that the Supreme Court has held similar legisla- 
tion to be solely within the discretion of the lawmaking power. So 
it has. It has held that the courts will not inquire into the motives of 
legislators when exercising the discretion which the Constitution has 
given them. But, gentlemen of this committee, the courts have not 
held that the lawmakers are not bound to obey the Constitution. You 
have each taken an oath to support it. That oath is a moral obligation 
only, but it is binding upon the consciences of legislators, and they 
can not violate the Constitution without moral turpitude. If you are 
convinced — and I trust 3^ou are — that there is no warrant in the Con- 
stitution for the passage of this legislation you can not give it your 
sanction. I appeal to your judgments in the one case, and to your 
consciences in the other. 

This concludes what I desire to state in regard to the legal aspects 
of the case. There are, as you know, but two sections to the bill. 
The first section has for its object the placing of oleomargarine within 
the police powers of the States. Thirty-two States have alread}^, under 
the exercise of what they call their police powers, passed laws which 
prohibit the sale of colored oleomagarine in those States. In my judg- 
ment those laws are now, by reason of the decision of the Supreme 
Court, virtually nullities and can not be enforced, when an importation 
is made from one State into another in the original package, as pointed 
out in the Schollenberger case, and sold in such package. But the 
effort is made to take the article of oleomargarine from under the 
opinion of the Schollenberger case, and to place it upon the plane of 
intoxicating liquors — articles which from time immemorial have been 
regarded as proper subjects of the police powers of the several States. 
Hence, it was competent for Congress simply to recognize the fact 
that intoxicating- liquors are subjects of State control. 

In my judgment Congress did not give any power to the States by 
the passage of the Wilson Act. They had that power already, and 
Congress could not take it away from them. Liquor is a proper sub- 
ject of the police power of the States, bat all these opinions hold that 
that which is a legitimate article of commerce, a nutritious article of 
food, can not be interfered with in its importation into another State 
or from a foreign country and in its sale in the original package to 
•any person in that State. That is the purport of these decisions. 

Under the first section of the bill, even if the article paj^s the tax 
of 10 cents a pound provided in the second section, not a pound of it 
that has paid this burdensome tax can be put into these States and sold. 
In other words, Congress will say to the manufacturers, " Pa}' a tax 
of 10 cents a pound, and you can manufacture and sell it;" and at the 
same time say, "But you must not take it into 32 States of this Union. 
If 3'ou do, it will be confiscated under the police laws of the State. 
You can not sell a pound of it in those States, after the Government 



108 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

has taken the tax for it, " To say nothing of constitutional provisions, 
is that justice? Can you defend it upon any ground of doing justice 
to any class of our people? I do not think you can. 

The second section of the bill, imposing a tax of 10 cents a pound 
upon the articles manufactured in semblance of butter, will only per- 
mit the article having paid the tax to be sold in 13 States of the 
Union, and then under the laws regulating its sale by marking it and 
indicating what it is. 

I wish to call the attention of the committee to the fact that if you 
pass the first section of the bill you provide as to every law in those 
States that that law ma}" have its full force and effect. You must say 
that of the law which requires the keeper of a hotel to notify all his 
guests that oleomargarine is used in his hotel; that he must put up 
signs here and there over his hotel notifying them that oleomargarine 
is used. In some States it must be colored an offensive color, bearing 
which no one will purchase it, and in other States even the wagons 
carrying it along streets must have labels upon them that these wagons 
are carrying oleomargarine. The inventive genius of legislators, it 
seems to me, has been exhausted in throwing around oleomargarine 
in the States those offensive provisions which will drive it out of exist- 
ence, if possible. 

In this country we have for many years, in fact from the foundation 
of the Government, recognized the right of the United States, in 
imposing taxes upon foreign goods coming into this country, so to 
discriminate in the laying of those taxes that our manufacturers would 
be protected from ruinous competition with the manufacturers of like 
goods in other countries. That policy has almost become a part of 
our fixed system. But never until this legislation has been invoked 
has it been contended that Congress should interfere between home 
producers, and by the use of the taxing power build up one industry 
and destroy another. This is the first attempt; and, gentlemen of the 
committee and of Congress, let me call your attention to the fact that 
if you start on this road there is no end to it. You will be vexed with 
applications for interfering in almost every kind of business in this 
country. 

An effort was made, and has been renewed several times, to get 
Congress to put a tax on what is called compound lard. In two or 
three Congresses committees of the House have investigated the sub- 
ject of compound lard, and once they passed a bill in the House upon 
that subject for the purpose of having compound lard subject to a tax. 
I do not know that that would make it any different from what oleo- 
margarine is subject to. 

There has been a suggestion that what is known as process butter 
should also be subjected to taxation, but that suggestion has been very 
much opposed by those engaged in the manufacture of process butter. 
I will ask permission to print in the record a letter that I have on the 
subject, which I will not take up your time to read, showing that the 
dealers in process butter are very much concerned in regard to this 
proposed legislation for fear that the next bill proposed will be a tax 
upon process butter. 

The following letter was recently received by a member of the 
House of Representatives: 

" Danville, III., March 17, 1900. 

"Deak Sir: I see by a circular mailed to me that a member of Con- 
gress from Mississippi by the name of Williams introduced a bill on 



OLEOMAKGARINE. 109 

February 20 last taxing process butter as follows: Manufacturers, $600 
per year; wholesalers, $480 per year; retailers, $48 per year; and the 
butter 2 cents per pound. This would virtually prohibit the sale of 
that kind of butter. 1 get on hand a lot of butter same as other mer- 
chants, and it will get stale; it is then bought up by parties who thor- 
oughl}^ work it over, taking out all the milk, resalting it, and place it 
in cold storage till butter gets scarce, then it finds a market. There 
are times of the year when butter is very plenty, and if we could not 
dispose of it we could not pay the farmers anj^thing for it. As it is, 
these parties pay us from 10 to 14 cents a pound for rancid butter. I 
suppose I sell during the year as much as 5,000 pounds of that kind of 
butter, and when this bill is called up you would favor this district by 
voting against it, not only for the benefit of the merchants, but the 
farmers also, who would not have a market for their surplus butter. 
"Respectfully, yours, 

"John F. Depke." 

Mr. Springek. What is process butter? It is butter that has been 
shipped out to dealers and by being kept long on hand has become 
rancid and unfit for sale. The dealers then send it back to the manu- 
facturing centers, where it is collected in immense quantities and put 
through chemical processes and worked over again and made into a 
butter that goes out and takes the place of dairy butter and creamery 
butter. I think here is a place for Congress if Congress wants to 
look after a fraud — to look after a real one — because I can not under- 
stand how process butter, which is made out of butter which has 
become rancid and unfit for use, can become a wholesome and health- 
ful article of food. It ought to be subject at least to the police pow- 
ers of the State. Wh}^ not put it in this bill? 

Mr. Hoard. One thing at a time. 

Mr. Springer. I desire to call the attention of the committee to 
another direction in which articles coming into general use in this 
country have been adulterated, and Congress has never undertaken to 
do away with the evil or to abate it. 

The total production of wool in the United States in the census year 
1890 amounted to 276,000,000 pounds in the grease, which was equal to 
only 92,000,000 pounds when scoured ready for weaving into cloth. 
The shoddy used during that year in manufacturing woolen goods 
amounted to 61,626,261 pounds. Thus the shoddy had a cloth-pro- 
ducing power equal to 67 per cent of all the wool produced in the 
United States. The whole number of sheep in the United States for 
the census year 1890 was 44,336,072; the fleeces produced scoured wool 
to the amount of 61,000,000 pounds. Thus the shoddy used during 
that 3^ear produced woolen goods equal to the fleeces of 29,605,168 
sheep. 

Mr. Hoard. A great fraud. 

Mr. Springer. Yes; equal to the fleeces of 29,000,000 sheep. 

Mr. Hoard. You will not find any of the dairy interests uphold- 
ing it. 

Mr. Flanders. It is not a proper subject of the police power. We 
are invoking the police power. 

Mr. Springer. The prevention of this kind of adulteration 

Mr. Flanders. That is not adulteration; it is a substitution. It is 
not within the police power. 



110 OLEOMAKGAEINE. 

Mr. Springer. But it is within the taxing- power. In the manu- 
facture of woolen goods during- the census year 1890 the shoddy, cot- 
ton, and other adulterants used exceeded the amount of pure wool, 
the ratio used being 45 parts of pure wool and 55 parts of shoddy, 
cotton, and other adulterants, not including camel's hair and mohair. 
Yet, notwithstanding this fact, there has been no effort made in this 
country or in any other, so far as I am advised, to place a special tax 
upon woolen goods manufactured in part of shoddy, cotton, and other 
adulterants for the purpose of protecting the sheep industry from a 
ruinous competition with cheap substitutes for wool. The adulterants, 
when woven into woolen cloths, look so like pure woolen goods that 
only an expert can distinguish the pure article from the imitations, 
and it is well known that most of the adulterated fabrics are sold to 
consumers as "all wool and a yard wnde." Pass the pending bill and 
the sheep raisers will come forward and demand a tax that will protect 
wool from ruinous competition with shoddy and other adulterated 
goods. 

There is no place where this will end. It does seem to me that if 
our woolen goods are so adulterated, by putting shoddy- and cotton 
into them, that the ratio of pure wool to adulterants is as that of ■45 to 
55, Cong-ress might be called upon, in the exercise of its taxing power, 
to place a duty upon the home-manufactured goods that are not com- 
posed of pure wool exclusively. That wovild protect the growers of 
pure wool — the sheep raisers — from competition with shoddy. I do 
not know whether the gentlemen of the committee understand what 
shoddy is. Old woolen clothes are put into some kind of a machine, 
ground up, and then spun and put into a yarn, which is woven into 
new cloths. The nap is not more than a sixteenth of an inch long, but 
it is wool all the same, and when mixed with long nap of natural wool 
it forms a product which deceives experts themselves. 

The sheep men have just as nuich right to come before this commit- 
tee and ask that woolen goods which do not consist entirel}^ of that 
article shall be taxed so much a pound 

The Acting Chairman. Have any of the States passed laws against 
shoddy ? 

Mr. Springer. No, sir; not that I know of. I never heard of it. It 
is conceded that shoddy is a legitimate article of commerce, and that 
its manufacture has proved a great benefaction to mankind. 

Mr. Grout. I suppose the shoddy betrays its character largely to 
the feeling? 

Mr. Springer. When there is as little as 20 per cent you can not 
tell it from the original long wool. It does not last so long; it is not 
so good; but it is used all the same, and as I have indicated by these 
statistics, it is being used more from year to year. The object of 
calling attention to these things is to show that you are now enter- 
ing upon the matter of interfering between two home producers of 
articles necessary for our consumption, and endeavoring by the taxing 
power of the Government to build up one industry and destroy another. 
In this case it is the building up of one by the total destruction of the 
other. In the other case there might be laws which would allow both 
of them to exist, but this does not allow the manufacture of oleomarga- 
rine in the semblance of butter to exist at all as a manufacture in 
this country. 



OLEOMARGARINE. Ill 

Gentlemen of the committee, I desire to call your attention to the 
fact that the discussion upon this subject when the bill was before the 
House of Representatives in 1886 was misleading to the Representa- 
tives. At that time I had the honor to be a member of the Hx)use, and 
I was chairman of the Committee of the Whole House during the 
entire discussion of the oleomargarine bill in the House in that Con- 
gress. At that time the House of Representatives was a deliberative 
body, as the Senate now is. The discussion lasted some time, and 
every gentleman who desired to speak had the opportunity to do so. 
They now have rules by which they can bring them to a vote in a 
very short time. At that time the discussion upon this subject was 
such that the majority of the members of the House were led to believe, 
and did believe, that oleomargarine was a dangerous, unwholesome, 
and filthy production. 

Let me call your attention to several statements made b}^ gentlemen 
at that time. You will hardly believe that such things could have 
been. There were several bills pending, and the Hatch bill was finall}^ 
passed. It provides for placing a tax of two cents a pound upon oleo- 
margarine, and for a general inspection, through the Departments of 
the Government, of every part of the article manufactured, so that 
when 3^ou see oleomargarine manufactured in this country you see an 
article that the officers of the Government have inspected from its 
inception to the time it passes away from the factory in the original 
packages. They certify to its condition. 

Mr. Hoard. You mean that the law provides for the inspection? 

Mr. Springer. Yes, I do. 

Mr. Flanders. That it may be done. 

Mr. Springer. It provides for it. 

Mr. Hoard. It may be done. 

Mr. Springer. It provides for it. 

Mr. Hoard. You do not assert that it is done j 

Mr. Springer. No, sir; I do not assert as to whether or not any- 
body performs his duty, but the law presumes that every officer of 
the Government does his duty, and until the contrary is shown I 
assume that the}" have done their dut}". The law assumes that every- 
body is honest, and especiall}" does the law assume that the officers of 
the Government and of the States do their duty. I hope the}^ do. If 
they do not, the}' ought to be taught to do it. 

During the discussion of this act in the House, it was charged by its 
friends that oleomargarine was deleterious to health. 

Mr. William L. Scott, of Pennsylvania, said in the House Mav 2-i, 
1886: 

" The genius which succeeded, by the application of chemical fluids 
and compounds, in transforming a mass of loathsome and unwholesome 
ingredients into an article of food at a trifling cost, does not hesitate 
to impose the product upon the public, and receive in the way of 
excessive profit the diflference between the cost of the imitation or 
counterfeit article and that of pure butter." 

Mr. A. J. Hopkins, a member of Congress from the dairy district 
of Illinois, said (May 21, 1886): 

''During the Franco-Prussian war an inventive genius, by the name 
of M. IVIege, discovered that the fats of such animals as cattle, horses, 
and dogs could be made into a substitute for butter. The war measure 



112 OLEOMARGARINE. 

of the inventive Frenchman was seized and improved upon b}^ the ever- 
inventive Yankee. Our Patent Office has been besieged with app]ica- 
tions for patents." 

After pointing out the various articles said to be used in the manu- 
facture of oleomargarine, comprising 60 in all, Mr. Hopkins proceeded 
as follows: 

"If these imitations of, and substitutes for, pure butter were marked 
or labeled what they really are, and the dealers and consumers advised 
of what they are purchasing and eating, no complaints would be made 
by the dairymen." 

I am sorry that they have now departed from the doctrine Mr. Hop- 
kins announced. 

Mr. Flanders. 1 announce that we have not. I will take that up 
and show that we have not. 

Mr. Springer. If you get up a bill providing in the most stringent 
manner that the consumer shall be advised of what he is purchasing I 
do not think any of the opponents of the bill will object to it. Mr. 
Hopkins continued: 

"The great wrong is the fraud and deception practiced in selling 
such loathsome compounds for genuine butter. " * * * " It is asserted 
by the friends of these bogus substitutes for butter that they are 
healthy. They are not. All kinds of filthy fats are used in their man- 
ufacture. Animals dying from all kinds of diseases are utilized, and 
after going through their bleaching and deodorizing processes are man- 
ufactured into oleomargarine and sold for pure butter." * * * 
"Gentlemen of rare scholarship and scientific attainments have given 
this whole subject years of careful thought and study, and are unquali- 
fied in their statements of its unwholesome and loathsome character. 
Its consumption in their judgment leads to insanity, Bright's disease, 
and many of the ailments that undermine the strongest and most robust 
constitutions." 

He did not disclose the names of those "gentlemen of rare scholar- 
ship and scientific attainments" who thus exposed oleomargarine. 
They probably existed only in the minds of the butter manufacturers. 
Before Mr. Hopkins closed he made it clear that his chief object in 
favoring the antioleomargarine bill was to protect the workingman. 
He said: 

"Has it come to this in America that the laboring man must live 
upon adulterated food ''i Must his wife and family use for pure butter 
of our dairies an artificial butter, the compounds of diseased hogs and 
dead dogs? " 

Mr. Hatch, of Missouri, now deceased, was the author of the bill 
and the champion of the cause of pure l>utter. He was very pro- 
nounced in his views. He denounced oleomargarine as "the monu- 
mental fraud of the nineteenth century," a sentiment which was 
received in the House with "applause." He was willing to admit that 
the Chicago packers made the very best and purest oleomargarine that 
is used in the United States. He added: 

"But that is not the danger. The danger is in the hundred and one 
little dead-animal factories on the lines of the railroads, where they 
buy broken-down, diseased, and dead animals from the railroads; these 
little rendering establishments in out of the way towns and villages 
that simply operate by purchasing the refuse and scrapings of the 
butcher shops and making this oleo oil to be used in the manufacture 



OLEOMAKGAEINE. 113 

of oleomargarine and butterine, spreading disease and destruction 
throughout the country." 

He quoted with approval from a prominent newspaper, which stated, 
among other things, the following: 

"The gang of adulterators and counterfeiters who manufacture bogus 
butter from soap grease protest that the Hatch bill makes martyrs of 
them and violates their constitutional rights. They have their head- 
quarters in Chicago." 

Such were the arguments, or some of them, used fifteen years ago to 
secure this legislation, and they were effective at that time; and argu- 
ments of a similar purport in many respects have been used since that 
time to secure repressive legislation in the several States of this Union. 
But notwithstanding all this detraction, oleomargarine has survived 
the assaults of its enemies and now has thes auction of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, in an opinion, which does that court great 
honor, that it is a pure and a healthful article of food and a legitimate 
article of interstate commerce. Such is the judgment of the court, 
and that is the law of the land. 

Now, if gentlemen desired that this useful and nutritious article of 
diet shall be hedged about with such inspection laws in the States as 
will simply provide, as the Constitution recognizes, that what is sold 
shall be the pure article, there will be no objection from the manu- 
facturers of oleomargarine. They are willing to go into the open field 
of fair competition, with the name of their product inscribed upon 
their banners, and stand or fall in the field of competition of products 
useful to mankind. Have not those who can not afford to pay 27, 28, 
29, now 35, cents a pound for creamery butter the right to purchase 
an article at half that price if it can be produced in a manner which 
will be satisfactory to them? But gentlemen say, "If you will not 
color it yellow, we will not object." We might just as well answer 
them by saying, "If you will not color butter yellow, as you always 
do, except in a few months in the summer time, there will be no objec- 
tion to that." But the question of color in an article of food is a mat- 
ter of taste, solely a matter of taste, and all manufacturers of food 
products must pander to the tastes of their customers. 

As w^as said in one of the Latin maxims, " de gustibus non est dispu- 
tandum." When it comes to a question of taste, there is no discussion 
permitted. You can not reason a man out of the belief that butter 
tastes better when it is yellow than when it is w^hite — there is no use 
to reason with him on the subject — or that oleomargarine tastes better 
when it is yellow. He has a right to his taste, and those who manu- 
facture oleomargarine have a right to manufacture it in such a way 
that it will be most attractive to their customers and that the retail 
dealer can best dispose of it to those who consume it. When the man- 
ufacturer has done that he has met all the requirements that the law- 
making power of the Government should throw about him. He is 
willing to go into the market with his article branded, even its name 
pressed into the article itself, as the Wadsworth bill provided, which 
was favored by the minorit}^ of the House committee. Mark it in any 
way 3'ou see fit; but let it stand, after it has been marked, upon the 
color which the manufacturers desire it shall have and which the con- 
sumers desire it shall have. 

A gentleman .who addressed the committee since these hearings began 
stated that in the little State of Rhode Island, where the sale of colored 

S. Rep. 2043 8 



114 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

oleomargarine is permitted under restrictions requiring it to be labeled 
and signs to be put up in the stores that oleomargarine is sold, the 
manufacturers did not offer to sell this article in any other way or as 
any other thing than as oleomargarine, and that on every counter where 
it was for sale was a card asserting that oleomargarine was sold, and 
in the windows were the cards of Swift and other firms announcing the 
sale of their particular product. In that State there was a sale in the 
last year amounting to 8 pounds per capita of the whole population. 
Do you believe that the sale of butter was interfered with by this com- 
petition ? I do not. There is no means of telling how much butter 
was sold, but I believe those who desired creamery and dairy butter 
bought it and paid the excessive price for it, as they had the right to do. 

As was said by one of the gentlemen who discussed this question, 
there is no real competition in the market between creamery butter 
and colored oleomargarine when the customer knows what he is buy- 
ing, and the opponents of this bill, therefore, will not object to any 
reasonable regulation that Congress may see fit to throw around the 
manufacture of oleomargarine for the purpose of having it known by 
the consumer, when it is sold to him, just exactl}^ what he is buying. 
When you have done that you have exhausted j^our power as legislators 
to interfere with the tastes, the peculiarities, and the wishes of the con- 
sumers of the country, who constitute the great body of our people. 

Gentlemen of the committee, I desire to thank you for your atten- 
tion, and before closing I wish to present to the committee a state- 
ment addressed to the committee from Mr. Walden, president of the 
Kansas City Live Stock Exchange, who was here the other day and 
desired to address the committee, but was compelled to return. He 
has reduced his views to writing. I have them here in this form, and 
I will ask the committee to insert them in the record. 

The Acting Chairman. The statement will appear in the record. 

Mr. Springer. If any gentleman desires to ask questions, I will be 
very glad to answer as I may be able. 

Mr. Knight. You have not stated what the objections of the live- 
stock growers are to the bill. 

Mr. Springer. Those were stated 

Mr. Knight. In the resolution? 

Mr. Springer. In the memorial which will be printed. 

The Acting Chairman. It will be printed. 

Mr. Springer, I read a portion of it. I have asked the committee to 
embody it at length, but I will briefly state the objections. They object 
to it because it deprives them of a market for one of their products. 
In other words, the product of beef known as caul fat, which amounts 
in the average beef to about 58 pounds per steer, is now or may be 
manufactured into oleo oil, and if the whole product were so manu- 
factured there would be a large amount — in fact, nearly all of it — used 
for that purpose, thus increasing the value of the caul fat in the steer 
to the amount of the difference between oleo oil and tallow. 

Mr. Hoard. Does that include kidney fat? 

Mr. Springer. It includes all that is known as caul fat. I am not 
an expert as to the various fats. 

Mr. Knight. Your objection, then, is not so much to what it will do 
to the live-stock industiy as to what it will deprive the live-stock indus- 
try of some time in the future ? 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 115 

Mr. Springer. What they are now securing. In the first place, 
they are now securing a market for a portion 

Mr. Grout. What portion of the grand aggregate of caul fat pro- 
duced from the steers which are slaughtered throughout the country 
is thus used? 

Mr. Springer. I think it was stated that about 5 per cent or 10 per 
cent of the caul fat is now utilized in the manufacture. 

Mr. Grout. You said in your statement that if it was all so used it 
would make a ver}^ large difference. 

Mr. Springer. Yes; a very large difference. 

Mr. Grout. Enough to float an empire ? 

Mr. Springer. I made this estimate, but I have not the details of 
it — that the oleo oil actually used now in the manufacture of oleomarga- 
rine increased that product to the amount of $1,130,000 annually, or 
on the production of the year 1899 

Mr. Flanders. How much a steer? 

Mr, Springer. I did not estimate it in that way. 

Mr. Grout. He says the amount now used 

Mr. Springer. In 1899. 

Mr. Grout. Amounted to $1,000,000. 

Mr. Springer. $1,134,000. That is my estimate. 

Senator Heitfeld. Did you saj^ 5 per cent of the product is now so 
used? 

Mr. Springer. I will not state what the percentage is, but I have it 
in my notes somewhere. I will look it up. 

Senator Heitfeld. It bears the same relation to the total product 
that the manufacture of oleomargarine now bears to the total produc- 
tion of butter? 

Mr. Springer. Yes, sir. I have put into my remarks a statement 
showing the ingredients of oleomargarine as reported by the Treasury 
Department. You will find it in my printed remarks. It shows the 
number of pounds of oleo oil and the number of pounds of neutral 
lard that were used during the year 1899. 

Mr. Grout. Are you able to state the number of pounds of oleo oil 
that was used in the production of oleomargarine last year? 

Mr. Springer. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Grout. Will you give it? 

M. Flanders. He will publish that statement. 

Mr. Knight. It is 21,400,000 pounds. 

Mr. Springer. The table gives the "quantities and kinds of ingre- 
dients used in the production of oleomargarine in the United States 
for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1899; also the percentage each 
different ingredient bears to the whole quantity." Neutral lard, 
31,000,000 pounds; oleo oil, 24,000,000 pounds; cotton-seed oil, 
4,357,000 pounds. 

Mr, Grout. What is the amount we exported ? 

Mr. Springer. We exported 142,000,000 poimds of oleo oil, I think. 
That is not taken into consideration in the amount that was used in 
this country, 

Mr, Knight, But in the resolution of the live-stock association is it 
not stated that the passage of the Grout bill would mean a damage or 
loss in value of $3 or $4 a head per cattle? 

Mr, Springer. Yes, sir; it is so stated I think. 



116 OLEOMAKGAKINE. 

Mr. Knight. How do you figure that, please ? 

Senator Heitfeld. Was it not $2 in the statement made here ? 

Mr, Knight. From $2 to |4 in some statements. 

Mr. Springer. They say in their memorial: 

"In oleomargarine a very large proportion of the consumers of this 
country, especiall}^ the working classes, have a wholesome, nutritious, 
and satisfactory article of diet, which before its advent they were 
obliged, owing to the high price of butter and their limited means, to 
go without. 

"The 'butter fat' of an average beef animal, for the purpose of 
making oleomargarine, is worth from $3 to $4 r^ev head more than it 
was before the advent of oleomargarine, when the same had to be used 
for tallow, which increased value of the beef steer has been added to 
the market value of the animal, and consequently to the profit of the 
producer. 

' ' To legislate this article of commerce out of existence, as the pas- 
sage of this law would surely do, would compel slaughterers to use this 
fat for tallow, and depreciate the market value of the beef cattle of 
this country $3 to $4 per head, which would entail a loss on the pro- 
ducers of this country of millions of dollars." 

Mr. Knight. The amount of oleo oil used was 24,000,000 pounds? 

Mr. Springer. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Knight. Valued last year at about $2,000,000? 

Mr. Springer. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Knight. There were 6,000,000 head of cattle slaughtered in 
this country last year. 

Senator Heitfeld. If you took that amount out of the use to which 
it was formerly put, would not that make a difference? 

Mr. Hoard. The Treasury Department shows that there was used 
of oleo oil produced in this country 24,000,000 pounds. That is a 
fraction less than 5 pounds of fat from each animal. 

Senator Heitfeld. It takes that 5 out of the gross product. 

Mr. Hoard. It is 4.99 to each animal. At their figures it would be 
worth about $1 a pound. 

Mr. Grout. What is the price of it? 

Mr. Hoard. Nine cents. 

Senator Heitfeld. In what way would it? 

Mr. Hoard. Because there are 5,000,000 animals slaughtered and 
24,000,000 pounds of oleo oil used. Divide one by the other, and it 
makes 4.99 pounds to each animal; 45 cents a pound. 

Senator Heitfeld. I do not think that is a fair estimate. 

Mr. Springer. I will make this explanation. 

Mr. Hoard. I am taking the amount that would be used in oleo- 
margarine. 

Senator Heitfeld. But you are figuring the 24,000,000 pounds as 
the entire output from the beef, and the only output that is bringing 
any money, throwing awa}" the other 95 per cent. 

Mr. Hoard. I am figuring as to relationship and the worth of the 
oleo oil, and it does not square with that live stock statement. 

Mr. Springer. I will answer that. 

Mr. Hoard. It is overestimated. 

Mr. Springer. Mr. Knight, in his statement before the committee 
of the House (pages 20 and 27 of the House hearing), endeavored to 
expose the figures used by Swift & Co. in regard to this subject. I 



OLEOMAKGAEINE. 117 

did not prepare those figures, and I do not know who did, but it 
appears to me from an examination of both of those statements that 
the gentlemen and those who prepared these estimates are both out of 
the way in their estimates upon this subject. In other words, they 
have, by a loose manner of expression, failed to state exactly what the 
truth is and what the difference would be. It seems to me that the 
proper statement is this: We must go for the amount of oleo oil that 
was consumed in the manufacture of oleomargarine to the Treasury 
statistics in order to ascertain the exact truth. That does not embrace 
the amount of oleo oil exported, and a great deal more is used for 
export than is used in this country. 

Mr, Knight. What has this to do with the oleo oil that is exported? 

Mr, Springer. Nothing, except that the use of oleo throughout the 
world has created a demand for it, and a portion of that demand is in 
this country. Now, if all of the caul fat in the beeves that were 
slaughtered during the 3^ear had been used in the manufacture of oleo- 
margarine in this country, it would have amounted to the figures stated 
by Mr. Swift in his circular, which are practically the ones stated in 
the resolution and memorial of the cattlemen, 

Mr, Knight, Is there anything in the Swift letter to Congress indi- 
cating that it was not? 

Mr, Springer, I say that I think he was mistaken in placing it 
upon that basis, but I wish to call the attention of the committee to 
the fact that it is beyond the power of man to tell what would be the 
loss to the cattlemen of this country by reason of the destruction of 
oleomargarine as an article of commerce. 

Mr. Hoard, It is beyond the power of man to tell what the destruc- 
tion to the butter industry is b}^ this business. 

Mr, Springer. You can guess at it. 

Mr. Knight. Now, Judge 

Mr. Springer. Let me finish. You can not tell. Why? The«re 
was already created, by the amount of oleo oil used in the actual pro- 
duction of oleomargarine in this country, a demand for 24,000,000 
pounds of their product which would not have existed if oleomargarine 
had not been manufactured in this country. To that much we will all 
agree. 

Mr. Hoard. Yes, 

Mr. Springer. There is that much increased demand for their stock, 

Mr, Hoard. With a corresponding destruction on the other side ? 

Mr. Springer. Excuse me for one moment. There is that large 
increase. Now, gentlemen, how can you tell what effect that increased 
demand for the 24,000,000 pounds had upon the price of all the other 
products of animal fats? Who can tell that? Nobody can tell. But 
it is my opinion that the pending bill and the restricti^'e laws in 32 
States in this Union will injure the cattle and hog industry to the 
extent of many millions of dollars annually, and that injury will 
reach the extent stated in the memorial of the National Live Stock 
Association, 

Let me call attention to the fact that the prices of agricultural 
products in this countiy are determined b}^ a number of causes, and 
the man who operates on the board of trade is looking even to a cold 
snap or a little drought to see whether corn and wheat and other such 
products will go up or down. Why? Because if the weather is good 
and the farmers have good crops, there will be low prices; and if there 



118 OLEOMARGARINE. 

is bad weather and short crops, there will be high prices. By the 
demand for 24,000,000 pounds of oleo oil in the manufacture of oleo- 
margarine you have taken that much of the product and raised it in 
price from 6 cents to about 10 cents a pound. You have increased at 
least the demand for this kind of product, and by increasing the demand 
for that much of the product you have raised the price of the whole 
product to some extent. To just what extent it would take a board of 
trade man to tell, and he might make a mistake and get caught in the 
deal. But it does have some efi'ect. 

Now, suppose you stop the manufacture of oleomargarine in this 
country and throw the 21,000,000 pounds of oleo oil back into the con- 
dition of tallow, to what extent will you depress the price of the whole 
product of tallow in the United States^ Nobody can tell. But you 
will depress it; you will depress it something, depress it even to the 
amount of several points at least, as they say upon the board of trade, 
by reason of throwing 21,000,000 pounds upon the market and putting 
it into tallow, increasing the product that much and depressing the price. 

So when you come to estimate the loss or gain to those engaged in 
agriculture by reason of this legislation, it is in a great measure specu- 
lative. What is known is — and that is the fact to which 1 call atten- 
tion — that there was, under all the restrictive legislation of the several 
States of this Union, amounting to prohibition in 32 States, a demand 
for 21,000,000 pounds of oleo oil and 31,000,000 pounds of leaf lard, the 
product of the hog, and this large demand, if taken away, would depress 
these various articles in the market, and nobody can tell exactly where 
it would land. 

The Acting Chairman. Let me ask you a question. Is oleo oil used 
for any purpose other than the manufacture of oleomargarine 'i 

Mr. Springer. Some of the gentlemen engaged in that manufacture 
can tell. 

Mr. Miller. I will say that it is not. I am with Armour & Co. 
I should like to bring out a point here in regard to oleo oil. If you 
destroy the oleomargarine industry you naturally place a ban on our 
oleo oil which will necessarily have a very injurious effect on the for- 
eign market. It will perhaps also place a ban on our oil, and we would 
lose the use of 21,000,000 pounds in the United States and perhaps the 
sale of 112,000,000 pounds in foreign countries. 

Mr. Hoard. That is speculative. 

Mr. Miller. Everyone here is familiar with the agrarian spirit 
which predominates in Europe at present. They have not only tried 
to i-estrict the importation of cotton-seed oil, but of meats and many 
other agricultural products. 

Mr. Springer. While I can not say, and no other man can sa}^, just 
how much the price of cattle would be depreciated by destroying this 
industry, or how much it would ])e appreciated by repealing the restric- 
tive State laws and letting oleomargarine go free, as other food prod- 
nets do, yet I know it would depreciate animal fats in the one case, 
and it would appreciate in the other very largely if this article should 
be left in the same condition that other food products are left. 

I called your attention this morning to the possibility, under the 
amount consumed in Rhode Island, for a demand for oleomargarine in 
this country of 500,000,000 pounds a year. Suppose that existed 
instead of the demand for 100,000,000 pounds that existed last year, 
how much that would appreciate the price of all the products of the 



OLEOMAKGARINE. 119 

cattle of the country it is impossible to state. Yet you are not only 
asked to pass laws here to take away the demand for the 24,000,000 
pounds, but you want to perpetuate the laws in 32 States which destroy 
the prospect which the manufacturers of oleomargarine and which the 
growers of hog-s and cattle have of an increased demand in this country 
in the near future of 500,000,000 pounds a year. The people of this 
country who consmne food products have a right to indulge their 
tastes, if they want to, in that direction, and it is depriving the people 
of the comforts and necessaries of life to say they shall not have oleo- 
margarine in a colored state, if they want to buy it in that state and 
know what they are buying at the time. 

Gentlemen, I have not taken up your time in regard to the coloring 
matter, or a great many other subjects that have been before you here- 
tofore. I am not an expert in the manufacture of oleomargarine. I 
have no connection with any manufacturing establishment. What I 
objected to in regard to the remarks of Governor Hoard was that he 
placed all the opponents of this bill in what is called the oleomarga- 
rine trust. I do not know anything about any trust. I am not in any 
trust. 1 am here to speak for those who raise cattle and hogs, and 
who ask the Congress that their product shall not be legislated against 
and discriminated against by Congressional legislation. They repre- 
sent a vast population in the United States. Their property represents 
a capital of $600,000,000. 

They have never before asked to be heard as a national association 
before this committee or before any other committee of Congress. 
They now ask to be heard, and they ask that their memorial which I 
have presented here to-day shall be considered fairly and that they 
may be placed, by the legislation of Congress, upon an equal footing 
with the other farmers of the country, for they are farmers and have 
the right to sell their products in the markets where they can get the 
most for them, and not be hampered b}^ restrictive legislation, either 
by Congress or by the States, that will destroy in a measure a portion 
of the value of the products which they are engaged in raising. 

I thank you, gentlemen. 

STATEMENT OF G. M. WALDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE KANSAS 
CITY LIVE STOCK EXCHANGE. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee: Business 
engagements of great importance prevent my appearing before your 
honorable body in person to present the protest of the Kansas City 
Live Stock Exchange against the passage of the Grout bill, the pro- 
visions of which you are familiar with. Arguments have been pre- 
sented before 3^ou from the allied interests for and against, with the 
exception of the live-stock commission merchant. 

The Kansas City Live Stock Exchange is composed of 300 members, 
90 per cent of whom are engaged in buying and selling live stock, and 
by their zeal and enterprise have succeeded in building the second 
largest live-stock market of the world. During the year just closed 
there were received 1,970,000 head of cattle, 69 per cent of which were 
killing grades; 50 per cent of these killing grades furnish the butter 
fats used in the manufacture of oleomargarine, 19 per cent represent- 
ing the more common beef and "canner" grades, which furnish an 
insignificant per cent of butter fat. The remaining 31 per cent are 



120 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

shipped and driven back to the grazing lands, feed lots, or are used 
for breeding purposes, with the exception of a slight fraction known 
as milch stock. Ultimately, however, all find their way to the block, 
which would lead us to the proper basis to figure from, viz, 100 per 
cent. 

While statistics are dr}^ and uninteresting reading, if correct they 
silence all argument. We propose to show to this honorable com- 
mittee the tremendous loss which will accrue to the live-stock indus- 
try of this country, especially the cattle-growing States of the great 
West, North, and Southwest, if this Grout bill becomes a law and how 
such loss affects the live-stock commission merchant. 

Through the members of this exchange nearly $60,000,000 are loaned 
to the men engaged in this great industry in the territory tributary to 
this market. The greater proportion of this enormous sum of money 
does not belong to the men engaged in the commission business, but to 
the financial institutions in every section of the country. True, the 
commission merchant makes the loans and sells the paper, which is 
negotiable, from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast, with his, the com- 
mission merchant's, indorsement, accompanied with the usual safe- 
guard of mortgages on cattle. Any depreciation of values from any 
cause may result in loss to the holders of the paper. This enormous 
sum of ^60,000,000 controls about 2,000,000 cattle, whose ultimate 
destination is the market. Competition has, from many causes, grown 
so sharp in the live-stock commission business that great risks are 
taken. Only a few years ago freight and pasturage money was all that 
was required to control a good share of what we term "range" busi- 
ness, but lately the cattle raisers and speculators from the cattle- 
producing States of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas, who 
move their herds to the grazing lands of the Territories and Kansas, 
demand a very large percentage of the purchase price of cattle, and in 
many instances the full cost. 

We now come to the point where we, the live-stock commission mer- 
chants, suffer. In the event of the Grout bill becoming a law our 
securit}^ would be depreciated just $2 per head, whereas, under the 
strain of competition, we have loaned up to the full value of cattle 
already. We should also mention that cattle deals are not closed up 
each year they are made. Renewals are granted, loans extended by 
reason of unfavorable conditions for fattening cattle, such as crop fail- 
ures, drought in the grazing districts, or unusual severity of the win- 
ters. During the winter of 1898 20 per cent of all cattle in winter 
range districts were frozen to death. So you can readily see we have 
enough of the element of loss to contend against without the Govern- 
ment permitting legislation that will make an additional burden of $2 
per head loss. 

While this market is the "open door," the ver}^ threshold, of the great 
cattle-producing States and Territories, the same conditions governing 
the details of our business is proportionately true of every market of 
the United States; and not alone does this bill propose to kill an indus- 
try that benefits the producer and the packing industries, but every 
butcher who slaughters his own cattle in the United States; for he 
ships his butter fat to the nearest manufacturers of oleomargarine, 
which, if legislated out of business, goes into candles and boot grease, 
and he must charge the consumer a higher price for his beef in order 
to offset the loss on butter fat. 



OLEOMAKGARINE. 121 

During the year just closing there were received at this market 
3,100,000 hogs, 90 per cent of which were slaughtered here and the 
remainder shipped to other markets. The loss to this industr}^ if the 
Grout bill become a law, figured by the same experts on cattle, is 20 
cents per head. A very large percentage of this trade is controlled by 
commission money, and the same depreciation of security relatively 
obtains as in loans on cattle. Summing up the actual loss to the live- 
stock industry of the United States if the Grout bill pass, it means $2 
per head on 50 per cent of the killing grades of cattle and 20 cents per 
head on 85 per cent of the hogs slaughtered. It would take too much 
of the valuable time of your honorable body to make a detailed state- 
ment of the immense loss, but it is appalling. 

In closing, we desire to voice the sentiment that we regard this bill 
hurtful, vicious, and intended to kill one great and beneficial industry 
to build up and fatten another whose business during the year just 
closed has eclipsed all former years in prosperity. We further believe 
that if this un-American measure is forced upon the people a panic 
will ensue in the live-stock industry of the United States most dis- 
astrous; declines will immediately follow, tending to disrupt the whole 
system of trade as it relates to the live-stock industry. But we have 
faith that this honorable body will report unfavorably. If to the con- 
trary, the great court of justice of the whole people, the United States 
Senate, will not consent to deprive the vast army of the poor, the 
great majority of the American people, the substantial middle class, 
even the wealthy, of purchasing a pure, wholesome food product. 

I thank you, gentlemen. 

G. M. Walden, 
President Kansas City Live Stock Exchange. 

Kansas City, December 31, 1900. 



STATEMENT OF GEORGE L. FLANDERS. 

Mr. George L. Flanders, assistant commissioner of agriculture of 
the State of New York, appeared before the committee. 

Mr. Flanders. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I 
am a little surprised at the length of the argument of the eminent 
gentleman on the other side. He dwells entirely upon the proposition 
that there is nothing involved here but a financial question. I come 
here representing the department of agriculture of the State of New 
York, and there we feel that we are protecting the consuming public, 
and we believe that they are a great element in this country. We 
believe that this business thrives upon fraud, and that the great con- 
suming public are the ones that are defrauded. 

In 1878 it appeared in the State of New York that oleomargarine 
was being sold, and sold as butter. It was thought then that the State 
would try to regulate the matter. It passed a statute that the goods 
might be sold, but should be branded as such. That law proved inef- 
fective, and in 1880 the State passed another act providing that when 
sold it should be branded as oleomargarine. That act, although more 
restrictive, proved inefliective; and in 1882 the State passed another 
law more restrictive, and that failed to produce a result, and, finally, 
in 1881 it passed an act providing oleomargarine should not be sold as 
a substitute for butter. That act was declared unconstitutional by our 



122 OLEOMAKG AEINE . 

State courts. In 1885 the State passed a law providing it should not 
be sold in imitation or semblance of butter, bo much for the propo- 
sition that they would like to stand out before the world and sell these 
goods for what they are. There is not one solitary word of truth in 
it from the standpoint of our experience in the State of New York. 

For nearly seventeen years I have seen this work go on. From the 
city of Chicago last j' ear several hundred tubs came into the State of 
New York without the national stamp; not a thing on them would 
indicate that the live tacks had ever been in the tub as required by law, 
and it was sold as renovated butter and branded as such. It was traced 
back to Chicago by our detectives and traced to one house there whose 
representative, I am told, is here to-day. 

Let me modify that statement by saying this: Our detective went 
back there and traced the goods as best he could. It was reported to 
the National Government. They seized the goods and sold them in 
Detroit, and my informant told me it was traced to dangerously close 
proximity to a certain oleomargarine manufactory. Our detective 
reported that a person, said to represent Braun & Fitts, appeared and 
gave bail for the defendants and otherwise interested himself in their 
behalf. The indications pointed to that manufactory. But, be that 
as it may, whichever one of the concerns it came from, it came in car- 
load lots, in semblance of butter, with not the iota of an intention on 
the face of it to comply with the State or national law, and a violation 
of both of them. 

Now, sir, an argument was made as many as fifteen years ago before 
the governor of the State of New York, wherein these people said, 
"Let us sell oleomargarine for what it is, and we will do it." We 
replied, "For six years we have tried to let you sell it for what it is, 
and you would not do it. Now you must be made to be honest with 
the people." That was the experience in Ohio, Iowa, Pennsylvania, 
Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, and all the 
States of the 32 which have passed such laws, as I understand it. 
New York and the other States passed these laws because forced to 
do it to protect the consuming public. 

After that we had our litigation, and the law under question went to 
the court of appeals of our State, and in the case known as the People 
V. Arenburg the law was declared to be constitutional. The Massa- 
chusetts law was declared constitutional. The Pennsylvania law was 
declared unconstitutional. Finally a case was made up which went 
from Massachusetts, which was discussed here to-day, and I was aston- 
ished at the discussion and conclusion coming from the gentleman it 
did. The conclusion he drew is, in my judgment, absolutely wrong. 
What did the Plumley case involve? He said had the pleadings been 
right he thought the decision would have been difierent. He said it 
did not appear in the pleadings, as I understand it, that that was an 
original imported package of oleomargarine on which had been paid 
the duties as required b}^ the national law. 

Mr. Springer. I said it did. 

Mr. Flanders. Very well. I did not so understand you; and now I 
do not understand what could have been your thought when you agreed 
that the decision would have been different under certain conditions 
which you seemed to think should have prevailed. In my j udgment, 
the case contained all the necessary and proper questions of fact, and 
was well presented and considered by the court. As to the particular 



OLEOMAKGAEINE. 123 

question which I understood you to say was not in the case, and should 
have been, viz, "that the goods were sent into the State in the origi- 
nal importer's package, and that the manufacturer and importer and 
petitioner had complied with all the requirements of the law of Con- 
gress relative to oleomargarine," permit me to call your attention to 
the fact that in the case as reported in 155 United States Supreme 
Court Report, that among the statement of facts as agreed to in the 
case appears the following statement: 

That the article sold was sent by the manufacturers thereof in the State of Illinoia 
to the petitioner, their agent in Massachusetts, and was sold by him in the originaii 
package, and that in respect to the article sold the importers and the petitioners had 
complied with all the requirements of the act of Congress regulating the sale of oleo- 
margarine, and it was marked and distinguished by all the marks, words, and stamps 
required of oleomargarine by the laws of this Commonwealth. 

That being so, it was an original importer's package, transported 
from one State to another, sold there in defiance of State law ; and the 
only question was, Could the law be maintained on any principle what- 
soever ? 

Now, prior to this time the decisions of United States courts had 
been to the effect that articles of commerce in original packages could 
be sold in the State irrespective of the State law except in the case of 
In re Rahrea. The question was presented in Leisy v. Hardin as to 
whether or not an importer's original package could be sold in a State 
in violation of the laws passed under the police power. That case was 
tried. It went to the Supreme Court of the United States, and that 
court said that the power to regulate commerce was one of the powers 
granted by the Constitution to the National Government and could not 
be exercised by a State ; and the State law was declared unconstitu- 
tional as to the package in question. 

Immediately Mr. Wilson introduced in the House of Representatives 
a bill providing that whenever such goods were transported from one 
State into another they should immediately upon entering a State 
become subject to the State laws, irrespective of the fact that they 
were in the original package, in the same manner and to the same effect 
as if produced in the State. The liquor men said, "We will test that; 
that law is unconstitutional; it is a regulation of commerce between 
the States by a State; that is a power which is given to Congress, and 
Congress can not delegate it back to the State." That was the ques- 
tion involved in In re Rahrer (140 U. S.). The Supreme Court of the 
United States, in its opinion in that case, said that the enactment of 
the so-called Wilson law was a proper exercise of the power granted 
in the Constitution, and that the law was constitutional. 

Now, sir, any* man that should question the right of the National 
Government to exercise the power given in the first section of this 
bill, in view of that decision, passes my comprehension. In that decision 
(In re Rahrer) the court practically said that the Government might, 
by virtue of that clause in the Constitution, say to a State, "When you 
pass a law relating to goods produced in the State, it shall apply to 
all goods coming into the State, whether they come in original pack- 
ages or not." 

I want to go back to the proposition as to why that clause was put 
into the Constitution of the United States. A careful reading of the 
discussion at the time it was adopted will show you that it was thought 
at that time by the f ramers of the Constitution that it would not be 



124 OLEOMARGARINE. 

well to let Minnesota (not in those words, but in principle) say to Ver- 
mont, "Because you exclude our wheat we will exclude your dairy 
products," because the States of the Union might then build fences 
around themselves, to the detriment of the general welfare. " We will 
put the power in the National Government;" in other words, fix it 
so that a State can not say that a citizen outside of the State shall not 
have the same commercial rights her citizens do inside. But I do not 
believe it was ever contemplated for one moment that that power, 
granted in that way, should work out this result — that people in outside 
States should have rights in the markets of a State that the citizens 
inside do not have. 

These States have done what the}^ have done by virtue of the police 
power. What is that? It is the power left in the State to legislate 
along lines to protect the health, the morals, and the lives of the peo- 
ple. Now, by virtue of the police power, and under no other pretext 
whatever, have these 33 States passed such laws. They now say to the 
Congress of the United States, in one instance where those police laws 
have been outraged, " You have remedied the difficulty ))y saying that 
the original package shall be subject to the same laws as goods made 
within the States. We come to you by virtue of the decision in In re 
Rahrer and by virtue of the action of the Wilson bill, and say, do like 
wise relative to oleomargarine. We are not asking you to aid us to 
do something to a person outside of our State that we do not do to our 
own citizens. We simply say to you, we do not allow our citizens to 
be imposed upon by our own citizens; help us so that people outside 
can not impose upon our citizens." 

Now, if the argument which I propose to present to you later, rela- 
tive to the healthf ulness of these goods, is sound, for I propose to give 
you instances showing that this business thrives upon fraud, then it 
seems to me that the argument is almost conclusive that you should 
help us as asked in this bill. The Plumley decision was simply a 
majority decision, and we were afraid that the conditions might even- 
tually be such that it would be reversed. We had our eyes upon the 
compass in all directions to see what would come next, and out of 
Pennsylvania came a case known as the Schollenberger case. It went 
to the Supreme Court of the United States, and the oleo people 
secured a favorable decision in that case. What was the difference 
between the two cases? I know it was heralded all over the country 
that it was a reversal of the Plumley case, but I say to you it was 
not, in my judgment, notwithstanding the fact that certain judges in 
certain localities have so said to the contrary. It was an original 
package of oleomargarine, but it did not appear to the court that it 
was colored in imitation or semblance of butter. That element was in 
the Plumley case, but not in the Schollenberger case, making it plainly 
a difierent case. My friend seems to think that the Schollenberger 
case reversed the other case, but I read from Mr. Justice Peckham's 
opinion: 

"Nor is the question determined adversely to this view in the case 
of Plumley v. Massachusetts, 155 U. S., 462. The statute in that case 
prevented the sale of this substance in imitation of yellow butter pro- 
duced from pure, unadulterated milk or cream of the same, and the 
statute contained a proviso that nothing therein should be ' construed 
to prohibit the manufacture or sale of oleomargarine in a separate or 
distinct form and in such manner as will advise the consumer of its 



OLEOMARGARINE. 125 

real character, free from coloration or ingredients that cause it to look 
like butter.' This court held that a conviction under that statute for 
having- sold an article known as oleomargarine, not produced from 
unadulterated milk or cream, but manufactured in imitation of yellow 
butter produced from pure, unadulterated milk or cream, was valid." 

The judge said that that decision was not adverse to the decision in 
the Schollenberger case. We know it did not appear in the case that 
it was a semblance of butter, but it did in the other case, and therein 
lies the distinction; and if those two decisions mean anything at all, 
they mean that the Supreme Court has put its brand upon oleomarga- 
rine, colored in imitation or semblance of butter, as an imitation and a 
fraud and a counterfeit. They did so hold, and so did two of the State 
courts of last resort, and if they have virtually placed the brand of 
counterfeit upon it, then we come to you and ask you to assist us, to 
the end that the fraud in this business may be wiped out. 

We will take the question of competition for a moment. I do not 
care to discuss the other cases discussed by my friend, for they are 
discussed by the court in arriving at the conclusions in these last two 
cases and disposed of. They are immaterial here. The shoddy mat- 
ter, given by Judge Springer, would not come within the police power 
of a State, as it involves simply a commercial question. A prophet 
or a philosopher can be a prophet or a philosopher still with shoddy on 
his back, but he can not be either without nourishment in his stomach 
or with something in his stomach furnishing onl}^ half the nourishment 
that he ought to have. You must feed nutritiously or you can not 
produce good men and women. Somel)ody has said, " Show me what a 
people eat and I will tell you what they are." Another has said, " Think 
of the chemical work whereby food is put in the human stomach and 
produces the divine tragedy of Hamlet." You must look after the 
nourishment and health of your people if you would have a strong 
nation. 

Now, how about the question of competition? In the first place, 
let us go back to the color of butter. The natural color of butter, 
when the cow is living upon nature's food, is a rich yellow. Butter 
has been that color so long that the memory of man runneth not to 
the contrary. When these people back in the seventies started to 
make oleomargarine, what did the}^ do? They undertook to make it 
look like our commodity. Is that all? No. In taste and smell they 
attempted to make it like our commodity, so that every feature would 
deceive ever}' sense that man could possibly apply to the commodity. 
Were they content with that? No, sir. The}^ came into the market 
and sold it for butter. 

Now, I am not guessing or talking at random, for in 1884 and 1885, 
when we commenced to enforce these laws, you were selling, or those 
who were in the same business that you are in to-da}' were selling, in the 
State of New York 15,000,000 pounds, and they told the same story 
then as glibly as you tell it now, that they wanted to sell it for what it 
was. Our men went into the city of New York, and if they went into 
a store where they were known and called for butter they got butter; 
but just as soon as they put on the garments of longshoremen, which 
they did in a great many instances, to see what the facts were, and 
took a basket upon their arras and bought a quarter of a pound of tea 
and a loaf of bread, they got oleomargarine. This is no fanciful dream. 
It is a fact. 



126 OLEOMAEGAEINE. 

Take that into consideration, and then take into consideration the 
fact that these people send out all over the country — I will modify that 
a little; I will say that they send into the State of New York, and 1 
know whereof I talk — agents who try to induce our people to enter into 
the business of selling those goods; and we are told that they promise 
to indemnify them against the State law. Mind you how I put it — 
that we are told by parties who have been approached that they 
offered to indemnify them. When you think of that state of facts as 
I have given it, can you listen with equanimity to the statements made 
here that there is a demand for those goods? There is no demand in 
the State of New York for oleomargarine by any consumer. 

They talk about it as the poor man's goods, and yet not long since, 
when the great strike was on in Pennsylvania, which we knew of 
all over the country by the results it produced, the papers, looking 
into the facts and trying to show how the poor man had to work prac- 
tically for nothing — $200 or $300 a year — gave us a schedule of the 
goods the laborers purchased and the prices paid, and the price for 
oleomargarine on that list was 30 cents a pound; and there is not 
a farmer in the United States who would not have been glad to 
furnish butter all the year round for 25 cents. And yet they call it 
the poor man's butter. The poor man in our State does not want it. 
If he does, he wants it for what it is and at its true value. 

The great difficulty is they are imitating our goods. We have used, 
or the butter people have used, that color so long that it has become a 
trade-mark. If j^ou are familiar at all with the fundamental principles 
of the laws of trade-marks, you know, sirs, that when a man or a firm 
has used for a given length of time, under certain conditions, a trade- 
mark, others are estopped by the laws from trespassing upon it. Why 
do the}^ come and take our color and take our smell and take our taste 
and put it in their goods and then come forward and sell them as our 
goods, and j^et come here and talk about healthful competition ? In 
the way the oleomargarine business is carried on there is no competi- 
tion at all. If I go into the open market to compete, I have to put my 
goods up against yours and let the consumer know what he is buying. 
When I put ni}^ goods in with j^ours and declare they are j^ours, you 
can not call that competition. 

Let us see. I will go outside of the State of New York. Not long 
ago I started from New York and I went to Fort Worth, Tex. In St. 
Louis we stopped to get something to eat. We went to as good a res- 
taurant as we could find. Mr. Kracke was with me. He is an expert 
and can tell oleomargarine every time. I can not always do it. He 
said to me, "That is oleomargarine." I said, " I want butter; not 
oleomargarine." The waiter said, "That is butter." I said, " It is 
not butter." After a good deal of confab he came back and said it was 
butter. I insisted that it was not; and b}" and b}" he came back and 
said. "That is the only kind we have here; that is oleo." The same 
thing happened to us on Pennsylvania avenue, in this cit3% with Mr. 
Adams present. The same thing happened at the Worth House, the 
best hotel, I understand, in the city of Fort Worth, Tex. These 
people do not sell it for oleomargarine. Ninety-nine times out of a hun- 
dred they sell it for butter. I do not mean the manufacturers. 1 
mean when it gets down to the last parties — from the last man to the 
consumer. I know when you turn it out at your factories you turn it 
out as a rule, though not always, as oleomargarine. You comply with 
the letter of the law, but you make your goods in the best possible 



OLEOMA KG AEINE. 127 

shape, so that as it filters down through the avenues of commerce it 
may ultimately be sold as butter. While living up to the letter of the 
law evade its spirit. 

Mr. Mathewson. How would the proposed 10-cent tax do away 
with that difiiculty ? 

Mr. Flanders. I am not a prophet or the son of a prophet. I can 
not tell what would happen, but I will tell you what I wish to see 
happen. I speak individually, and I do not speak for anybody but 
m3\self. I hope it would tax the fraud out of the oleomargarine. 
That is all I want. 

Mr. Mathewson. If oleomargarine sold at a price high enough so 
that the manufacturers could pay the 10 cents, would not the fraud 
exist the same? 

Mr. Flanders. No, sir. I will stake my reputation now as a 
prophet — I would not a moment ago — on the proposition that when 
you put butter at 30 cents or above cows enough will come forward 
to produce butter enough to hold it down. That never will happen in 
this country under ordinary conditions. 

Mr. Mathewson. I merely asked how the 10 cents tax would remove 
the fraud. 

Mr. Flanders. We hope it will. We want the fraud stopped, and 
then we want your people, if your goods are as good as you say they 
are, to step out into the open market and sell them for what they are, 
so that they can deceive no one. That is fair. 

Mr. Mathewson. Would it be a fair proposition to ask the manu- 
facturers of creamery butter to leave the color out of their butter ? 

Mr. Flanders. No, sir; and I will tell you why. In the first place, 
that is the natural color of the butter, if they color it as they ought to 
color it. Butter is yellow when the cows feed upon nature's succulent 
food. Color in butter is for the purpose of uniformity. 

Mr. Mathewson. It brings a little more on the market. 

Mr. Flanders. Not at all. I ate butter in New York City the other 
day with all the flavor you could ask, and not one bit of coloring and 
not a bit of salt in it. I ate to-day down at the hotel cheese with not 
one bit of coloring matter in it, and I liked it just as well. The truth 
is that the people, if your commodity is good, can be educated to eat 
it without its coloring matter, and you will not deceive them as to the 
commodity. 

Ml". Mathewson. If the butter is so good when it is white, why not 
leave out the coloring matter ? 

Mr. Hoard. That is not the proposition. 

Mr. Flanders. I am willing to discuss that point at length at the 
proper time and place, but you are aware that your speaker occupied 
an hour and three-quarters, and m}^ time is limited and vanishing with 
ordinary rapidity. 

Mr. Mathewson. The Judge answered very courteously any ques- 
tion put to him. 

Mr. Flanders. If you will give me time, I will gladly answer your 
questions. 

Mr. Mathewson. We will give you all the time the committee will. 

Mr. Flanders. Talk about the healthfulness of the commodity. 
We say that the commodity that is sold upon the market is not health- 
ful. The Judge in speaking said that it was universalh" acknowledged 
to be healthful. That is not true. I think the Judge Wde the state- 
ment from a lack of knowledge of the facts. 



128 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. Springer. The Supreme Court so stated. 

Mr. Flanders. The Supreme Court did not say that. I should like 
to hear the statement. It said when the goods are properly made; but 
I submit the proposition that the Supreme Court is not to pass upon 
the question of the healthfulness of a commodity. They are to con- 
strue the laws and the Constitution. If a law contravenes the Con- 
stitution, they say so; if it is within the powers, they say so; but 
whether legislation is wise or unwise, good or bad, the court has 
said time and again is no concern of theirs. I do not think that the 
court determined or tried to determine that question. 

Here, gentlemen [exhibiting], is one of many samples of paraffin 
wax taken from oleomargarine sold in the open market in the city of 
New York, gathered by our agents, and here is a pamphlet prepared 
by Chemist Joseph F. Geisler, of New York Cit}^ relative to the mat- 
ter. I will not read it to you, but will leave it with you. 

Mr. Miller. Where did he purchase that oleomargarine? 

Mr. Flanders. Mr. Kracke, where was that oleomargarine purchased ? 

Mr. Kracke. It was found on Third avenue in New York City. 

Mr. Miller. Row many samples did he examine ? 

Mr. Flanders. Here is the statement of the chemist showing num- 
ber of samples. If we find any adulteration in the course of our work 
in enforcing the law we make a note of it. Here are eight cases. 

Senator Heitfeld. When was this analysis made ? 

Mr. Flanders. In 1899; some of them. I will read the opening 
clause of this pamphlet, if the Senators will permit me: 

"One often hears of adulterated food, but rarely are such sophisti- 
cations of a nature that they may be deemed injurious to health. The 
recent finding of paraffin as an adulterant in a number of samples of 
commercial oleomargarine may therefore prove of interest. 

"Though paraffin has been mentioned as an adulterant of chocolates 
and candies, the use of such an indigestible substance as an adulterant 
of oleomargarine seemed so improbable that the actual separation of 
the paraffin was required to convince some skeptical minds. 

"Its use in oleomargarine is by no means new, for I first observed it 
in a commercial sample in September, 1893, and reported the fact to 
the New York State department of agriculture. The general proper- 
ties of the fat of the sample, its behavior during saponification, and 

100° F. 
the abnormally low specific gravity , 0. 894 {at ^„fg„ i aao y )' indicated 

an irregularity and the probable presence of paraffin. Although the 
sample under examination amounted to only a few grams, sufficient of 
the unsaponifiable matter was obtained from the same to show that it 
was paraffin. It was impossible at the time to get more of this par- 
ticular sample or duplicates of several others in which paraffin was 
found between that date and March, 1894, when I was enabled to pre- 
pare an exhibit of the paraffin extracted from one of the samples. 
About this time experts of the department of agriculture, in the 
course of their inspections in New York and Brooklyn, found quite a 
number of samples of oleomargarine which, upon analysis, were found 
to contain paraffin. Some of these were analyzed by Drs. Love, Wal- 
ler, Stillwell, and myself, and the amounts of paraffin in the various 
samples were found to range from 9.72 per cent to 11.25 per cent." 

Now, gentlemen, those are facts. This pamphlet was issued by Dr. 
Geisler, of New York. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 129 

Mr. Miller. Why would an}^ manufacturer use that? We have 
been engaged in the manufacture of butterine from fifteen to sixteen 
years. I can not understand why any manufacturer would use it. 

Mr. Flanders. I do not understand why men commit murder. I 
understand that they do. I do not want to stop to discuss that point, 
because I am limited for time. 

Mr. Mathewson. I suppose you have examined a great many samples 
of butter? 

Mr. Flanders. Our chemists have. 

Mr. Mathewson. Did you ever in all your examinations find any- 
thing in straight butter, stuff sold as straight butter or supposed to be 
straight butter? 

Mr. Flanders. We have never found dairy butter adulterated. 

Mr. Mathewson. You never have? 

Mr. Flanders. No, sir. I should like to say that we pay attention 
to every communication, auonj^mo'us or otherwise. It does not make 
any difference who the man is who sends in the communication, we take 
cognizance of it and hunt it down to the roots. 

I now turn to the report made by Dr. R. D. Clark upon the health- 
fulness of oleomargarine. He is a chemist and medical man of twenty 
years' standing, and I want to say here and now that our opinion in 
the State of New York, after having given this subject a great deal of 
study and thought and after having obtained the very best advice we 
could get, is that a chemist is not, by virtue of his chemical knowledge, 
a competent man to tell about the healthfulness of food products. A 
chemist's province is to take a commodity, and take it apart, and tell what 
is in it. It is no part of his work to tell what effect that article pro- 
duces upon the human system. That is a physiological question. Dr. 
Clark, a physician, says, relative to the healthfulness of oleomargarine: 

"We now come to the all-important aspect of the subject, Is arti- 
ficial butter a wholesome article of food? We answer it in the 
negative, on the following grounds: 

"First. On account of its indigestibility. 

"Second. On account of its insolubility when made from animal 
fats. 

"Third. On account of its liability to carry germs of disease into 
the human system. 

"Fourth. On account of the probabilit}' of its containing, when 
made under certain patents, unhealthy ingredients." 

I should like to read the patents — I have here 40 or 50 — showing 
not necessarily what goes into oleomargarine, but what they say goes 
into it. What they do we do not know. Our chemist has been to 
Chicago under the expressed promise that he might go into the works, 
but he never got through. 

Mr. Miller. Are these patents for the manufacture of oleomarga- 
rine or butter ? 

Mr. Flanders. Oleomargarine, as filed here in Washington. 

Mr. Miller. They are substitutes for butter in a great many cases. 

Mr. Flanders. They are not substitutes for butter, but patents for 
oleomargarine. I am quite familiar with the sobject, and I tell you 
they are for oleomargarine. Dr. Clark says: 

"Before entering upon the argument we wish to state that we have 
investigated the claim made by the *■ oleo ' makers that the ' weight of 
the testimony of the medicaf profession was in favor of its being 

S. Kep. 2043 9 



130 OLEOMARGARINE. 

healthy.' This, no doubt, was true a few years ago; but we have made 
it a point of inquiry for nearl}^ two years past and find that this opinion 
of the physicians was based not, as a general thing, upon investigation, 
but upon the sanction given to the stuff by such eminent chemists as 
Profs. C. F. Chandler, R. Ogden Doremus, etc. The opinion was also 
based upon Mege's product, which must be admitted to be less dele- 
terious to health than most, if not all, the others. Then, too, these 
spurious articles were sold so surreptitiously, until those whose per- 
sonal interests were incidentally affected stirred up the legislature to 
investigate, that but little or no attention was given to the subject, and 
consequently but little known about it; but now, since attention has 
been so forcibly called to it by the agitation of the dairy commissioner 
in his endeavor to execute the laws pi'ohibiting its manufacture and 
sale, no difficult}^ will attend the finding of plenty of eminent physicians 
who will declare it may be a very unhealthy article of food. We wish 
also to state here that the physiolog}^, like the chemistry, of fats until 
recently has been studied as a whole, and consequently but little was 
known of their individual properties. 

"We read in Wankl3ni's Milk Analysis, published in 1874, that 
' with regard to the question of admixture of foreign fats with milk 
fat we are unable, in the present condition of our knowledge, to deal 
with that part of the problem.' We have no less than four reliable 
chemical methods for distinguishing butter fat from other fats. 
Experimental physiologists are now entering this unexplored field, 
and important discoveries may be confidently expected." 

Again he says: ""The large proportion of butyrin in butter and its 
nonoccurrence in any of the other animal fats, together with the vola- 
tility of its acids, has long impressed us with the belief that it had 
some important office to perform in the digestive process. Under this 
belief we began a series of experiments upon the artificial digestion of 
different fats. Our digestive fluid was composed of .5 grains of Fair- 
child Brothers' and Foster's 'Extractum pancreatis' and 5 grains of 
bicarbonate of soda dissolved in 10 c. c. of distilled water. After the 
solution was complete we added half a dram of melted fat. 

" The whole was well agitated in a test tube and placed in an oven 
at a temperature of from 100 to 101° F. The fats experimented on 
were cod-liver oil, butter, oleomargarine butter, the commercial oleo- 
margarine oil, lard oil, benne oil, cotton-seed oil, lard, and mutton and 
beef suet. The cod-liver oil was bought from a reliable drug store. 

"Both fresh and stale butter was used and was such as we had made 
ourselves, seeing the milk from which it was made drawn from the 
cow, or such as we had analj^zed ourselves and found to be pure cows' 
butter. Fresh and stale ' oleo ' was used, and was also either made by 
ourselves under the ' Nathan ' patent, which ' oleo ' contained some free 
acid, or was that which we had analyzed. The oils were all obtained 
from 'oleo' makers or dealers in ISIew York Cit3^ Both the pure 
washed dry fats of the butters and ' oleos ' and the natural products 
were compared, as will be described directly. The contents of the 
test tubes were examined under a microscope at intervals of one, two, 
three, four, six, twelve, sixteen, and twenty hours. 

"The cod-liver oil nearly always showed the finest emulsion. 

"Next, and the difference was often just perceptible, came genuine 
butter. 'Oleo' and lard oil came next, there being frequently no 



OLEOMARGARINE. 131 

appreciable difference between them, but between the butter and the 
'oleo' there was a marked difference at the end of each period. 

''Fig. 4, Plate 1, and fig. 1, Plate 11, shows the difference between 
'oleo' and genuine butter after being acted upon by the digestive fluid 
for one hour. It will be noticed that there is no emulsion at all of the 
' oleo ' while the butter is well advanced. 

"Fig. 5, Plate I, and fig. 2, Plate II, shows the same at the end of 
four hours. It is seen that the 'oleo' is not nearly as much emulsified 
as the butter was at the end of one hour. 

"Fig. 6, Plate I, and fig. 3, Plate II, presents the same at the end 
of twelve hours, which shows that the ' oleo ' is but a trifle, if at all, 
further emulsionized than the butter was at the end of the four hours." 

And again: 

"It is important to know that the approval given to Mege's oleo- 
margarine as an article of food by the council of health of Paris, in 
1872, on the strength of the favorable report made by M. Felix Baudet 
(an abstract of which is given on page 30 of this report) was morall}", 
at least, withdrawn in consequence of a report of an investigation made 
by a commission of the academy of medicine for the prefect of the 
Seine, disapproving of the article for use except to a limited extent in 
cooking, on the ground of its comparatve indigestibily. It was 
never allowed to be sold in the public markets of Paris except under 
its own name. Its sale is now prohibited in the public markets. 

"The insolubility of those artificial butters made from animal fats 
is another potent quality for rendering them indigestible. In man the 
digestive process is carried on with greater rapidity than in any of the 
lower animals; and the gastric juice acts upon food from the outside 
toward the center; that is, it does not soak the material and exert its 
solvent action upon the whole of it at the same time. Consequently 
the greater amount of surface of food directly exposed the more rapid 
its digestion. It is for this reason that it is so necessary for man to 
carry out the process of mastication thoroughly. It is for this reason 
also that some people experience distress after eating eggs boiled just 
hard, but none after eating them soft boiled, or after being boiled for 
some time, when they become ' mealy.' The difference in the digestion 
of an egg is again felt when eaten raw without beating and when it is 
beaten. The beating mixes the albumen with the air, rendering it 
porous. 

" The artificial butters made from animal fats, although the olein and 
palmitin are separated as much as possible by pressure, will not liquefy 
at the stomach temperature, as is demonstrated by the following experi- 
ments: We placed in an oven kept at a temperature of from 100 to 10-4" 
F. four beakers containing, respectively, pure butter, oleomargarine 
butter, oleomargarine oil (commercial), and lard oil, about 20 drams of 
each, and which were all of the temperature of about 60° F. when taken. 
At the expiration of thirtj^-five minutes, and the temperature at 100° 
F., the butter presented a clear limpid appearance, but the others 
remained solid, being but very little affected, and at the end of five 
hours, the temperature being from 101 to 104° F., they were in a semi- 
solid condition, the oleomargarine oil being most softened, the oleo 
butter next, and the lard the least softened. 

"These insoluble fats, then, must interfere with digestion in two 
ways: First, by not being acted upon themselves by the gastric juice, 



182 OLEOMARGARINE. 

and second, by being- thoroughly mixed with the other foods in the 
mouth they form an impervious covering- to them, thereby preventing 
the gastric juice from coming into direct contact with them. 

"Randolph says that 'a further reason that the fats, especially 
when cooked with other foods, are frequently found to be unwhole- 
some is that in the process of cooking they so surround and saturate 
the tissues of the substance with which they are combined that it is 
rendered nearly inaccessible to the action of the saliva and gastric 
juice, and at times digestion is in so far delayed that the fried sub- 
stance does not become entirely freed from this more or less impervi- 
ous coating of fat until subjected to the action of the pancreatic juice.' 

"This retards digestion and prevents that increased flow of gastric 
juice which follows the absorption in the stomach of the first portion 
of food digested, as is shown to be the case by Heidenhan's experiment, 
and also deprives the proteids of that aid in their digestion which fats 
are declared to render." 

That is the same proposition laid down but a moment since. 

The Acting Chairinian. If there is anything you desire to insert, if 
you will mark it and hand it to the reporter, it will be inserted. 

Mr. Flanders. I am sorry to have to rush over this so fast, because 
it embodies facts that ought to be presented to the committee. It is 
not fancy. It is not quoted upon hearsay. 

Here [exhibiting] is a book that is just out. I telegraphed last Sat- 
urday to New York for it, and they had to telegraph to Chicago for 
it, and it came down, perhaps, with our (yhicago friends. It is just 
out on the market. The author is J. Milner Fothergill, M. D., mem- 
ber of the Roj^al College of Fh3\sicians of London; senior assistant 
physician to the city of London Hospital for Diseases of the Chest 
(Victoria Park); late assistant physician to the West London Hospital; 
associate fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. I want 
to read what he says. He is a phj^siologist, and not a chemist. 

He says: 

"And now to the consideration of the third division of the subject, 
the digestion of fats. 

" We do not know as yet any change exercised upon fat by heat, by the 
act of cooking, except that of rendering it fluid. Certainly cooking ren- 
ders fat more toothsome, and in the case of fat exposed directly to great 
heat, as in the case of the fat of a beefsteak or a mutton chop, the action 
of- the heat upon the albuminous capsule of the adipose tissue is to make 
it decidedly tasty; but heat does liquefy fat, and separates (we believe) 
olein from stearin and margarin. The liquid portion of fried bacon is 
digested l)y many who can not digest the solid portion of bacon fat. 
This is a well-known fact. The fluid is the olein. Fats vary in their 
digestibility. The late Dr. John Hughes Bennett said: 'The main 
causes of tuberculosis were the dearness of butter and the abundance 
of pastry cooks, the poor not getting- sufiicient fat and the upper classes 
disordering their digestion by pufl' taste.' Now, butter consists of 
the fat globules of milk removed from their envelopes of casein by 
the act of churning, thus getting rid of the albuminous envelope, which 
is one of the difiiculties in the digestion of animal fat." 

I believe you can not find any evidence in nature anywhere to show 
that nature ever intended an^^ globule of fat to go into the human 
stomach raw except that one globule of butter fat which is found in 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 133 

the secretion of the iiianimaiy glands. Nature provides fat for the 
offspring- of mammals by producing a fat in fluid found in the mam- 
mary gland, and that will always melt at less than the temperature of 
the stomach, is easily digested, and aids in the digestion of other foods. 
When you put these other fats, containing stearin, which is the most 
objectionable, into the stomach, thej can not be readily digested. 

There are cases on record where jackknives have gone into the 
stomach and the bone handle digested, but that is extraordinary, and we 
are here in the interest of the ordinary. Animal fats other than those 
foiuid in the secretion of the mammary gland will not as a rule melt at 
the temperature of the stomach, and instead of aiding digestion they 
hinder it. It may be said by our opponents that the difference is one of 
degree only. For the sake of the argument let us admit it, and then say 
it can be illustrated by the difference in energy exerted b}'^ a man 
rowing a boat down a stream and up a stream, and then the difference 
is in tlie favor of butter, and the extent of the difference may vary in 
different samples of oleomargarine as the swiftness of streams vary. 

We come here and sav that 32 States of the Union, containing 75 
per cent or at least 60,000,000 out of the 77,000,000 of population, 
have declared in their State laws that the people should not be deceived 
into bu^Mng this commodity, as it is harder to digest than the other. 
Suppose that everything about its manufacture everywhere is as clean 
as it ought to be — and I will admit that in the great manufactories of 
Chicago that is probably true, but unfortunately they are not the only 
manufactories. But let us suppose that everywhere it is so. Then we 
say to you that 32 States have said that the people shall not be deceived, 
and that the only thing that arises now to prevent the full enforce- 
ment of those laws, which they believe to have been enacted within the 
police power properly, is the fact that the power to regulate commerce 
between the States is given to the National Government, and then ask 
such action at your hands as will complete State power to the end that 
our people shall not be imposed upon into buying or consuming a com- 
modity which really is detrimental as compared with the other 
commoditv. Is not this request within bounds and warranted by the 
facts? 

On what ground do our friends assert that oleo is healthful? My 
understanding is that they have none whatever. To illustrate: They 
quote a chemist as saying, '^ There is nothing in oleomargarine that is 
not in butter, and nothing in butter that is not in oleomargarine." 
Now, to my mind, this is a fair sample of their reasons; it has just 
enough truth in it to answer the purpose. Now, what are the facts, 
or some of them? Both oleomargarine and l)utter contain stearin, a 
fat that melts only at quite too high a temperature for the human 
stomach, and, therefore, very hard to digest, and oleomargarine con- 
tains from four to live times as much of it as butter. Take one more 
illustration: ""Butyrin" is in both substances, melts at a low tem- 
perature, digests easily, and aids digestion of other foods. Butj^rin 
is found in butter to the extent of about 8 per cent, while there is very 
little — only a trace — in oleomargarine. This being true, it is not, in 
mv judgment, a full, fair statement of the fact to say "there is noth- 
ing in butter that is not in oleo, and nothing in oleo that is not in 
l)utter,*' but is an illustration of some of the methods adopted in the 
oleo traffic. 



134 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

These people talk about an ideal oleomargarine. They do not talk 
about the kind referred to by Dr. Bartlett, of Brooklyn, in a letter to 
Dr. R. D. Clark, of Albany, N. Y., which I wish to read: 

"Brooklyn, N. Y., January 18, 1886. 

" Dear Doctor: In reply to yours of the 12th instant, I would say 
that all 1 can say of the oil 1 showed in New York was that it was 
manufactured on Newtown Creek by Mr. Henry Beran. Mr. Beran 
has the contract for the dead animals and offal of the city of Brooklyn. 
The oil in question was made from the comb fat (so called) of horses — 
that is, from the top part of the necks of the horses which were obtained 
from this city and tried out by the contractor. The horses were such 
as die in every city from both accident and disease. There were a 
large number of horses killed in Brooklyn last year that were suffering 
with glanders. Whether any of these horses helped to make up this 
oil I do not know; nor does Mr. Beran. The specimen 1 had in New 
York was a very fine oil, and it shows that an oil can be made from 
dead horses which in taste and naked-ej^e appearance is as palatable as 
the best 'oleo' oil. 

" Mr. Beran has told me that he is satisfied that some of his' oil has 
been used for the manufacture of ' oleo ' butter. He has always been 
very careful about telling me to whom he sells it and he evidently 
thinks it is used for that purpose; in fact, he says he knows it has been. 
I give this as his own statement, and for what it is worth. I could not 
prove it. From the odor, taste, etc. , of this oil I am of the opinion 
that it can be used to make ^ oleomargarine,' and that its use for that 
purpose ought to be strongly condemned. I also hold that the use of 
lard tried out at a temperature below 130° Fahrenheit should be pro- 
hibited. Hoping this will answer your questions, I am, 
' ' Very sincerely yours, 

"E. H. Bartley, M. D." 

He says he feels satisfied that that oil was made into oleomargarine; 
that there was entirely too much for any other purpose. Now, the smile 
is so audible that I must pay attention to it. When we commenced to 
investigate those questions these frauds were practiced. They are not 
practiced now. Our law has hedged you about, and more capital has 
gone into the business. You have put the business on a higher scale 
than it ever was before, and you are making as good a commodity as 
you can out of the stuff you have to make it out of. We only ask 
you in fairness to step one notch higher and do not make it resemble 
butter. 

Do you know that in the great State of New York there are 1,600,000 
cows? Do you know we have 250,000 persons engaged in farm work? 
And yet you seek to come into our market and drive us out and ruin 
that industry. Is there anything fair about that? We ask you to 
stand up like men and sell your commodity for what it is. Then if 
3^ou can compete with us we will stand it like men. Not many years 
ago we were in the meat market. We raised cattle in New York and 
sold them for meat. We sold cereals. The Genesee and Rochester 
valleys were great wheat fields. Then the wheat fields of the Missis- 
sippi Valley were opened up, cultivated by machinery. Then South 
America opened up her wheat fields and produced gram at 37 cents a 
bushel on shipboard, Australia opened up her wheat fields, and now 
Russia is opening up Siberia to the production of the cereals. We 



OLEOMARGARINE. 135 

are driven entirel}^ out of the cereals market. We have been driven 
out of the meat market, and there has not been one word of com- 
plaint. It was done among men in open competition, but we do 
complain when you take all that is left and seek to do it by fraud. I 
can not conceive how any man who has had any experience anywhere 
that gives him a knowledge of ethics can sustain the man who has 
placed upon the market a commodity looking, smelling, and tasting- 
like another, as that other, and then say when we ask him to stop it 
that we are trying to down a healthy competition. It is not com- 
petition. It is downright robbery. 

We have with us the president of the State Dairymen's Association, 
representing 250,000 persons. They want this measure. We have 
the master of the New York State Grange, representing 60,000 
grangers. They want this bill. He is authorized by the master 
of the National Grange to say that the National Grange wants it. It 
has passed a resolution favorable to it. The National Farmers' Con- 
gress at Fort Worth passed a resolution in favor of it. So did the 
congress at St. Paul. It passed a resolution favoring the first part of 
the bill. At that time the 10-cent tax was not in. The national con- 

§ress at Boston favored the first section, and last summer, at Colorado 
prings, they passed a resolution favoring this bill. The National 
Association of Dairy and Food Commissioners in Detroit passed a 
resolution favoring it, at Harrisburg, at Chicago, and this year at Mil- 
waukee. The National Dairy Union is for it. All these people are 
favorable to it. I only quote them to offset the proposition relative 
to the one organization which has been quoted as against the measure. 
Now, leaving out the question of how many people are for it or how 
many people are against it, in my judgment if it is an unjust measure 
it should not pass; but it seems to me that the only thing which it seeks 
to do is to suppress a fraud that exists, and I tell 3'ou it does exist, 
and every dairy and food commissioner here can bear testimony to it. 
It is not given to 3'ou as hearsay. For sixteen years I have been watch- 
ing this work, seeing it go on. There is a gentlemen here represent- 
ing a large firm in Chicago. They came down into our State two or 
three years ago and attempted to put in oleomargarine. I myself 
went into the city of Cohoes with two other men. We watched for 
two weeks. We finally found that it came in over the railroad in bar- 
rels of 10-pound tubs, with canvas over the heads of the barrels. We 
had it watched da}^ and night. I went myself with men from house to 
house inhabited by French families who could not speak a word of 
English. I asked an old woman if she bought it for butter. She could 
not speak any English. I got a little girl there to ask the old lady 
what she bought it for, and she said, "For butter." "For pure but- 
ter?"I asked. She said, "Yes." I said, " What did you pay ? " She 
told me 22 cents, and that was the price of butter. It was sold to those 
people for butter. It has been our experience for sixteen j^ears in the 
State of New York that that is what is done. This business thrives 
down at the last end, when it reaches the consumer, upon fraud. And 
when I say that I do not accuse any manufacturer when he puts out 
oleomargarine of committing a fraud; I simply say that if he is guilty 
at all he is particeps criminis. 

Now, all we want of you is to stop that. Is there anything unfair 
about it? We do not ask an unjust thing. We will stand in fair 
competition with anybody in this country or abroad if we can have 



136 OLEOMAEGARIlSrE. 

competition, but we do not want to be robbed, and we think it i.s just 
that this measure ma}^ be passed, giving us the right to enforce our 
State laws, and then put on the tax and, if possible, tax out the fraud 
that is in it. I will not try to discuss the decision relative to State 
banks. My friend did not discuss that phase of the question. I am 
sorry to have had to cut this matter so close. 

In closing I wish to submit what Dr. Clark says: 

"In order to give an appreciable understanding of the indigestibility 
of artificial butter we must briefly describe the digestive processes. 
The great variety of foods taken by man is derived from the mineral 
and organic kingdoms. From the mineral comes water, salts, etc., 
with which we have no concern at present. The organic foods are the 
products of living organized bodies, and divided into two great classes, 
viz: First, protein principles, also called albuminoid and nitrogenized 
principles. These are chemically composed of oxygen, hydrogen, 
carbon, and nitrogen. The latter element chemically distinguishes 
them from the second class, the hydrocarbons, which are composed of 
oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon. In sugar, starch, and some other 
substances belonging to this class, the oxygen and hydrogen exist in 
proper proportions to form water, which has given rise to a subdivision 
of the hydrocarbons into hydrocarbons and carbohydrates. Fats 
and oils belong to the hydrocarbons. 

" When food is taken into the mouth its presence stimulates, through 
the nervous arrangement, the salivar}^ glands to produce a copious flow 
of saliva, which, during mastication, is (or ought to be) thoroughly 
mixed with the food. Aside from a slight conversion of starch into 
sugar the act of mastication is purely mechanical — the food is broken 
up, lubricated, and gathered into proper form to be swallowed. The 
temperature in the mouth is 100'-' F., and, of course, any free fat whose 
melting point is at or below this temperature will liquefy. The chemi- 
cal reaction of saliva is alkaline. 

'• When the food reaches the stomach its presence, as in the mouth, 
acts as a stimulus and causes an increased secretion, which has alread}^ 
begun when the food was taken into the mouth, of the acid fluid called 
gastric juice. 

" The muscular construction of the stomach keeps the food in constant 
motion so that it is thoroughly mixed with the gastric juice. When 
the bolus of food mixed with saliva comes in contact with the acid gas- 
tric juice the conversion of starch into sugar ceases, the proteids are 
l)roken up and dissolved, the proteid cell walls of the adipose tissue are 
dissolved, which sets the fat-drops free, and the free fats which liquefy 
at or below 100 degrees, or perhaps 101° F., which is the highest tem- 
perature in the stomach, are melted and to some extent emulsified and 
split up into fatty acid and glyceryl. The acidity of the gastric juice 
is essential to its activity. 

"As the food is dissolved or digested (it is now called chyme), it is 
mostly carried into the intestines by the muscular action of the stomach 
where it is met by three other digestive fluids — the bile, pancreatic 
juice, and intestinal juice, which are all alkaline in reaction. When 
the chyme leaves the stomach it is, under normal conditions, acid; 
but as it is mixed with these alkaline fluids its acidity is neutralized 
and its reaction becomes alkaline. 

"In the intestine the conversion of starch into sugar takes place 
with great rapidity and the proteids or peptones, as they are called, 



OLEOMARGARINE. 137 

after being acted upon by the pepsine of the gastric juice, are still 
further broken up. The pancreatic juice, so far as is known, is the 
chief agent in bringing about these changes. The bile does nothing 
more than to aid in neutralizing the acidity and thus prepare them for 
the action of the pancreatic juice. But with fat it becomes an impor- 
tant factor. Its salts unite with any free fatty acid and form soaps. 
It also dissolves soaps which, as we shall see hereafter, materially aid 
the pancreatic fluid in its action upon fats. Bile also has some emul- 
sifying power on fats. A soap is a fat acid united with a base, as 
soda, potash, etc. 

''The pancreatic juice has a powerful emulsifying effect upon fats; 
that is, divides them into very minute particles. It also has the power, 
to some extent, of breaking them up into their fatty acid and glycerin; 
and if an alkali is present the fatty acid unites with it to form soap. 

"As we have already stated, bile has a slight emulsionizing and sol- 
vent effect upon fat, but the fact which is known to be the most impor- 
tant in its relation to the digestion of fat is that it unites with the free 
fatty acids which are present in the chyme and forms soaps. It also 
dissolves soaps that may have been formed before reaching it; and the 
presence of soluble soaps are known to aid the emulsion of fats. 

""Foster says in reference to this: 'Thus a rancid fat — i. e., a fat 
containing a certain amount of free fatt}^ acid forms an emulsion with 
an alkaline fluid more readil}^ than does a neutral fat. A drop of ran- 
cid oil let fall on the surface of an alkaline fluid, such as a solution of 
sodium carbonate of suitable strength, rapidly forms a broad ring of 
enmlsion and that even without the least agitation. As saponification 
takes place at the junction of the oil and alkaline fluid currents are set 
up by which globules of oil are detached from the main drop and 
driven out in a centrifugal direction. The intensity of the currents 
and the consequent amount of emulsion depend on the concentration 
of the alkaline medium and on the solubility of the soaps which are 
formed; hence some fats, such as cod-liver oil, are much more easily 
emulsionized in this way than others. Now, the bile and pancreatic 
juice supply just such conditions as the above for emulsionizing fats; 
they both together afford an alkaline medium. The pancreatic juice 
gives rise to an adequate amount of free fatty acid, and the bile in 
addition brings into solution the soaps as they are formed. So that 
we may speak of the emulsion of fats in the small intestine as being 
carried on by the bile and pancreatic juice acting in conjunction, and, 
as a matter of fact, the bile and pancreatic juice do largely emulsify 
the contents of the small intestine, so that the grayish turbid chyme 
is changed into a creamy-looking fluid, which has been sometimes 
called chyle.' 

"Now, we believe that butter fat is especially fitted to supply these 
conditions. Butter, as is well known, readily becomes rancid, and, 
no doubt, butter contains some free acid very shortly after being made; 
but we will consider a perfectl}^ fresh specimen. According to Lang, 
the first step in the decomposition of butter is a conversion of lactic 
acid into butyric. The second is the breaking up of butyrin into 
butyric acid and glycerin, the butyrin furnishing by far the most 
free acid — about 7 per cent. Thus we see that the first fat in the 
mixture of butter to break up outside of the body is butyrin, and 
doubtless this is the case inside. 

"J. Bell asserts that when a solution of alcohol and an alkali is used 



138 OLEOMAEGAEINE. 

in sufficient quantity to saponify all the butter fat treated, the alkaline 
base unites with the soluble fatty acids, and what is left undecomposed 
are the fats containing the insoluble fatty acids. He also illustrates 
this by relating- an actual experiment. This strongly corroborates the 
supposition tbat it is the butyrin that is first broken up in the stom- 
ach and intestmes. 

"We have seen in the process of stomach digestion that some fat 
was emulsionized and broken up into its acid and glycerin constituents. 
So we have butyric acid set free in the stomach to unite with a base 
from some of the weaker salts, as the carbonates, for instance, to form 
a very soluble soap which is dissolved by the bile as soon as it comes 
in contact with it, and thus furnishing, even a fresh butter, the most 
favorable conditions for starting the action of the pancreatic juice upon 
fats. Indeed Roberts claims that a small admixture of a free fatty 
acid in the ch^^me, together with the agitation produced by the move- 
ments of the intestines, is sufficient to emulsify fats without the aid of 
pancreatic juice. 

"Routh also declares the same. None of the other animal fats con- 
tain butyrin. 

"The large proportion of butyrin in butter and its nonoccurrence 
in any of the other animal fats, together with the volatility of its acid, 
has long impressed us with the belief that it had some important office 
to perform in the digestive process. Under this belief we began a 
series of experiments upon the artificial digestion of different fats. 
Our digestive fluid was composed of 6 grains of Fairchild Bros, and 
Foster's 'Extractum pancreatis,' 6 grains of bicarbonate of soda dis- 
solved in 10 c. c. of distilled water. After the solution was complete 
we added half a dram of melted fat. 

"The whole was well agitated in a test tube and placed in an oven 
at a temperature of from 100 to 101° F. The fats experimented on 
were cod-liver oil, butter, oleomargarine butter, the commercial oleo- 
margarine oil, lard oil, benne oil, cotton-seed oil, lard, and mutton and 
beef suet. The cod-liver oil was bought from a reliable drug store. 

" Both fresh and stale butter was used, and was such as we had made 
ourselves, seeing the milk from which it was made drawn from the 
cow, or such as we had analyzed ourselves and found to be pure cow's 
butter. Fresh and stale 'oleo' was used, and was also either made by 
ourselves under the 'Nathan' patent, which 'oleo' contained some free 
acid, or was that which we had analyzed. The oils were all obtained from 
'oleo' makers or dealers in New York City. Both the pure, washed, 
dry fats of the butters and 'oleos' and the natural products were com- 
pared, as will be described directly. The contents of the test tubes 
were examined under a microscope at intervals of one, two, three, 
four, six, twelve, sixteen, and twenty hours. 

"The cod-liver oil nearly always showed the finest emulsion. 

"Next, and the difierence was often just perceptible, came genuine 
butter. 'Oleo' and lard oil came next, there being frequently no 
appreciable difference between them, but between the butter and the 
'oleo' there was a marked difference at the end of each period, 

"Fig. 4, PI. I, and fig. 1, PI. II, shows the difference between 
'oleo' and genuine butter after being acted upon by the digestive 
fluid for one hour. It will be noticed that there is no emulsion at all 
of the 'oleo,' while the butter is well advanced. 

"Fig. 6, PI. I, and fig. 2, PI. II, shows the same at the end of four 



OLEOMARGARINE. 139 

hours. It is seen that the 'oleo' is not nearly as much emulsified as 
the butter was at the end of one hour. 

"Fig. 6, PL I, and tig. 3, PI. II, presents the same at the end of 
twelve hours, which shows that the 'oleo' is but a trifle, if at all, fur- 
ther emulsiouized than the butter was at the end of the four hours. 

"It will be further noticed that the globules of butter are finer, 
more uniform, containing v^erj few large globules, and what is par- 
ticularly conspicuous is the clearness and distinctness of the butter 
globules. They are well defined, sleek looking, and have a clean-cut 
outline which strongly intimates that they would go through an ani- 
mal membrane — which the}^ are required to do, as will be seen later 
on — quicker than 'oleo,' which has a rough, coarse, ill-defined appear- 
ance. This holds true until the whole is saponified. The best results 
were obtained after exposing the fats to the digestive fluids for five or 
six hours at a temperature of 100° F., then allowing the whole to 
stand over night at a temperature of about 60° F., and in the morning 
adding an equal bulk of warm water. The butter then presents under 
the microscope a most perfect emulsion. The globules are all very 
minute, grading ofl' into almost imperceptible granules. 

" B}^ examining the corresponding figures on the difl'erent plates the 
comparative digestibility of the various fats and oils used in making 
artificial butter may be seen. 

"That butja'ic acid does have some important role to play in the ali- 
mentary canal is evident from the fact that sugar undergoes butyric 
fermentation in the small intestines. Yeo sa3^s, in reference to this, 
'Some of the sugar in the intestines, moreover, undergoes fermenta- 
tion, by which it is converted into lactic and butyric acids. How much 
of the sugar is absorbed as lactic and butyric acids has not been deter- 
mined, but the amount of sugar found in the portal vessels or lacteals 
does not at all correspond with the amount that disappears from the 
cavity of the intestines.' 

"Foster sa3"s, 'This suggests the possibility of the sugar of the 
intestinal contents undergoing the butyric acid fermentation (during 
which, as is well known, carbonic anhydride and hydrogen are evolved), 
and thus, so to speak, put on its wa}^ to become fat. * * * More- 
over, it is probable that b}" other fermentative changes a considerable 
quantity of sugar is converted into lactic acid, since this acid is found 
in increasing quantities as the food descends the intestines.' 

'"No doubt the lactic acid is converted into butyric acid, which, in turn, 
is converted into soluble soaps, and which may perform, and we believe 
do perform, important offices. As will be seen further on, fat is often 
covered with soap, when absorbed, and soaps are found in the ehvle, as 
well as some fatty acids. Furthermore, it is shown that fats undergo 
still further emulsion after being absorbed while passing through the 
lacteals to enter the general circulation. Now, these soaps may be, and 
very likely are, the chief agents in accomplishing this. One of the 
arguments always advanced by the advocates of artificial butter is that 
it possesses better keeping qualities and does not become rancid, and is, 
therefore, more wholesome than rancid butter. Now, it is true that 
it does not set free but3'ric acid (as it contains no butyrine), which gives 
the ranciditv to butter, but, as it contains some cellular tissue (in our 
specimens considerable), it undergoes a different decomposition, which 
is liable to develop the septic material peculiar to dead animal matter, 
and which is often very poisonous to human beings. On the other 



140 OLEOMA KG AEIISIE. 

hand, rancid butter is probably more readily digested than fresh and 
is not poisonous, the repugnan<'e to it being simply one of taste, as will 
be seen from the following, taken from Roberts b}^ Fothergill: 

"'The different behavior of two specimens of the same oil, one 
perfectly neutral and the other containing a little free fatty acid, is 
exceedingly striking. I have here before me two specimens of cod-liver 
oil; one of them is a line and pure pale oil, such as is usually dispensed, 
by the better class of chemists, the other is the brown oil sent out under 
the name of De Jongh. I put a few drops of each of those into two 
beakers, and pour on them some of this solution, which contains 2 per 
cent of bicarbonate of soda. The pale oil, you see, is not in the least 
emulsified; it rises to the top of the water in large, clear globules; the 
brown oil, on the contrary, yields at once a milky emulsion. The pale 
oil is a neutral oil, and yields no acid to water when agitated with it — in 
other words, it is quite free from rancidity — but the brown oil when 
treated in the same way causes the water with which it is shaken to red- 
den litmus paper. (" When the inhabitant of Arctic regions prefers his 
fat rancid, probably he is only following out what experience has taught 
him is good in his liberal consumption of fat.") The bearing of these 
observations on the digestion of fat is plain. When the contents of the 
stomach pass the pylorus, they encounter the bile and pancreatic juice, 
which are alkaline, from the presence in them of carbonate of soda, so 
that the fatty ingredients of the chyme, if they only contain a small 
admixture of free fatt}^ acids, are at once placed under favorable circum- 
stances for the production of an emulsion without the help of any solu- 
ble ferment, the mere agitation of the contents of the bowels by the 
peristaltic action being sufficient for the purpose.' (Roberts,) 

"Possibly some fats containing a large proportion of oleine emul- 
sionize more readily than others. But the whole subject is in its 
infancy so far as our acquaintance with it is concerned. 

"Cod-liver oil contains about l^V per cent of volatile fatty acid, some 
of which is butyric acid. This, together with its fluidity, accounts for 
its easy digestion and absorption. 

The following is what some of the standard authors say about the 
digestibility of butter and other fats: 

" ' Like other fats and oils it (lard) is difficult of digestion, and, there- 
fore, is sometimes used as a laxative for children, and for its protec- 
tive power in diarrhea, dysentery, etc. * * * It has been pro- 
posed as a substitute for cod-liver oil in the treatment of phthisis (con- 
sumption), but its indigestible nature unfits it for this purpose.' 

"' Apart, however, from the deficiency in flavor, it is doubtful 
whether ' ' butterine " (artificial butter) can be said to fully supply the 
place of l)utter as an article of diet. When the highly complex and 
peculiar character of the constitution of butter is considered, and that 
it is the fat derived from or natural to milk, which for a time at 
least is the principal food of the young, it is probable that butter per- 
forms some more specific office in the system than ordinar}^ fats.' 

"As before stated, fats consist of a fatty acid and oxide of lipyl. 
In the adult it is the pancreas which effects this separation into these 
approximate constituents. We all know that if this change does not 
occur the fat passes off unchanged by the bowels; and, as Bernard has 
shown, the expulsion of fat is one of the surest indications of dis- 
eased pancreas. In the infant, judging from the want of development 



OLEOMARGARINE. 141 

of the salivary glands, the pancreas probably does not suffice to the 
complete performance of this function. 

''It is here that we remark one of those wonderful adaptations of 
nature. First, in butter we have excess of a free fatty acid; there- 
fore rendering the assimilation of it possible without the assistance of 
the pancreas. 

"■ "Another way in which this emulsion of fat can be accomplished is 
by giving the patient, not fats, properly so called, but the fattv acids 
of which they are composed, and which are very readily absorbed into 
the system. The good effects of cod-liver oil are probably in some 
measure due to the excess of fatty acids present. So, also, those of 
butter; it is indeed a matter of popular observation that many children 
grow fat upon bread and butter. They appear to thrive on it when 
other means fail. This good effect can not be due simply to bread, 
for reasons before stated, but to the free acid, which is also in excess 
in butter. 

" 'It (butter) is the best known of all this class of substances (fats), 
but it is eaten in very different quantities, from the large cupful 
before breakfast, as drank by the Bedouins, near the Red Sea and the 
Persian Gulf, to the scarcely perceptible layer on the bread eaten by 
the needlewomen of London, and the supply is limited by pecuniary 
means rather than desire. It is also the form of separated fat which 
is less frequently disliked by consumptive people and invalids gen- 
erally, as was shown by me in an inquiry into the state of 1,000 patients 
at the Hospital for Consumption, Brompton.' 

"In answer to a letter of ours. Professor Stelle, of Philadelphia, 
says: 

'"If you care for my personal opinion, it is that fresh butter and 
fresh olive oil are the most digestible of fatty bodies; next to them 
comes lard, and, linall}^, tallow.' 

"Finally, it is a matter of common observation among phj^sicians 
that natural butter is taken b}^ invalids, especially consumptives, when 
other fats, even cod-liver oil, can not be tolerated. 

"It is important to know that the approval given to Mege's oleo- 
margarine as an article of food by the council of health of Paris in 
1872, on the strength of the favorable report made by M. Felix 
Baudet (an abstract of which is given on page 30 of this report), was 
morally, at least, withdrawn in consequence of a report of an investi- 
gation made by a commission of the Academy of Medicine for the 
prefect of the Seine disapproving of the article for use except to a 
limited extent in cooking, on the ground of its comparative indi- 
gestibilit3\ It was never allowed to be sold in the public markets of 
Paris except under its own name. Its sale is now prohibited in the 
public markets. 

"The insolubility of those artificial butters made from animal fats 
is another potent quality for rendering them indigestible. In man the 
digestive process is carried on with greater rapidit}^ than in an}- of the 
lower animals, and the gastric juice acts upon food from the outside 
towards the center — that is, it does not soak the material and exert its 
solvent action upon the whole of it at the same time; consequently the 
greater amount of surface of food directly exposed, the more rapid its 
digestion. It is for this reason that it is so necessarv for man to carry 
out the process of mastication thoroughly. It is for this reason also 



142 OLEOMARGARINE. 

that some people experience distress after eating eggs boiled just hard, 
but none after eating them soft boiled, or after being boiled for some 
time, when they become ' mealy.' The difference in the digestion of an 
egg is again felt when eaten raw without beating, and when it is beaten. 
The beating mixes the albumen with the air, rendering it porous. 

"The artificial butter made from animal fats, although the olein and 
palmitin are separated as much as possible by pressure, will not 
liquefy at the stomach temperature, as is demonstrated by the follow- 
ing experiments: We placed in an oven kept at a temperature of from 
100 to 10-1° F. four beakers containing, respectively, pure butter, oleo- 
margarine butter, oleomargarine oil (commercial), and lard oil, about 
20 drams of each, and which were all of the temperature of about 60° 
F. when taken. At the expiration of thirty-five minutes, and the tem- 
perature at 100°, the butter presented a clear, limpid appearance, but 
the others remained solid, being bvit very little affected; and at the 
end of five hours, the temperature being from 101 to 104° F. , they 
were in a semisolid condition, the oleomargarine oil being most soft- 
ened, the oleo butter next, and the lard the least softened. 

"These insoluble fats, then, must interfere with digestion in two 
ways — first, by not being acted upon themselves by the gastric juice, 
and, second, by being thoroughly mixed with the other foods in the 
mouth, they form an impervious covering to them, thereby preventing 
the gastric juice from coming in direct contact with them. 

"Randolph says that 'a further reason that the fats, especially when 
cooked with other foods, are frequently found to be unwholesome, is 
that in the process of cooking they so surround and saturate the tissues 
of the substance with which they are combined that it is rendered 
nearly inaccessible to the action of the saliva and gastric juice, and at 
times digestion is in so far delayed that the fried substance does not 
become entirely freed from this more or less impervious coating of 
fat until subjected to the action of the pancreatic juice.' 

"This retards digestion and prevents that increased flow of gastric 
juice which follows the absorption in the stomach of the first portion 
of food digested, as is shown to be the case by Heidenhains experiment, 
and also deprives the proteids of that aid in their digestion which fats 
are declared to render. 

"In experimenting with gastric festulse on different dogs, for 
example, we have found in one instance, like Dr. Beaumont, that the 
gastric juice was always entirelj^ absent in the intervals of digestion; 
the mucous membrane then presenting invariably either a neutral or 
slightly alkaline reaction. In this animal, which was a perfectly healthy 
one, the secretion could not be excited by any artificial means, such as 
glass rods, metallic catheters, and the like, but only by the natural 
stimulus of digested food. Tough and indigestible pieces of tendon 
introduced through the fistula, were expelled again in a few minutes, 
one after the other, without exciting the flow of a single drop of acid 
fluid, while pieces of fresh meat introduced in the same wa}^ produced 
at once an abundant supply. 

"After food has been changed by the act of digestion it is required 
to enter the current of blood before it can fulfill its office of nourish- 
ing the body. In order to do this it must pass through the walls of the 
alimentary canal, which passage constitutes the process of 'absorption.' 

"While absorption may take place through an}' part of the body 
containing blood and lymph vessels and not covered with a hard, 



OLEOMARGARINE. 143 

thickened cuticle like the palms of the hand and the soles of the feet, 
yet the locality especially adapted to it is the upper part of the small 
intestine. Here the lining- membrane is thrown into numerous folds 
in order to increase the amount of surface, and covered with myriads 
of minute projections resembling the pile of velvet which are techni- 
cally called villi. Each little villus constitutes an absorbent gland. 
Its surface is covered with columnar epithelial cells containing pro- 
toplasm, ajid also little rod-like projections extending from their free 
extremities. 

"■These cells rest upon a basement membrane which contains mus- 
cular tissue so arranged as to aid in carrying along the solid particles 
of food on their passage to the lacteals and blood vessels. 

"This membrane incloses a framework of connective tissue, in which 
are contained the blood vessels and lacteals. The blood vessels are 
arranged in the. form of latticework around the lacteals, which latter 
contain no perceptible openings. Now, fat is the only element of food 
that is absorbed in the form of solid particles, at least to any extent, 
and therefore would seem to be the most difficult of absorption. This 
absorption of solid particles of fat has indeed always been a puzzle to 
physiologists. The peptones and sugar are almost wholly liquefied 
and can not be recognized by the microscope after entering the lacteals, 
but fat is seen after reaching the lacteals in a very minute state of 
division. On the principle of osmosis, it is easy to understand how 
liquid foods are absorbed. Some physiologists believe that the epithe- 
lium covering the villus is prolongated, so to speak, into the central 
lacteal vesicle and that the fat granules pass not through but between 
the epithelial cells along this prolongation of protoplasm, and so reach 
the lacteal. Others believe that they pass through the cell by being 
taken up b}" the protoplasm in the manner in which an amoeba takes 
its food, and passed on to the lacteals bj' this protoplasmic agent, being 
aided by contraction of the muscular element in the villus. The lat- 
ter theory is the most satisfactory, and probably the most modern. It 
is also believed that the layer of rods or pores projecting from the free 
surface of the epithelium has to do with the absorption of fats. 
Whichever theory is correct, it seems plain to us that the finer the par- 
ticles of fat the more readily will they be absorbed. Moreover, it is 
well known that an animal membrane moistened with water will not 
allow the passage of emulsionized fat, but when moistened with bile 
fat passes through it. From this fact it is quite probable that the 
soaps formed, as previously described, perform important work in con- 
nection with the absorption of fat. 

"Yeo says in reference to this : 'It has therefore been suggested 
that the epithelial cells of the mucous membrane are more or less 
moistened with bile, and the particles of fat in the emulsion are also 
coated with a film of bile or soap. Thus they are enabled to pass into 
the epithelial cells, in which they can be detected during digestion. 
The bile or soapy coating of the fat particles ma}" no doubt aid in their 
transit through the various obstacles on their way to the lacteal radicles. ' 

'""I know of but few actual experiments upon human beings as to 
the comparative absorptivity of butter and other fats, but it is fair to 
assume from the foregoing circumstances that butter is much more 
readil}^ absorbed than its sham congeners. Rubner ascertained that 
butter was much more readily absorbed than ham fat. Randolph says 
that cod-liver oil is absorbed with the greatest ease and to a greater 



144 



OLEOMARGAKINE. 



degree than any of the other fats, and that, on the other hand, the vege- 
table oils are the least readily absorbed. 

"A. Mayer experimented to determine whether natural or artificial 
butter was the easiest absorbed by the system. He took a man and a 
boy and fed them for three days on various mixtures of bread, milk, 
eggs, and vegetables, together with natural butter. Then followed 
two days' rest, they being fed on ordinary diet; after which for three 
days they were given precisely the same food as on the first three 
days, except artificial was substituted for natural butter. Each suc- 
cessive day of the experiment the solid evacuations were collected and 
analyzed, commencing twenty-four hours after the beginning of the 
experiment. The amount of fat in the excrements was estimated, 
which determined the amount of fat that had been absorbed. The 
following is the percentage of the amount absorbed: 





First day. 


Second 
day. 


Third 
day. 


MAN. 


97 
94.6 

97.8 
93.3 


99.4 
97.9 

94.8 
94.6 


98.7 




96.7 


BOY. 

Natural butter 


98.7 


Artificial butter 


97.6 







"It will be seen, therefore, that the average was about 1.6 per cent 
less of the artificial absorbed than of the natural. The greatest difi'er- 
ence was 2. 5 per cent less of the artificial. The experimenter concludes 
that except in sickness this trifling diflcrence may be overlooked with 
safety. 

"Of course, these experiments were not carried on long enough to 
be of nuich value, but as far as they go they harmonize exactly with 
our idea of the diflerence in the absorption of these two articles. If 
this diflerence was manifest in three days, we would expect a very 
much greater diflerence in three months. 

"Magendie's experiments on dogs for the purpose of testing the 
efi'ect of feeding nothing but fat incidentally shows a striking difler- 
ence in the life-sustaining power between butter and lard. He used 
two dogs for the experiment. One he fed butter and the other lard. 
The first lived sixty-eight, the second fifty-six days; that is, the dog fed 
on butter lived twelve dnjs longer than the other, or one-fourth of the 
whole time which the other dog lived. 

"The liability of conveying disease germs into the human sj^stem 
through artificial butter is, in our opinion, greater than is supposed by 
those not familiar with the subject. In the first place, investigations 
are showing that many more diseases than was formerly supposed are 
communicable from animal to man. The following are some of those 
known to be such: Consumption, anthrax, trichinosis, tapeworm, 
glanders, foot-and-mouth disease, cowpox, hydrophobia, etc. Many 
more, as epidemic pleuro-pneumonia, smallpox of sheep, splenic 
apoplexy, braxy of sheep, typhus, etc., have, when the flesh of ani- 
mals suffering from them was eaten, produced serious sickness in 
human beings. 

"We would like to give the history of these diseases and also of the 
cases of the sickness resulting from consumption of the flesh of these 



OLEOMARGARINE. 145 

diseased animals, for we think the effect would be to startle the popu- 
lace and to induce it to lend a heartier support to those public officers 
to whom has been assigned the duty of preventing unwholesome food 
being sold to it; but the want of time prevents. We must content our- 
selves with a brief reference to some points bearing directly upon the 
subject in hand. The manner in which trichinae can get into artificial 
butter can easily be seen from the following: When the animal takes 
a cyst containing a trichina into its stomach the cyst is dissolved by the 
gastric juice, which sets the trichina free, when it passes out of the 
stomach into the intestine, where it develops in from a week to ten 
days, and the female deposits her embryos — from 60 to 2,000 for each 
female trichina. The young trichinae then make their way through 
the connective tissue to the muscles. Trichinae are found in hogs, 
cattle, and sheep. Now, if those animals are killed during the migra- 
tory stage, the caul fat would doubtless contain the parasite. Dr. Bil- 
lings says he has frequently found encysted trichinae in the adipose 
tissue between muscular tissue of very fat hogs, but not in the fat 
lying upon the muscles. He states, however, that Professor Ta3^1or, 
of the Department of Agriculture at Washington, has seen in the 
journal of the Miscroscopical Association that they have been found in 
fat. Everyone is aware of the dangerous character of this disease. 

"A tapeworm is developed from a kind of germ called a cysticercus. 
These are of different varieties, and are found in the solid parts of 
hogs, cattle, and sheep. Animals infested with these germs are said 
to have the measles. A cysticercus is developed from the egg of a 
tapeworm. The fully matured tapeworm is developed in two separate 
stages, as follows: The eggs of the worm pass out of the body and are 
eaten by a man or another animal. They then find their way into the 
solid tissues of this animal, when they develop into cysticerci, and so 
remain until the cysticerci are again taken into the intestines of another 
animal or man, where they reach their full development as a tapeworm. 
Now, the heat applied to the fats employed in making artificial butter 
is not sufficient to destroy these germs, as most of them are treated at 
a temperature below 140° F. , as is seen from the abstracts. One patent 
for making a compound to substitute butter for cooking purposes 
requires a temperature of 190° to 200° F. One other for ' improve- 
ment in shortening for culinary uses ' uses a heat of 400° F. Six for 
purifying and bleaching tallow, lard, etc., heats to 140°, 160°, 200°, 
200°, 200°, and 347° F., respectively. 

"Much interest is manifested at the present time in regard to germs 
and their destruction, and as is always the case with new subjects there 
is some difference of opinion in regard to the efficacy of different dis- 
infecting agents. The following will give some idea of the amount of 
heat required to kill disease germs: 

"Toussaint showed b}^ experiment that the tuberculous element was 
not confined to the diseased localities, but were diffused through all the 
tissues, and that the juice of the flesh of a consumptive animal had 
produced a disease in others after having been heated to 50° or 60° C. 
(122° to 140° F.), the temperature of roasting beef, and that when given 
in ver}- small doses. 

"Referring to these experiments, Bartley says: 'Considering the 
facts in this light, we ought to establish no degrees in tuberculosis; 
when it exists it renders the consumption of flesh dangerous.' 

"In reference to trichinai, some observers, as Valliu, state that a 

S. Rep. 2043 10 



146 OLEOMAEGAEINE. 

temperature of 129 to 133° F. kills most of them, and that 110° F. is 
safe; but Collin found living trichinge in half a pound of steak that 
had been boiled for ten minutes, presenting a white appearance when 
cut, having no red points, and discovered trichinae in the intestines of 
a bird after having been fed upon it. 

"Pasteur asserts that an exposure for ten minutes to a temperature 
of 129.2° F. will kill anthrax rods, but spores resist prolonged boiling. 
The spores develop in the rods rapidly after the death of the animal, 
under proper conditions, and will remain active for years. They are 
not destroyed b}^ drying or putrefaction when exposed to oxygen 
(Maguire). 

"Klein also affirms that the anthrax spores will resist prolonged 
boiling. 

" Vantieghem is quoted by Magnin as saying that a temperature of 
121° F. is fatal to most bacteria; but he has studied the bacillus that 
is able to multiply and form spores in a culture fluid at 165.2° F., but 
which cease to multiply at 171.5° F. Magnin also states as coming 
from Lebedeff that septic blood does not lose its virulence at the end 
of forty days, or by being heated to the boiling point (212° F.) for 
from three to twenty-four hours, and that the bacteria in it are capa- 
ble of multiplying after such exposure. 

"Arloing and Chauv^eau have found what they consider to be the 
bacillus causing gangrenous septicsemia. When fresh it is destroyed 
by a temperature of from 191 to 212° F. , but when dried it required 
218° F. 

"The heat to be trusted for destroying pathogenic germs in practice 
will be seen from the following: 

"Dr. Van Bush, of Berlin, used a temperature of 149° to 167° F. 
for the destruction of puerperal-fever contagion. The late Dr. Elisha 
Harris, in 1859, emplo3"ed a temperature at and above 212° F. to dis- 
infect clothes of yellow-fever subjects. He quotes Dr. William Henry 
as saying that 'the infectious matter of cowpox is rendered inert by 
a temperature not below 140° F., from whence it is inferred that more 
active contagion is probably destructible at temperatures not exceed- 
ing 212° F.' 

' ' Dr. Henry could not communicate typhus after exposing flannel 
shirts to 204° F. ; same with scarlet fever. He sa3^s : ' The experiments 
which we have related appear to be sufficiently numerous to prove that 
by exposure to a temperature not below 200° F. during at least one 
hour the contagious matter of scarlatina is rather dissipated or 
destroyed.' 

"The following circular, issued to the customs officers December 22, 
1884, shows what temperature is considered safe by the Government: 
' All circulars of the Department concerning the importation of old rags 
are modified as follows: No old rags, except afloat on or before Janu- 
ary 1, 1885, on vessels bound directly to the United States, shall be 
landed in the United States from any vessel, nor come into the United 
States by land, from any foreign country, except upon disinfection at 
the expense of the importers, as provided in this circular or may here- 
after be provided. 

" 'Either of the following processes will be considered a satisfactory 
method of disinfection of old rags, and will entitle them to entry and 
to be landed in the United States upon the usual permit of the local 
health officer, viz: 



OLEOMAKGAEINE. 147 

" '1. Boiling in water for two hours under a pressure of 50 pounds 
per square inch. 

" '2. Boiling- in water for four hours with pressure. 

" ' 8. Subjection to the action of confined sulphurous-acid gas for six 
hours, burning 1^ or 3 pounds roll brimstone in each 1,000 cubic feet 
of space, with the rags well scattered upon racks. 

" ' 4, Disinfection in the bale by means of perforated screws or tubes 
through which sulphur dioxide or superheated steam at a temperature 
of not less than 330 degrees shall be forced under a pressure of four 
atmospheres for a period sufficient to insure thorough disinfection,' etc. 

"James A. Russell, in Quain's Dictionary of Medicine, says: 'It is 
extremely improbable that any contagium can withstand a temperature 
of 220° F. (104.5 C), maintained during two hours. When contagium 
is shielded by thick material into which heat penetrates slowly, the time 
necessary to reach the disinfection temperature may be long, and hence 
the necessity for spreading clothing and opening out bedding in special 
hot-air chambers, where the heat ought not to be less than 220° F. 
(104.5 C.) nor more than 250° F. (112.1 C.).' 

' ' The following is an abstract from the report of the committee on 
disinfectants of the American Public Health Association: *■ The experi- 
mental evidence recorded in these reports seems to justify the following 
conclusions: The most useful agents for destruction of spore-contain- 
ing infectious materials are : 

" '1. Fire, complete destruction by burning. 

" '2. Steam under pressure, 230° F., for ten minutes. 

" '3. Boiling in water for one hour.' 

"For the destruction of infectious material which owes its infecting 
power to micro-organisms not containing spores, the committee recom- 
mended: 

1. Fire, complete destruction by burning. 

2. Boiling in water half an hour. 

3. Dry heat, 230° F., for two hours,' etc. 

"It is alleged by the makers of artificial butter that the fats from 
animals dying from disease could not be used in making these articles, 
as they would 'stink' and taint the product, and the deodorization 
would not remove said stink, etc. This is false, for we have tasted 
and smelled of oil made from horses and dogs picked up in the streets 
of New York and Brooklyn, dead of disease, and it had no unpleasant 
taste or appearance; in fact, tastes as sweet as pure dried butter fat. 
And, too, the suspicion is growing stronger and stronger among those 
who are cognizant of the facts that those oils go into the artificial 
butters. Why should so much pains be taken to render a sweet, clear 
oil from dead horses and dogs^ This would be adding unnecessary 
expense if it was intended for lubricating purposes, and we do not 
hear of its being commonly used in soap making. 

"The following letter, in answer to one from us, will tell its own 
story: 

"Brooklyn, N. Y., January 18^ 1886. 

'' Dear Doctor: In reply to 3'ours of the 12th instant I would say 
that all I can say of the oil I showed in New York was that it was 
manufactured on Newtown Creek, b}" Mr. Henry Beran. Mr. Beran 
has the contract for the dead animals and offal of the city of Brookh^n. 
The oil in question was made from the comb fat (so called) of horses — 
that is, from the top part of the neck of horses — which were obtained 



(i 4 - 



148 OLEOMARGARINE. 

from this city and tried out by the contractor. The horses were such 
as die in every city from both accident and disease. There were a 
large number of horses killed in Brooklyn last year that were suffer- 
ing with glanders. Whether an}^ of these horses helped to make up 
this oil I do not know; nor does Mr. Be ran. The specimen I had in 
New York was a very fine oil, and it shows that an oil can be made 
from dead horses which in taste and naked-ej^e appearances is as palat- 
able as the best 'oleo' oil. 

"Mr. Beran has told me that he is satisfied that some of his oil has 
been used for the manufacture of 'oleo' butter. He has always been 
very careful about telling me to whom he sells it, and he evidently 
thinks it is used for that purpose; in fact, he says he knows it has. I 
give this as his own statement, and for what it is worth. 1 could not 
prove it. From the odor, taste, etc. , of this oil I am of the opinion 
that it can be used to make 'oleomargarine,' and that its use for that 
purpose ought to be strongly condemned. I also hold that the use of 
lard tried out at a temperature below 130^^ F., should be prohibited. 
Hoping this will answer 3^our questions, I am. 
"Very sincerely, yours, 

"E. H. Bartlf.y, M. D. 

"It might be asked if natural butter was not exposed to the same 
contamination. We answer that it is not; for, in the first place, the 
fat of milk is doubtless manufactured in the gland by the metabolic 
action of the protoplasmic cells, and consequently would not be apt to 
contain disease germs even if the}^ were in the cow's system, unless the 
udder itself was diseased. Then, too, it is difficult to make good butter 
from a diseased cow; and but few farmers would risk their reputation 
by selling butter made from sick cattle. Furthermore, I am unable 
to find a single authentic instance where milk butter has produced any 
serious sickness, which, in consideration of the length of time it has 
been known, is significant. 

'"Dr. Alfred Hill, on account of assertions being made that the milk 
quickly became rancid and produced typhoid fever, and that the but- 
ter was very offensive which came from cows that had been partly fed 
on sewage grass, made a thorough examination of the milk and its but- 
ter which came from the Birmingham Sewage Farm, and found that 
the keeping and other qualities of the milk were not in the least infe- 
rior to ordinary milk. In regard to the butter, he says: 'In order to 
test the quality of the butter made from it, I requested the wife of the 
farm manager, who thoroughly understands butter making (although 
no butter is ordinarily made on the sewage farm), to make a churning 
for me, which she was kind enough to do. The resulting butter was 
excellent in quality and retained its sweetness and other properties as 
well as other fresh butter, although the weather at the time was exces- 
sively hot; so that the conditions of the experiment were as unfavora- 
ble as possible.' 

"When we look over the ingredients used in making artificial butter 
or preparing the fats and oils for the same, and find such powerful 
acids as sulphuric, nitric, benzoic, salicylic, etc., and such alkalies as 
caustic soda, bicarbonate of soda, carbonate of ammonia, saleratus, sal 
soda, etc., and such drugs as sugar of lead, alum, carbonate of potash, 
nitrate of soda, sulphate of soda, borax, niter, etc., and such easily 
decomposed material as slippery-elm bark, rennet, 3^olk of eggs, cow's 
udder, fresh vegetable pulps, etc., mixed with it, and after having 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 149 

prepared this stuff according- to the specifications of certain patents, 
we can not repel the conviction that the greatest care must be exer- 
cised or they will contaminate the product. By referring to patent 
No. 263199, it will be seen that about 150 pounds of melted lard is 
thoroughly 'washed' — that is, mixed — with 60 gallons of ice water 
holding in solution 3 ounces of nitric acid (strong) and borax. The 
lard solidifies in this solution, and while solid is washed in 60 gallons of 
ice Avater. Every time this quantity of fat is washed in the acid water 
1 ounce more of nitric acid is added, which shows that this amount 
of nitric acid is considered to be taken up by the lard. In the manu- 
facture of 'oleo' under this patent from 5 to 50 per cent of this 
deodorized lard is added to commercial oleomargarine oil. 

' ' The whole is then subjected to a heat of 95° F. (which is not sufficient 
to melt it) and churned with milk or cream, sugar, and coloring mat- 
ter. It is then treated with ice water, which causes it to rapidly and 
completely solidify. After mixing thoroughl}^ and salting it is ready 
for market. 

''It will be seen by this process that the fat, after being treated 
with nitric acid, is never again subjected to a thorough washing, and 
in view of the fact that fats possess the property of retaining free 
acids with remarkable tenacitj^, it isdifiicult to believe that the marketed 
product does not contain nitric acid. 

"The following is the conclusion of Nothnagel and Rossbach concern- 
ing the effect of small, greatly diluted doses of acids: 

" ' When acids are used for too long a time the appetite and digestion 
are finally injured and a series of pathological conditions result. 

"'It is readily supposable that the long-continued administration of 
diluted mineral acids to the living organism leads to the decomposition 
of the alkaline combinations with the weaker acids, e. g. , carbonic 
acid, or with the albuminoids, the stronger acids uniting with these 
alkalis and being excreted with the urine as mineral salts, so that not 
only the blood, but the whole body, would become poorer in alkalis 
and salts. 

'"Salkowski and Lasar proved directly that the alkalescence of the 
blood is diminished by the internal administration of dilute mineral 
acids.' 

"We now return to the question, is artificial butter a wholesome 
article of food 'i It seems to us, from the facts set forth in the fore- 
going pages, that there can be but one answer to this question. 

"We do not mean to say that every individual who eats artificial 
butter will sicken and die any more than every man who uses ardent 
spirits, tobacco, or narcotics to excess would do so, but what we do 
mean to say is that it, like them, possesses physiological properties 
'unfavorable to health' and are very liable to possess ingredients very 
dangerous to health. Dyspepsia is a prevalent disease in this country 
and is not acquired in a day, for a strong stomach will stand much 
abuse before it will permanently rebel. 

"Several instances are on record where pennies and other metallic 
substances have been swallowed and digested; even jackknives have 
been swallowed and their bone handles completely digested, but no 
person would consider these healthy articles of diet. 

"Strong, vigorous men and those whose habits are invigorating to 
the digestive powers might substitute a food hard of digestion for an 
easy one for a long time with apparent impunity, but weaker men 



150 OLEOMAEGAKINE. 

and those whose habits are sedentary and whose labors are mental, 
which tend to debilitate digestion, would soon be injured. 

"Fats as a whole are considered by medical men to be difficult of 
digestion; and to substitute those hard of digestion for one that is 
easy, and, too, for one which we believe is endowed by nature with 
properties that not only render it, per se, easily digested and assimi- 
lated, but which also render important aid in these processes to other 
fats, must eventually produce sickness. The little genuine butter 
added to these spurious articles helps as far as it goes, but the amount 
in most of them is Aery small indeed. 

"It is true we eat fats which, when raw, are more difficult of diges- 
tion than some of the artificial l)utters, but it must be borne in mind 
that the}' are eaten in conjunction with natural butter, and the cooking 
process to which they are subjected no doubt renders them much more 
easily digested. As is well known, 'drippings' are uuich easier 
digested than the fats from which they come. 

"That cooking renders fats nuich more easily emulsionized }\v arti- 
ficial means is demonstrated Ijy the following experiments: 

"We subjected a portion of oleomargarine butter placed in a frying 
pan to the heat of a (;ook stove, the same as would be emploj-ed to fry 
a piece of meat, for about five minutes. (Our thermometer registered 
200° C, and the heat went above this somewhat.) 

"The fat was then poured ofl', and equal quantities of it and the 
same specimen of ' oleo ' uncooked were exposed to the action of arti- 
ficial digestive fluid, the two specimens being placed under exactly the 
same conditions. 

"At the end of four hours the microscope showed that the cooked 
'oleo' was decidedly the Ijest emulsion — approaching in appearance 
natural butter uncooked under the same circumstances. It was 
intended to have artotypes to show this, but the experiments were not 
completed in time, and we would add here that we are carrying on 
various experiments with a view to demonstrating the differences 
between natural and artificial butters, which we hope to publish in 
our next annual report, 

"As the fusing point of the cooked and uncooked 'oleos' remained 
identical, the difference in the emulsions must have been due to chem- 
ical changes produced by the heat, as the separation of the fatty acids 
and glycerin, which again gives us a free fatty acid. 

"After pouring off' the cooked fat there remained in the frying pan 
a considerable quantity of scrap. 

' ' Fothergill says : 'But heat does liquefy fat, and separates (we believe) 
olein from stearin and margarin. The liquid portions of fried bacon 
is digested by many who can not digest the solid portion of bacon fat. 
This is a well-known fact. ' 

"Furthermore, the great heat to which fats are subjected in frying 
is probably sufficient to set free considerable quantities of fatty acids, 
and also to cause partial breaking up of the whole fat. 

"The friends of the bogus butter ask us in a spirit of defiance to 
show any cases of sickness produced bj^ it. This is, in fact, a demand 
for a complete demonstration, and may be answered by stating that 
we have seen a great many cases of sickness, and much of it dyspepsia, 
during the period in which the bogus butter has been sold, for which 
we have been unable to assign a cause. This may have been artificial 
butter, but the deceptive manner in which it has been handled has 



OLEOMAKGARIlSrE. 151 

prevented physicians from ascertaining its effects. Consequently we 
must judge by its qualities. 

"No person would gainsay that these articles, if they contained germs 
of disease or such materials as enumerated above, were unwholesome. 
We have pointed out the liability and great probability of their con- 
taining them, and many things have been publicly condemned on less 
liability to produce sickness; for instance, the water of Albany has 
been used by nearly 100,000 people for several years and no serious 
results can be shown, yet the conditions are present which render it 
liable to produce disease, and this circumstance has agitated the public 
mind to such an extent that some of the best medical and other men 
of the city have devoted themselves to finding a better supply, and 
they have linalh^ decided that it is expedient to obtain it from another 
source than the present, which will necessitate the expenditure of 
$4.50,000. 

" 'Bob veal' produces sickness in comparatively few cases, yet on 
account of its liability to produce disease its sale is prohibited. 

"Dr. Fox says, in connection with anthracic diseases, 'that large 
quantities of this meat have been eaten with apparently no injurious 
effects, but so many disastrous occurrences have followed its emploj'-- 
ment as to warrant the medical officer of health in condemning such 
meat.'" 

At 5 o'clock and 15 minutes p. m. the committee adjourned until 
to-morrow, Friday, January 4, 1901, at 10.30 o'clock a. m. 



Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, 

United States Senate, 

Friday, January ^, 1901. 

The committee met at 10.30 a. m. 

Present: Senators Proctor (chairman), Hansbrough, Foster, Money, 
and Heitfeld; also Hon. W. D. Hoard, ex-governor of Wisconsin and 
president of the National Dairy Union; C. Y. Knight, secretar}^ of the 
Nation Dairy Union; Hon. William M. Springer, of Springfield, III., 
representing the National Live Stock Association; Frank W. Til ling- 
hast, representing the Vermont Manufacturing Company, of Provi- 
dence, R. I.; Charles E. Schell, representing the Ohio Butterine 
Company,of Cincinnati, Ohio; Frank M. Matthewson, president of the 
Oakdale Manufacturing Company, of Providence, K. I. ; H. C. Adams, 
and others. 

The Chairman. The committee will come to order. I am informed 
that there are present two representatives of the dairy interests who 
are anxious to get away, and who desire to make brief statements to 
the committee before leaving. 

Mr. Matthewson. Mr. Chairman, I do not think there is any objec- 
tion on the part of the oleo people to the dairymen going ahead, if 
they are anxious to do so. 

The Chairman. There arc two of them, and they have said to me 
that they will not take more than fifteen minutes each. You may 
proceed, Mr. Hamilton. 



152 OLEOMAEGARINE. 



STATEMENT OF JOHN HAMILTON, SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE 

OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

Mr. Hamilton. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I 
come here as the representative of the department of agriculture of 
the State of Pennsylvania, as well as a representative of the dairy 
union of our State. I want to say at the outset that Pennsylvania is in 
favor of this bill. The State Grange of our State, at its meeting in 
Lockhaven recently, passed resolutions favoring the Grout bill. The 
dairy union, at its meeting in Corry just a few weeks ago, passed strong 
resolutions indorsing the Grout bill. The people of the State gener- 
ally endorsed the Grout bill. The oleomargarine question was made 
a campaign issue in Pennsylvania; and if there can be an expression 
of opinion of the people, I think that Pennsylvania's vote shows that 
Pennsylvania, in all of her citizenship, is very much in favor of some 
law that will repress the sale of colored oleomargarine in our State. 

The governor, in his message which was given to the legislature only 
a day or so ago, makes use of the following language in discussing the 
oleomargarine question. It took about a column in the newspaper, 
and closes with this sentence: 

"I am much gratified at the prospects of the early passage in Con- 
gress of the Grout bill. If this bill becomes a law, it will greatly aid 
in the suppression of the oleomargarine traffic." 

In my preliminary report to the governor as secretary of agricul- 
ture only a week or so ago, I say: 

" The passage of the Grout bill b}^ the Congress of the United States, 
whereby a 10-cent tax is imposed on all colored oleomargarine manu- 
factured and the operations of the interstate-commerce law so sus- 
pended as to oleomargarine trade, will greatly aid the State dairy and 
fruit authorities in suppressing the oleo traffic." 

The State Alliance at its meeting also passed resolutions indorsing 
the Grout bill. The Republican platform of the State of Pennsylvania 
indorsed the suppression of the oleomargarine traffic or its regulation 
in our State. So we have practically the unanimous indorsement of 
the people of our State, irrespective of party, in favor of the passage 
of this bill. 

Perhaps I could just as well stop what I have to say here now, and 
not take the time of the committee, because this is as explicit a piece 
of expression as any that can be presented; and yet there are one or 
two other matters that I think the committee ought to have their atten- 
tion called to, inasmuch as, so far as I know, the points that 1 desire 
to discuss have not been fully presented. 

Before taking up the items that I wish particularly to discuss. I 
would like to refer to the argument of Judge Springer yesterday 
for the purpose of getting rid of some things that seem to cloud a 
little the bill itself. The Judge referred to the many State laws and 
the difficulties that were encountered by the several States in their 
efforts to suppress the oleomargarine traffic, or at least to regulate it 
within their borders; and those gentlemen of the committee who were 
here yesterday recall that most of the Judge's presentation was taken 
up in the discussion of these laws. Now, if I had been going to make 
an argument in favor of the passage of the Grout bill, instead of against 
it, I think I would have taken the very same document. If that argu- 



OLEOMARGARINE. 158 

ment .showed anything- at all in the presentation of these various laws 
by the many States that have enacted them it shows this, that there is 
necessity for national legislation in order to simplify this work and 
make it eifective throughout the United States. I think that is the 
only conclusion that can be drawn from the argument as it was 
presented. 

There was also the constitutional question raised as to the power of 
Congress in certain respects. Of course, so far as the conflict with 
the Constitution is concerned by the passag-e of the Grout bill, this, I 
think, can be said: That there is nothing given back to the States that 
the}" did not surrender when the interstate-commerce law was enacted; 
and if Congress had the right to pass the interstate-commerce law, and 
it was ratified, it surely has the right to rescind the law wholly or any 
portion of it that Congress may see tit. I think that part of the argu- 
ment does not hold good. 

As to the authority to tax, that is unquestioned. Congress does it 
now in this oleomargarine matter, and it did it in a number of instances, 
and of course that has no force. 

So far as concerns the States taking advantage of this and levying 
a tax, that was one of the points that the judge seemed to be serious 
about and to which he asked the committee to give serious considera- 
tion — as to the States taking advantage of this law, in case it should 
pass, to enact revenue laws, the amount received from the tax on oleo- 
margarine to go for the general purposes of the expenses of the State. 
We all know that such a thing would be unconstitutional. There has 
been no instance of it in any of the States so far, and there is no State 
that I know of that expects to levy any tax or license upon oleomar- 
garine, the proceeds of which will be greater than simply enough to 
enforce the law. There was a case in North Carolina, I believe, on a 
somewhat different question, the taxing of fertilizers in that State, in 
which a sum was lirst used for the purpose of enforcing the law, and 
then later the surplus was used for other State purposes. The Supreme 
Court declared that that was unconstitutional and was in conflict with 
these sections that the judge quoted yesterday; but no one contem- 
plates doing this thing, and if anyone did do it it would be clearly 
unconstitutional, and that would be the end of it. No harm could 
come from it. 

I may sa}^ further, that if they suppose that the act is unconstitu- 
tional, then it seems to me that the judge's argument was upon the 
wrong side. If I had been holding that position and believed that it 
was unconstitutional, 1 certain I3" would not stand here and advocate its 
passage; and I can not quite see how the gentleman on the other side, 
believing it to be unconstitutional, could stand and resist its passage, 
because the passage of the act — knowing that it would be unconstitu- 
tional — would make it inoperative, and they would have secured the 
exact thing that the}' seem to desire. So I think the judge's argument 
went a little too far. 

There is another thing that was referred to, if you will permit me, 
and it seems to me that this was the most forcible presentation of our 
side of the question and in favor of the passage of this bill that has 
yet been presented. That is this fact, that 32 States of this great 
Union have passed laws regulating this traffic within their borders, 
and to say that these States do not understand what they are about; 
that the legislatures of all these States, acting independently and rep- 



154 OLEOMARGAKINE. 

resenting their citizens and representing about two-thirds to three- 
fourths of the citizens of the United States, do not understand what 
they want, is so ridiculous that 1 can scarcely believe that anybody can 
present such an argument. The voice of the people in this country, if 
it is properly expressed, is the ruling power; and there is no stronger 
argument in favor of the passage of this bill than that very fact, that 
32 States have for years been passing laws and amending laws with a 
view to regulating this traffic within their borders. 

Mr. Springer. Excuse me a moment. Will you explain why it is, 
then, that in the State of Illinois, where they have a law prohibiting 
the sale of colored oleomargarine, 18,000,000 pounds were sold within 
that State and 38,000,000 pounds were manufactured? 

Mr. Hamilton. I will answer you, if you will excuse me just a 
moment. 

Mr, Springer. Does it not show that the people are not in favor of 
these laws and will not enforce them? 

Mr. Hamilton. My time is very limited, and if the gentleman will 
make a note of things as I go along, when I get through I will be very 
glad to answer any questions that I may be able to answer. 

I will say in reply to the Judge that in some of these States the laws 
are defective. They are not sufficiently rigorous, and the legislatures 
have not been able in those particular States to pass laws that will 
restrict. The effort is to do it, but in many cases it has been so resisted 
by the interests in the State that they have not yet succeeded in pass- 
ing laws that the people desire. I reiterate that the effort of 32 States 
of this Union, representing, I believe you said, sir, about 60,000,000 
people 

Mr. Springer. Sixty millions of people; yes. 

Mr. Hamilton. Sixty millions of people out of 76,000,000 — that 
the representatives of those 60,000,000 people do not know what they 
are about is inconceivable. 

Now, with regard to this bill. It is constitutional. That is clear to 
the committee. I will not argue that to the committee, because they 
know it already just as well as it is possible to know it. The bill is 
constitutional, and the discussion of the bill should be upon its merits. 
Is it a wise measure? Is it a proper measure? That is the point. 

Now, the real argument that is presented — and about the only argu- 
ment that is presented on the other side — so far as I know, is that the 
article is a healthful and proper article of food, and that it is equally 
nutritive and harmless with butter, and that therefore it should be 
permitted to go into the market and be sold colored as butter. I 
believe that is the argument that is presented, so far as 1 am able to 
understand, that they claim that it is equally nutritious with butter, 
that it is a substance that the public desires, and that it is equally 
digestible with butter, and that therefore it is a wrong to undertake 
to do anything that would limit its sale in this country. 

That is at least one proposition. Now, in reply to that they give 
the testimony of some of the most eminent chemists in the country. 
The testimony is guarded, it is true, but they put it in a somewhat 
unequivocal form. What does the analysis of oleomargarine and but- 
ter show as compared with each other? The first thing that can be 
said is that they are not identical. The analysis shows that while the 
amount of fat in the two is practically the same, yet the composition 
of these fats that go to make up what is called fat in a chemical sense 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 155 

is entirely different in oleomargarine and in butter; that the amount, 
for instance, of butyric acid in the one is very much greater than in 
the other. The amount of butyric acid that they get is the amount 
that is secured from the milk that is churned with their product. The 
amount that is naturally in butter is a larger percentage, and just what 
effect this condiment has — and doubtless it acts as a condiment in some 
way; at all events, it gives a special flavor and aids in the digestion, it 
is believed — just what effect this condiment has we do not know, and 
physiologists do not know. It think it is agreed that it bears an 
important relation to the digestibility of this substance and of other 
substances in the human stomach, but just what its operation is is not 
known. The other thing which the chemical analysis discloses is that 
the amount of stearin in oleomargarine is much greater. Dr. Wiley 
says it is about five times as much as is found in butter. 

Senator Heitfeld. The amount of what? 

Mr. Hamilton. Stearine. 

Senator Heitfeld. Is that added ? 

Mr. Hamilton. Some of it is added and some is found in the oils 
out of which oleomargarine is produced. So that in those respects — 
and they are very important respects — these substances differ from 
each other in a chemical view. 

Now, so far as heat units are concerned— that is, the amount of 
energy-producing power that the two substances contain — that, our 
physiologists say, is about equal, so far as they can determine. 

Senator Heitfeld. Does any user of butter consume enough to give 
any particular energy to the body ? 

Mr. Hamilton. The energy is transmitted into heat and is measured 
in heat units. One unit, or calory, as they call it, which is a unit of 
energy, is regarded by these physiologists as equivalent to heat suffi- 
cient to raise water 4" F. ; so for every unit of energy there is heat 
enough to do that thing. 

Mr. Mathewson. How much water? 

Mr. Hamilton. A pound of water — 4° F. 

Mr. Mathewson. How much butter does it take to make a unit? 

Mr, Hamilton. The exact amount is given here. One gram of the 
ordinary butter fat is equal to about nine calories, which would be 
about 36° of heat; a little more than that. It would be pretty nearly 
4:0"^ of heat. So that there is a great deal of energy-producing power 
in butter. But that was only incidental. The thing I started to say, 
gentlemen of the committee, was this, that in that respect these two 
substances seem to be on about the same basis. The analysis shows 
that they contain about the same amount of butter fat, and so their 
energy-producing power is equal. 

The fallacy of their argument comes in right there. They say that 
because these substances are equal, therefore they are equally nutri- 
tious and beneficial. That does not follow at all, and it is to that point 
that I want to call your attention just for a little to show that that is a 
mistake or at least that the unqualified assertion that these two are 
equally noninjurious to health is simply an assumption, and is not 
based upon any reliable ascertained data that has been continued for 
any length of time. 

We have very familiar examples of how things that are identical 
produce entirely different effects. I know a lady who for the last 
seven or eight years could not eat fresh bread or bread that had been 



156 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

baked for a day or so. It produces violent illness, and it is simply out 
of the question, although it has been tried numerous times. She can 
not do that, but she can eat that very same bread taken and sliced into 
thin slices and put in an oven at a low temperature of heat; that is, a 
temperature too low to permit the change of starchy dextrine, which, 
of course would promote digestion, but a simple dr3nng out. That 
she can eat in any quantity to satisfy her hunger and with perfect 
comfort. 

A chemist will sa}^ that there is no difference between those two 
substances, in an analytical point of view, except the loss of water. 
There has been no chemical change, because the amount of heat sup- 
plied was not sufficient to bring about a chemical change. He will 
say that they are identical, and yet the effects that are produced upon 
the same system are altogether opposite. To assert that substances 
that are analyzed and shown in an analytical sense to be of similar 
composition in fact, but which vary in other minor matters that to us 
seem to be infinitesimal almost, j^et which have a very important effect 
upon the physiological organs and upon digestion, is to assert, as I 
say, something that is not based upon reliable information. So that 
it does not follow that because the things have the same amount of 
heat-producing power and nourishment-producing power therefore 
they are equally beneficial to health. 

I want to call attention to Professor Atwater's statement with regard 
to that, if you will permit me. 

The Chairman. These hearings, I may say, are sandwiched in ahead 
of the oleo people, and it was promised that they should be very short, 
about fifteen minutes each. You have occupied nearly twenty-five min- 
utes, but you have been interrupted somewhat and I do not want to 
cut you off". 

Mr. Hamilton. I will not refer, then, to these matters. I did want 
to refer to them in substantiation of the position I have taken. 

Senator Hansbrough. 1 suggest that 3^ou put the statements you 
desire in the record. 

Mr. Hamilton. I will do so. I desire to refer to the article on the 
"Digestibility of food," a statement by Prof. R. H. Chittenden, in 
Bulletin No. 21 of the Department of Agriculture, page 72, and also 
to a statement by Dr. W. 0. Atwater in the same bulletin, on page 53. 

The statement of Professor Chittenden is as follows: 

"As to the reasons for the differences of digestibility but compara- 
tively little is definitely known. There are, however, certain a priori 
considerations which help toward explaining them. For example, the 
digestibility of the proteids is discussed by Prof. R. H. Chittenden as 
follows: 

" 'If of two foods possessing a like composition one be more easily 
digestible, that one, though containing no more available nutriment 
than the other, is in virtue of its easier digestibility more valuable as a 
food stuff, and in one sense more nutritious, as well as more econom- 
ical for the system.'" 

Dr. Atwaters's statement is as follows: 

"The value of food for nutriment depends not only upon how much 
of nutrients it contains, but also upon how much of these the body can 
digest and use for its support. 

"The question of the digestibility of foods is very complex, and it is 
noticeable that the men who know most about the subject are generally 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 157 

1 
the least ready to make definite and sweeping statements concerning it. 
One of the most celebrated physiologists of the time, an investigator 
in whose laboratory this particular subject has been studied more than 
in almost an}^ other, sa3's in his lectures that, aside from the chemistry 
of the process and the quantities of nutrients that may be digested from 
different foods, he is unable to aflirm much about it. The contrast 
between this and the positiveness with which many persons discourse 
about the digestibility of this or that kind of food is marked and has 
its moral. 

"One source of confusion is the fact that what people commonly 
call the digestibility of food includes several ver}^ different things, 
some of which, as the ease with which a given food material is digested, 
the time required for the process, the influence of different substances 
and conditions upon digestion, and the effects upon comfort and health, 
are so dependent upon individual peculiarities of different persons 
and so difficult of measurement as to make the laying down of hard 
and fast rules impossible. Why it is, for instance, that some persons 
are made seriously ill by so wholesome a material as milk, and others 
find that certain kinds of meat, of vegetables, or of sweetmeats 'do 
not agree with them,' neither chemists nor phvsiologists can exactly 
tell." 

Mr. Adams. May I ask you a question, Mr. Hamilton, before you 
close ? 

Mr. Hamilton. I am not closing yet. I want to make another 
statement, if the gentlemen will permit me. I feel, gentlemen, that 
this is an exceedingly important question. 

The Chairman. Go on, but be as brief as you can. 

Mr. Hamilton. With regard, therefore, to the question whether 
butter and oleomargarine are equally beneficial to health or noninju- 
rious to health, the fact is that we do not know about it; and when 
they say unequivocally that it is not injurious to health, or that it is 
equally beneficial with butter, they are talking in a rather loose way 
and are not supported by the best authorities in the country. 

Now, with regard to another matter, the question of public policy. Is 
it a proper measure ? If you will permit me to use for my illustration 
the State of Pennsylvania, with which I am familiar, and the condi- 
tions there, I think it will illustrate what I desire to present, and the 
application of it is wide enough to extend to, I think, almost all of the 
States of the Union. I have here a little statement that I made in my 
report. It is a discussion of this question, and I would like to read it: 

"Carefid examination should be made into the effect which this will 
have upon the dairy industry of the Commonwealth, which has now 
become one of the leading and most profitable branches of our agri- 
culture. If, upon examination, it is found that oleomargarine will to 
any considerable degree drive out the dairy interests from the markets 
of the Commonwealth, it would seem to be only wise public policy to 
first make sure that the industry that is to replace this branch of our 
agriculture shall do more for the Commonwealth in the way of sub- 
stantial and permanent support than the important occupation that it 
proposes to supplant. 

"The admitting of oleomargarine in competition with the dairy prod- 
ucts of the Slate endangers a great industiy that is now a part of our 
svstem of agriculture more widelv distributed than any other. We 
have now about 1,100,000 cows in Pennsylvania. Their product is 



158 OLEOMARGARINE. 

about 90,000,000 to 100,000,000 pounds of butter per year, and accord- 
ing to the census of 1890 the milk product was 437,525,31:9 gallons. 
These cows are distributed among 211,112 farmers' families, consisting 
of over 1,000,000 persons, or about one-fifth of our entire population. 
The income of the farming people of Pennsj^lvania last year from 
butter alone amounted to between eighteen and twenty millions of 
dollars; and the milk product, at 8 cents per gallon, amounted to 
$35,000,000 more. This vast sum is a new product each year, adding 
this much to the actual wealth of the State, and is distributed all through 
the Commonwealth, going to the support of over 1,000,000 people, 
enabling them to maintain themselves in comparative comfort. The 
loss of such a sum as this by the agricultural people of the State would 
be a calamity, particularly because much of the material that is used 
in the feeding of these dairy cows would, if the industry were destroyed, 
be left on the farmers' hands valueless. 

"If the product of these animals were seriously threatened there 
would also be an immediate depreciation in the value of milch cows 
throughout the Commonwealth amounting to man}^ millions of dollars, 
and would iuAolve the partial or total loss of the stabling, creamery 
buildings, and machinery that are now in use in the prosecution of 
this industry. A large number of our people, also, would be thrown 
out of employment. Instead of men, women, and children on the 
farms having at all seasons occupations suited to their strength and 
attainments, there would be, in the cutting off of this line of work, 
comparative idleness during a considerable portion of the year. 

"The people of this State require about 200,000,000 pounds of but- 
ter annually to supply their needs. The business, therefore, is one 
that has room for growth, and the doubling of the products of milk 
and butter will double the income of the farming people — an increase 
of from fifty to sixty millions of dollars annually. 

"If oleomargarine were wholly substituted for butter in this State 
it would mean a direct loss on that article alone of from 130,000,000 
to $40,000,000 per year, and the profits of the new industry, instead 
of being distributed among 1,000,000 of people, would be retained in 
the hands of a very few, rendering them inordinately rich at the 
expense of those whose industry they had destro^^ed. 

"It is true that in no event can oleomargarine entirely supplant 
butter production, but enough is known to make sure that this prod- 
uct, which can be made for about 7 cents per pound, will seriously 
injure the butter industry and efi'ectually prevent its development. 
It would be extremeh^ bad business policy to drive out a source of 
revenue and means of livelihood as important as the dairy industry 
for the sake of benefiting a few individuals belonging to the oleomar- 
garine trade; to take from 1,000,000 agricultural people the profits of 
their chief industry and give these profits to a select syndicate of cap- 
italists, that they may become enormously rich. 

"If this new industry required for its prosecution the employment 
of 2,000,000 people instead of the 1,000,000 at present needed by the 
dairies, one could see how it might be to the advantage of the State to 
substitute the new industry for the old, because of the increased num- 
ber of laborers that it would emplo}^; but when it proposes to do away 
with 1,000,000 laborers and su bstitute therefor a factory system employ- 
ing only a few workmen, the danger that will ensue becomes apparent 
to every thoughtful citizen. We need employment for more labor 



OLEOMARGARINE. * 159 

instead of turning- men idle who are now employed. We need addi- 
tional markets for the rough products of our farms instead of closing 
up the ones we now have. Under modern conditions it is necessary to 
change farm articles of bulk into a more valuable and compact shape 
in order to ship them to distant markets. The butter industry does 
this, and has the additional advantage over every other product in that 
it at the same time removes almost no fertility from the farm." 

It is claimed that it is unjust to exclude from the Commonwealth an 
article of food that is not injurious to the public health, taking for 
granted that oleomargarine, as now manufactured, is not unwholesome 
as an article of food. 

The sale of oleomargarine as butter and in imitation of butter is a 
fraud, and it is also a menace to a great industry which comprises a 
large portion of our agricultural wealth. 

The Chairman. Mr. Wadsworth is here from the House and desires 
to address the committee. 



STATEMENT OF HON. J. W. WADSWORTH, OF NEW YORK. 

Mr. Wadsworth. Mr. Chairman, I saw a statement in the paper 
yesterday which puts the report of the minority of the Committee on 
Agriculture of the House in a rather dubious odor. That is, the con- 
tradiction of Mr. Adams that he ever stated to that committee that 
there was no need of beating around the bush; that the object of this 
second section of the bill was to drive the oleomargarine manufacturers 
out of business. Mr, Adams is right in the statement that there was 
no stenographer present at that time, owing to an oversight. The 
remark was taken down, however, by a member of that committee at 
the time, because its very boldness attracted the attention of the whole 
committee to it. 

Another contradiction made yesterday was by Mr. Knight, secretary 
of the National Dairymen's Union, that he never wrote that letter to 
the Virginia farmers. That letter, or a copy of it, is in the hands of 
a member of the committee, who has not returned from the West as 
yet. If it is considered of enough importance, the copy of the letter 
or the original will be produced. 1 say this simply to place the minority 
report of the committee in the proper light. 

Another matter, which is personal to myself — and I onl}^ call atten- 
tion to it because this man Knight has used it simply foi purposes of 
intimidation. He says that my majority in m}^ district was cut down 
over 2,000. That is a falsehood. My majorit}^ is the largest I have 
ever had there, except in 1896. 

Senator Heitfeld. I believe, Mr. Wadsworth, that was a mistake. 
He admitted that your majority was larger; he simph^ stated that you 
ran behind the ticket. 

Mr, Wadsworth, I did not; that is false also. I only desired to 
call attention to that because I believe it was stated for a political 
purpose. 

Mr. Adams. Mr, Chairman, this is a personal matter, and I hope 
Mr, Wadsworth will remain while I make another statement with ref- 
erence to the statement which I made before the Committee on Agri- 
culture, I did not make the statement which was reported in the report 
of the minority of that committee. I simply said there was no use in 



160 OLEOMARGARINE. 

beating about the bush ; that it was the purpose of the friends of the 
Grout bill to enact that measure into law and stop the manufacture and 
sale of oleomargarine colored in imitation of yellow butter — neither 
more nor less. It ma_Y be that the gentlemen understood that I made 
a stronger statement than I did make; but it is an unfair thing to the 
representatives of the dairy interests of this country to put them in the 
false position of making an idiotic attack upon oleomargarine pure and 
simple under its own color and in its own form; and at no place will I 
permit any gentleman to quote me as having said something which I did 
not say and which is an injustice to myself and to the interests which 
I represent. 

Mr. Wadsworth. Mr. Chairman, that report was published last May. 
This is the first time it has been contradicted. We will drop it now, 
so far as I am concerned, except that I will simply say to Mr, Adams 
that it is a question of memory between the committee and him as to 
the words he used. 

Mr. Adams. Permit me to say further that, at the request of a mem- 
ber of Congress, when my attention was first called to the statement of 
the minority, I submitted a written statement of the facts, which he 
incorporated in his speech, and that was published in the Congressional 
Record. 

The Chairman. This committee is not trying the proceedings of the 
other House. 

Mr. Wadsworth. I wished it understood that I appear here simply 
to correct that matter, on the part of the minority of the committee. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN HAMILTON RESUMED. 

Mr. Hamilton. Mr, Chairman, I will finish in a moment, if you can 
indulge me. This article, oleomargarine, is a fraud on the public. I 
think that statement is corroborated by every dair\" and food commis- 
sioner that has to do with it in every State where laws exist regulating 
its sale. We have had a great deal of experience in Pennsylvania with 
this article, and a large amount of it is not branded, although it may 
be sold for butter. We have examined more than a thousand samples 
of it this year, and a large percentage of it is not branded so as to 
distinguish it from butter, and is sold as butter. 

Now, with regard to the Grout bill. My view, and the views of 
those whom 1 represent, is that the Gi'out bill will overcome our diffi- 
culties; that it will enable the dairy and food commissioners of the 
several States to enforce their laws better than they do at present; 
that this Grout bill is not a prohibitive law; that it is simply one that 
protects the dairy industry. It costs the farmers from 16 to 20 cents 
to make butter, according to the season of the year, and if this article 
can be sold down as low as 15 cents or 12 cents it makes it impossible 
for the dairymen of the State to compete with such an article. The 
purpose of the Grout bill, as I understand it, is simply to raise the 
price of oleomargarine up somewhere near the cost of producing butter, 
so that they may start in the market at equal prices. Then it is sold 
colored, and the butter is sold colored, and they will have a fair chance 
in the market, started equal; but if the one starts down at 10 cents or 
9 cents and the other can not start until it reaches 16 or 18 cents, it 
does not take much of a prophet to know what the conclusion of the 
whole matter will be in the very near future — the destruction of the 



OLEOMAEGABINE. 161 

dairy industry of this country. That can not be avoided. The price 
at which it must be sold is not excessive. It is not an excessive price. 
It simply brings it up to the necessary cost of good butter, so that the 
bill can not be attacked on the ground that it is an excessive tax and 
that it puts them at a disadvantage with the farming interests of the 
State. They start upon the same footing, and they are entitled then 
to the same privilege. 

I am very much obliged to the committee for their indulgence, and 
I am sorry to have transgressed upon the time of the gentleman who 
is to follow me. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Will the gentleman answer one question? 

Mr. Hamilton. Yes, sir. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. How much oleomargarine do you estimate was 
sold in the State of Pennsylvania last year? 

Mr. Hamilton. I do not know anything about it. 

Mr. Adams. What percentage do you think is sold as and for 
butter? 

Mr. Hamilton. I should say 50 per cent, at least. 

Mr. Mathewson. If you do not know about one thing how do you 
know about the other ? 

Mr. Hamilton. I am talking about the percentage we collect. 

Mr. Adams. I would like to say, Mr. Chairman, that Mr. Blackburn, 
who will now address the committee, only asks for ten minutes. 

The Chairman. Very well. 



STATEMENT OF JOSEPH H. BLACKBURN, DAIRY AND FOOD 
COMMISSIONER OF OHIO. 

Mr. Blackburn. Mr. Chairman. I will endeavor to set an example 
to those who follow me by finishing my remarks within the allotted 
time. I have heard this question discussed so much technically, scien- 
tifically, therapeutically, and phj^siologically that I do not intend to 
give any consideration whatever to those phases of this question. I 
have been asked perhaps a dozen times since I have been in Washing- 
ton, ''Why don't you enforce your State laws?" I have been asked 
that perhaps a dozen times in my own State. We have a State law 
against the manufacture and sale of artificially colored oleomargarine. 
It is not limited to the coloring or semblance of butter, but any color- 
ing matter whatever is forbidden. 

I desire to say that I have been dairy and food commissioner of the 
State of Ohio for about four years. In that time I have spent nearly 
$200,000 of the State money, and of that amount I presume 60 per cent 
has l)een spent in oleomargarine prosecutions. The difiiculties to con- 
tend with in the State of Ohio may be very briefly stated. The prin- 
cipal sales of oleomargarine, as everybody knows, are in the large cities, 
where butter, in the winter time especially, is scarce and hard to get. 
It has been sold so long in the larger cities of Ohio — and I refer to the 
cities of Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton, and Toledo as the 
larger cities in the State — that there is a certain clientele built up, many 
of whom want oleomargarine, man}' of whom are deceived into believing 
that they are buying andusingbutter ; but when a prosecution is brought 
there is so much sentiment there, oi- manufactured for the occasion 
through the manipulation of the public press and the carefully worded 
S. Kep. 2043 11 



162 OLEOMAEGAEINE. 

reading notices and advertisements and through the personal solicita- 
tion and interference with the jurymen or those who are to be sum- 
moned as jurymen to try a case, that it is almost impossible to secure 
convictions in these large towns, or many of them. 

1 will refer to one case that happened a short time ago in a smaller 
town in Ohio, the city of Portsmouth. The case was tried by a jury, 
as all our cases have been until this week. The law makes the sale of 
colored oleomargarine a misdemeanor, and we have always gone on the 
theory that these cases must be tried by a jur3^ We are working now 
under a new plan, and trying to do away with the jury because it 
increases the difficulties of securing conviction. In the case of a jury 
trial the State must have twelve men who are convinced that there has 
been a violation of the law, while the defendant only needs one to hang 
the jury; and, under a peculiarity of our jury law, a member of the 
jury is not paid unless the defendant is either acquitted or convicted, 
so that hung juries do not get their fees until the case is finally decided. 
In this case that I have reference to, in Portsmouth, the case was not 
tried ver}' hard — sometimes our cases are fought very bitterly and a 
great deal of feeling develops — but the very next day after that jury 
hung, or disagreed, two members of the jury went to work for grocers 
in that town. We have no proof that this was prearranged, but we 
hope to get some proof on that subject in the near future, and every- 
thing indicates, and everybody who has paid anj^ attention to the sub- 
ject believes, that that jury was corrupted. That is simply one 
instance. I could relate dozens of such cases. 

I will state that it has become a common practice in the larger cities — 
and I refer to Cincinnati and Dayton, where instances have lately 
occurred of the jury haviiig acquitted the defendant for having sold col- 
ored oleomargarine as oleomargarine; not as butter, but colored oleo- 
margarine — for the jury to be taken out and banqueted by the defendant 
and the defendant's attorneys. 1 will state further that I have been 
informed by one of the most prominent representatives of grocery inter- 
ests in the State of Ohio that they are encouraged to sell oleomargarine 
for butter. I asked him why and by whom. He said, '''Well, there is 
not nuich in the grocery business any more, and if we sell oleomarga- 
rine as oleomargarine we make about a cent or 2 cents a pound on it. 
If we sell it for butter, we make 8 or 10 cents a pound or more." I 
asked him who encouraged this. He said, "Well, when the manu- 
facturers' agents come around and give us a guai^ntee to protect us 
against all prosecution it is a pretty big temptation for a fellow to 
take chances." I said, "Are they in the habit of doing this?" He 
said, "They are." I understand it is a very common practice for manu- 
facturers, as an inducement to handle oleomargarine contrary to the 
laws of Ohio, not only to pay part or all of their license fees, their 
national license, but also to give them assurances and guarantees that 
under no circumstances will they permit them to be involved in any 
trouble on account of the activity of the dairy and food department; 
that they guarantee them against any loss whatever; that they will 
protect them and do protect them. 

Perhaps the largest oleo manufacturing concern in our State, the 
Capital City Dairy Company, of Columbus, provides a lawyer nearly 
all of whose time is taken up in defending retail dealers. They not 
only furnish a lawyer, but they furnish a stenographer to make and 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 163 

keep a record of ever}- case. They furnish two or three agents, who 
usually appear on the ground when a trial is about to be had, a day 
or two in adv^ance, and secure all the information they can. I presume 
they usually have a list or copy of the venire — the jur3^men whom we 
propose to call upon. And in one instance recently, that is the Ports- 
mouth case, of which I spoke a while ao-o, which was tried the second 
time last week, the attorney for this Capital Cit}" Dairy Company in 
Portsmouth pulled a list out of his pocket that had the venire on it — 
all the members whom we expected to serve on that jury — and he had 
a chart made showing each gentleman's politics, his religion, his pre- 
dilections on these various questions, and especially with reference to 
the pure-food law, and so on — six or seven very important points. 
Now, that case was not half tried by the defendants, not half; yet the 
jury stood nine to three for acquittal. 

Senator Foster. Have they ever had anv convictions in the State of 
Ohio^ 

Mr. Blackburn. Yes; a few. 1 should say that when cases are tried 
by a jury we secure about 25 or 30 per cent of convictions, and those 
are usually in the smaller towns or some place where the sentiment is 
in favor of butter and opposed to oleomargarine. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Were those indictments you speak of indictments 
for the sale of oleomargarine as oleomargarine or for the sale of oleo- 
margarine as butter? 

Mr. Blackburn. Our law is a little different from most of the State 
laws. We do not have indictments. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. The complaint, or whatever it was. 

Mr. Blackburn. It is a charge made in the justice of the peace 
court. These cases that I have mentioned have been for the sale of 
oleomargarine as oleomargarine artificially colored contrary to law. 

Senator ^Foster. Do these same people defend the cases where they 
are tried for selling oleomargarine for butter? 

Mr. Blackburn. My impression is that they defend every case, but 
I can not recall now one particular instance of that kind. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Do you remember making any prosecutions where 
the complaint was that oleomargarine was sold for butter under your 
State law? 

Mr. Blackburn. 1 remember of having made a number of such 
prosecutions, and according to my recollection — I will not be positive 
on that point — they were all defended by the manufacturers or their 
agents. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. What was the result of those prosecutions, so far 
as you remember? 

Mr. Blackburn. The majority of them resulted in convictions — the 
large majorit^^ 

Mr. Adams. I would like to ask you what percentage of oleomar- 
garine, in your judgment, in the State of Ohio is sold for butter at 
retail stores, or finally sold upon the tables of hotels, restaurants, and 
boarding houses, as well as to the ordinary consumer? 

Mr. Blackburn. I would have to guess at that, Mr. Adams. My 
judgment would be 75 per cent of it. I might state that the three lead- 
ing hotels in the city of Columbus — the Chittendon, the Neale House, 
and the Southern Hotel — are now and have been for months back using 
oleomargarine on their tables in defiance of law. 



164 OLEOMAEGAKINE. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. They know what they are using? 

Mr. Blackburn. Certainly; the manager knows, but does the guest 
who pays 1|5 a day for entertainment know? 

Mr. Springer. They must have good oleomargarine when they 
deceive the guests of a $5 a day hotel. 

Mr. Blackburn. It is good oleomargarine. I have no feeling against 
their goods at all. That only illustrates the necessity for this kind of 
legislation. 

I have studied this matter for four years. I went into it abso- 
lutely without bias or prejudice. I do not now, and never did, own 
a nickel's worth of interest in any dairy farm nor in any cow, nor 
am I interested the other way in anything that goes into oleomargarine, 
directly or indirectly. I have studied the matter for four years, and 
it is ni}' earnest conviction that it will require national legislation of a 
very radical character to stamp the fraud out of the manufacture and 
sale of oleomargarine, and I refer especially to the sale of oleomar- 
garine, because the manufacturer produces oleomargarine as oleomar- 
garine, and usually sells it to the jobber and agent and dealer for 
precisely what it is. There is ver}^ little deception practiced at that 
stage of the game. 



STATEMENT OF FRANCIS W. LESTRADE, OF NEW YORK CITY. 

Mr. Lestrade. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the connnittee, I 
wish to state on the outstart that it is seldom I am called upon to speak 
in public. 

The Chairman. You are interested in the manufacture, are you, or 
are you acting as counsel ? 

Mr. Lestrade. No; I was about to say that I am nothing more than 
a practical everyday butter man. I have been in business for twenty 
years, and what I say before you is entirely from a practical stand- 
point, not a theoretical standpoint, and not from any scientitic point 
of view, but from what has come under my observation as a butter 
man ever since I was a boy. 

I am a member of the hrm of Lestrade Brothers, New York City. 
I am an owner of and interested in dairy farms, both in the West and 
in the East. I am also interested in cows. I am also interested in 
three different creameries. I am also, and this is our chief business 
in the city, an exporter, a packer of butter and cheese to the hot 
countries as well as to the Continent, but mostly to the hot countries. 
Our business extends over all the hot countries — that is, the tropical 
climates, consisting of the West Indies, the East Indies, South Africa, 
China, South America, and even nowinco the Philippine Islands. 

So what I have to say is entirely in my own interest, and more par- 
ticularly as an exporter of the genuine butter that goes out of this 
country to foreign climates. 

In the few opening remarks that 1 have to make I may go over some 
ground with which you are all more or less acquainted. I desire to 
state to you — maybe some of you do not know the fact — that in this 
country of ours there are, we will say, four classes of butter. The 
first is the packing stock, or the original dairy butter. That is the 
commonest butter that comes before us, as butter men. It is made by 
the innumerable farms throughout the great West. We get very little 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 165 

of it from the Eastern States; they make little chunks of butter in 
their barnyards, in their barns, on the side stoops of their houses. I 
mean the farmers who have one, two, three, four, five, a dozen, or fifty 
cows. They bring these little chunks to the country store where they 
trade, and this butter is put before the grocer or the provision man, 
and in return he gives them calicoes and groceries of different kinds. 
I have a man stationed in the West — yes, two of them in different 
parts of the West, and they bu}^ up this class of butter. Originally, 
up to within four or five years, the price ran from 6 to 10 cents a 
pound. Ten cents was the highest price. My men will go around 
and gather in all this roll butter in little pats of all colors and descrip- 
tions, wrapped in swaddling clothes and old towels and sheets and 
everything else, and they are packed down into tierces holding 300 to 
400 pounds. They are brought to a central point and then shipped 
by the carload to me at New York City, or else I store the goods in 
Chicago or in the West until I need them for my manipulation in col- 
oring the butter and resalting it and sending it — most of it — to the hot 
countries. 

The second class of butter that is made in this countr}' is ladles. 
Ladles is made from this same class of butter I spoke of a moment 
ago. The ladlers send out, as I do, their men from Chicago and from 
other large places in the West, and they gather in this same butter as 
I do and take it to their creameries — so-called creameries. That is, 
they make ladles out of this butter, but they do not use cream if they 
manipulate it. It is done with milk, but as a rule it is merely manip- 
ulated with a little salt and a little water and recolored and put up into 
60-pound tubs, and there you have what is called the ladle butter. 

By a little further process and a little more working you have what 
is conmionly termed imitation creamery. That is a little higher order 
of ladle butter, and that is brought on to this market and sold. 

The next that comes is the creamery butter. That is, as we all 
know, made out of the very best cream, as a rule, or we try to make it 
out of the best cream; and it is put before those who can pa}^ the price 
in the East and in the West, 

There is a new butter that has come on the stage — what is called 
renovated or process butter. I may later on refer to that again. 

Right here 1 would like to say that up to within ten or possibly 
twelve years ago I was preaching and talking and threatening my dif- 
ferent men throughout the country, telling them that their butter was 
poor, that we had to contend with the foreign butter, and that the for- 
eigners were making better butter than we were in this country; that 
it was hard work for us to compete in the hot countries and throughout 
the foreign countries with the Danish butter, with the French butter, 
with the Italian butter, with the Irish butter; that our butter was poor; 
that it would not keep, and that we must do something; that they must 
bring things up to a higher level; that they must take more pains with 
their butter. I sent them samples of the JDanish butter. I sent them 
samples of the French butter. We experimented. I went at that 
time, at considerable cost, among the different creameries and put in ray 
own money to endeavor to raise the standard of our butter; but, gen- 
tlemen, let me tell you as a butter man, as a man whose bread and but- 
ter — I mean that earnestly — is entirely in the product of butter, I tell 
you honestly that when the new product oleomargarine came on this 
market some ten or twelve years ago, I saw it and examined it, and I 



166 OLEOMAEGAEINE. 

said, ' ' Thank God for oleomargarine, " Wh}^ ? Said I, ' ' That is going 
to bring up butter to a higher grade." Why, in the old days of twelve 
or fifteen years ago, when the ladle butter came into our markets, we 
called it bull butter. Invariably it was mushy, invariably it was soft, 
invariably almost it was in lumps, in different colors, in globules, sway- 
ing and straying like a fluid; and I bought samples of oleomargarine 
and sent it to our men and said: ""Gentlemen, unless you can make your 
butter similar to oleomargarine, butter in this country is dead." Why, 
it opened their eyes; and then, by George, when I sent them butterine, 
I believe they called it, with creamery butter generally put into it, 
that smelt like a summer rose compared to our creameries, and said: 
"Unless you can make your creameries similar to that you might as 
well go out of business, and give it up to this new product that has 
come in," it was the means, which every butter man knows, of revolu- 
tionizing butter. 

Mr. Adams. Oh, no; we do not know that. 

Mr. Lestrade. I know it from a practical standpoint. You may 
be a practical man — but I know it. I have been there all my life. This 
is a matter of bread and butter to me. 

The Chairman. Speak to the committee, please, Mr. Lestrade. 

Mr. Lestrade. I am particularly interested in butter, Mr. Chair- 
man. From that time gradually everything changed. We began to 
bring in a better grade of ladles. We began to bring in a better grade 
of imitation creamery. We began to bring in a better grade of cream- 
eries, until to-day we have arrived at almost a stage of perfection as 
far as creameries are concerned. 

Senator Heitfeld, What do they do now with that butter that you 
used to gather up in Kansas and Nebraska ? How do they handle it 
or pack it now ? 

Mr, Lestrade, I will answer that now immediately,^ For some 
time it was a question, of course, in our minds as to whether oleomar- 
garine was not going to knock things sideways as far as the butter 
interests of this country were concerned. We watched it very closely; 
and of ccirse, naturally, being a practical man in the business I 
watched it, and I found that our dairy interests were growing very 
rapidly and that we were increasing in the quality of our goods year 
by year, I found, and I still find to-day, that, as the gentleman who 
first spoke here very wisely remarked, the butter industries of Penn- 
sylvania are growing and widening and more creameries are going up 
through that great State, That is true. Instead of oleomargarine 
being a detriment to butter, it has, as an absolute fact, been a great 
benefit to all butter men. It has not, as a matter of fact, lowered the 
price of butter. It has not taken awav the profit, as, from a theoret- 
ical standpoint, a great many of these gentlemen will tell you, I 
know difierently, and I can pr®ve it and show it to you. 

Ten or twelve years ago this packing stock that I spoke of we could 
buy at from 7 to 10 cents a pound during the spring months. New but- 
ter comes in May. and we get this butter in the months of May, June, 
July, and August; very little, however, in August, The lowest price 
of i)utter during the year is in the latter part of May, in June, and 
sometimes in July, Year by year I found, as a large consumer of 
this cheap article, that I was obliged to pay more money for it. This 
was due merely to the natural laws governing a country like ours and 
the growth of it. But the demand for butter outgrew the industry. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 107 

and I will merely state that for the last two years the price has gradu- 
ally gone up from S or lo cents a pound until a year ago I put that same 
butter away at 13 to 11 cents a pound. This spring I put it away at 
from 11 to 16 cents a pound. We are obliged to put large quantities of 
it away for our fall and winter use, for it does not come in ((uantities 
at that time of the year, so we are obliged to buy it in the flood in the 
spring. 

Mr. TiLLTXGHAST. Will 3'ou permit a question ? 

Mr. Lestrade. Yes, sir. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. How does the quality of that article compare now 
with what it was ten or twelve years ago ^ 

Mr. Lestrade. It is all made of dairy butter. Understand, it is not 
ladle butter. It is not manufactured by machinery or anything like 
that. It is made l\v the wi\es and daughters of the farmers. Conse- 
quently it is a hard, solid A 1 piece of cheap butter, made with all the bac- 
teria and all the parasites and everything else all shoved in and l:)rought 
to us, and we manipulate it and wash it and put it on the market. 

Mr. Flanders. How long have they been making this ladle butter — 
gathering this Western butter and making it^ 

Mr. Lestrade. Since I have been in the business. 

Mr. Flanders. When they lirst began there was a great quantity of 
it, was there not? It was a drug on the market? 

Mr. Lestrade. A what? 

Mr. Flanders. A drug on the market. 

Mr. Lestrade. Not necessarily, unless it was utterh" unfit for use. 

Mr. Flanders. This butter that is brought in by the Western farm- 
ers and gathered up by the stores is sent to central stations just as fast 
as it is produced, is it not? 

Mr. Lestrade. Well, the rolls are. 

Mr. Flanders. Would not that account for the increase in price? 
When 3'ou tirst began to gather up this butter there was no market 
for it, was there? It was an experiment, was it not? 

Mr. Lestrade. No; it was no experiment. It was an everyday 
business. 

Mr. Flanders. The reason 1 asked this question was that your tes- 
timony, so far as it goes, is contrary to all I have ever heard on the 
subject, and I have given it a great deal of study. I know of your 
firm. Are you not an exporter? 

Mr. Lestrade. Yes. 

Mr. Flanders. Do you agree with Bardon Brothers on this propo- 
sition ? 

Mr. Lestrade. I believe I do. 

Mr. Flanders. Do you sell to the home trade? 

Mr. Lestrade. No. 

Mr. Flanders. It is simply a question of money in the foreign 
market, is it not? 

Mr. Lestrade. Entirely as an exporter I am now talking. 

Mr. Flanders. Do you observe the laws of your State on this 
subject? 

Mr. Lestrade. How do you mean do 1 observe them? 

Mr. Flanders. Do you obey them ? 

The Chairman. That is hardly a fair question. 

Mr. Lestrade. 1 do not know what you mean. 

Mr. Flanders. The point I would like to make, if tiie conmiittee 



168 OLEOMARGARINE. 

will permit me, is that this butter originally, when they conceived 
the idea of gathering- it up from the farmers or the stores, had never 
been used. When they found they could use it, they began to gather 
it up, and there came a demand for it, and they gathered it as fast as 
it was brought, and that raised the price. 

Mr. Lestrade. This gentleman may possibly be correct about that, 
Mr. Chairman, thirty years ago, but I am not going as far back as 
that — thirty or forty years ago, when there were pioneers in the 
West — but it is not correct since twenty -five years ago; and a quarter 
of a century is pretty far back to go. 

I will say also that I do sell the home trade in creameries. I am 
interested in two or three creameries, and I was about to go on to the 
creamery question. The same thing applies in regard to the cheapness 
of creameries. The poor creameries that were coming East up to the 
time that oleomargarine dawned upon the United States were some- 
thing abominable. There was hardly such a thing as knowing what 
your next shipment would be. You would get a fine piece of butter 
in to-day, and from the same creamery next week you would get a 
poor piece of butter. 

I state as a fact that oleomargarine did for butter all I have stated. 
The time came when my export trade and the demand for creameries 
was so great from this country, on account of our being able to start 
a little bit of a process of our own, an imitation of the Danish process, 
that I found I had to make some arrangement with some creamery in 
this country to make my butter, I went to two or three of the best 
creameries in New York State and they were unable or unwilling to 
make the high grade of butter that I wished for. I went West and the 
same thing happened. I was then obliged to go in and put myself in 
a position to make this butter, and the consequence is that to-day — and 
there is no egotism on my part, because the proof of the pudding is in 
the eating of it — we are sending now butter in competition with the 
well-known world-renowned Danish butter. We are sending it all over 
South America, all over the West Indies, down in China, and down in 
South Africa, but we could not do it until we put up and became inter- 
ested in our own creameries. Even to-day the creameries of this coun- 
try are not making the butter they should make. 

Now, another thing right here in regard to the creamery question, 
and I am endeavoring to lead up to a point here, gentlemen of the 
committee, which I trust I will be able to make clear to you. 
Another thing that is detrimental is that the wonderful mechanism 
and discoveries that we have made in regard to centrifugal force and 
the different machinery used in making butter is really a detriment to 
butter for this reason: That to-day the dairyman, the creamery man, 
wants to turn his butter out in fifteen minutes, and from the cow he 
wants to give you a piece of butter on your plate twelve or fifteen or 
twenty minutes after you have seen the milk taken from the cow. 
That is all they are aiming at. I heard one of my neighbors say that 
he thought he would soon be able, with the discoveries that were 
being made and the new processes tnat were being used, to milk his 
cow and put butter into the market the next day. I do not believe it 
needs a very brilliant mind to know that butter of that character will 
not stand up. 

The Chairman. What is the Danish process you have been speak- 
ing of ? 



OLEOMARGARINE. 169 

Mr. Lestrade. The Danish process, without going into too much 
detail — there may be other butter men here and they might catch on — 
is a slow process. It is an old-fashioned process of making butter, 
really. 

The Chairman. Do they make the butter with the hands or machine ? 

Mr. Lestrade. With crude machinery, in almost the same way you 
would make it by churning with your hand. 

The Chairman. That is, they let the milk turn ? 

Mr. Lestrade. Yes. 

The Chairivian. Is there nothing about it except more care? 

Mr. Lestrade. More care and knowing how to work it, really. 
What we aimed at was to get the consistency of body so that it would 
keep, so that we can guarantee to the United States Government when 
making purchases, which we are obliged to do, that the butter will 
keep a year without going into liquid form, without going into oil or 
without getting strong. I do not dare to take the butter from any 
creamery into this country and put it into my stock with the idea that 
it will keep like that. So the old-fashioned wa}% after all, is best. 
You and you and you used to buy your butter and keep it all winter, 
and it kept all winter; but to-day you take one of our fresh creameries 
and you keep it a week and it will go strong. However, that we con- 
sider is in the long line of progress and promotion, and getting toward 
the perfection of butter. In one sense it is and in another sense it is 
not. 

Senator Hansbrough. You were obliged to compete with this Danish 
process, were you not? 

Mr. Lestrade. Yes, sir. 

Senator Hansbrough. You were obliged to make butter in the same 
fashion, on the same plan, in order to compete with them? 

Mr. Lestrade. Yes, sir. 

Senator Hansbrough. That brought your butter up to a higher 
standard ? 

Mr. Lestrade. Up to a higher standard. 

Senator Hansbrough. That it was not altogether oleomargarine that 
brought the standard up ? 

Mr. Lestrade. The point with oleomargarine was that for years I 
was bothered to get these men interested to make better butter. They 
would not do it. I would show them this butter. I would show them 
the necessity for making better butter, but their butter sold for a 
figure, and consequently the}^ were satisfied; but when oleomargarine 
came in — I do not know whether some of these gentlemen represent- 
ingthese different States were interested in butter then; 1 do not know 
that they are interested in butter now — but it created a tremendous 
furore in the West, and every butter man knows positively beyond 
question that oleomargarine had more to do with raising butter and 
bringing up to a better condition and a better quality than all the lec- 
tures and all the talks and appeals that we could give them bv letter or 
otherwise. That is known. 

Mr. Adams. If the gentleman will permit me — I do not want to 
bother him with interruptions — he makes his statement too sweeping. 
We have no objection to the statement of your belief, but some of us 
who have been interested for many 3'ears in the butter interest do not 
agree with you; so you should not say ail. 

Mr. Lestrade. I am perfectly willing to answer every question put 



170 OLEOMARGARINE. 

to me, and if I am not able to back it up l)y facts and figures, I am 
willing to apologize and withdraw m}- remarks. Up to the present 
time I am not. 

The Chairman. I was in the Isle of Jersey and in Denmark a few 
years ago, and 1 noticed that the Jersey cattle have mostly gone to 
Denmark. 

Mr. Lestrade. That is very true in one sense. 

The Chairman. The Jersey farms seem to have sold all of their 
best cattle to Denmark. 

Senator Money. Mr. Chairman, it seem to me we ought to have 
some rule about the time these gentlemen are to be allowed to speak. 
If their time is to be limited, I think interruptions are unfair. 

Senator Heitfeld. It will perhaps take Mr. Lestrade soidc time to 
rearrange his notes. It is now 5 minute.'? to 12, and we might as well 
take at recess at this time. 

The Chairman. Can you tell us anything about how much more 
time you want for the oleomargarine peopled 

Mr. Potter. There are a number of gentlemen who want to be 
heard to-morrow, and several cotton-seed oil representatives will be 
here Sunday. They would also like to be heard. 

The Chairman. Yes; I promised to hear them Monday. You will 
want all the time to-day and to-morrow, will you? 

Mr. Potter. Yes, sir; and perhaps Monday and Tuesday. 

The Chairman. Leaving out the cotton-seed oil people, 1 have 
promised Senator Penrose that some butter friends of his miglit be 
heard to-morrow for a little time, but I will tr}^ and not let it inter- 
fere with you very much. 

Mr. Potter. We have some gentlemen here who are anxious to be 
heard on lines that have not been'taken up before. 

Senator Hansbrough. Who, in behalf of the Grout bill, desire yet 
to be heard? Mr. Knight, you can tell us. 

Mr. Knight. Mr. Adams. I think, can give you the information. 
He and Governor Hoard, I think, arranged that this morning. 

The Chairman. That had better be postponed just as far as possi- 
ble, without too great inconvenience, until the oleomargarine people 
have finished. 

Senator Hansbrough. I am trying, Mr. Chairman, to get at the 
length of time we are to be employed here, because there are members 
of this committee who have other things to do. 

Mr. Adams. I can state, Mr. Chairman, with your permission, that 
so far as the friends of the Grout bill are concerned, I think if all our 
representatives were here we could close our part of this testimony 
in three hours. Governor Hoard and myself will remain here during 
this week. 

The Chairman. We will take a recess now until half past 2 o'clock. 

The committee, at 11.45 a. m., took a recess until 2.30 o'clock p. m. 

At the expiration of the recess the committee resumed its session. 

Present: Senators Hansbrough (actiny- chairman), Foster, and Heit- 
feld. ^ V - 

The Acting Chairman. You may proceed, Mr. Lestrade. How 
much further time do you desire ? 

Mr. Lestrade. About half an hour, I should think. 



OLEOMARGARINE. I7l 



STATEMENT OF FEANCIS W. LESTRADE— Resumed. 

Mr. Lestrade. The question may arise in jour minds, gentlemen, 
why am 1 opposed to this bill, as all my interests — m}- money, what 
little 1 haye, or the greater part of it — are in butter. It is merely this: 
That, as I haye stated, oleomargarine has been a friend to butter — 
has made us dairymen, farmers, creamery men, make better butter. 
The second reason is that the dairymen throughout the United States 
are getting a good profit on their l^utter. We are making money. 
My creameries are making money. 1 do not know of any creameries 
that are not making money. We are making from 10 to 50 per cent. 
Legitimately we are making from 10 to 20 per cent; speculatiyely we 
are making a great deal more. 

Mr. Hoard. Will you allow me to ask you a question ? 

Mr. Lestrade. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Hoard. Are you a creamery man;' 

Mr. Lestrade. Yes, sir; that is, I am interested in creameries; I 
am interested in three of them. 

Mr. Hoard. You say you are making from 10 to 50 per cent? 

Mr. Lestrade. I said from 10 to 20 per cent legitimately, and we 
do make as high as 50 per cent at times. 

Mr. Hoard. Do you mean as the owner of a creamery? 

Mr. Lestrade. No, sir; in selling our butter. 1 will giye you an 
illustration in a yerj' few minutes. As I stated this morning, the 
prices of butter are gradually adyancing in this country. The output 
is larger eyery year, as I presume you know from statistics, yet the 
price is gradually going up each spring when new butter comes in. 
A few years ago, as I stated, we could buy this packing stock, this 
original stock which I described, at all the way from 6 to 9 and 10 
cents. At times it would run as low as 3 cents a pound. I bought 
thousands and thousands of pounds of it within ten or twelye years at 
3 to 4 cents a pound. The markets were flooded with it. Latterly, 
on account of the general prosperity of the country and the increase 
of inhabitants, it has maintained its position, until in the year 1898, I 
think it was — a 3'ear ago last spring — prices went to 13, 13^, and 14 
cents. This year it went as high as 15 to 16 cents — that is, when the 
new butter came in. That is supposed to be the lowest price of the 
3"ear, and there has been an adyance of -1 to 6 cents a pound oyer pre- 
yious years. This is in the face of increase of oleomargarine also 
throughout the country, and in the face of the howl that is set up by 
those Avho realh' do not study the true condition of the dairy interests. 
If I remember rightly, in the j^ear 1898 or 1899 the output of oleo 
was from 8(.),O00,000 to 100,000,000 pounds. 

Mr. Clark. It was 107.000,000 pounds last year. 

Mr. Lestrade. It was about 91,000.000 pounds in 1898. Notwith- 
standing that, the cheapest kind of butter, that we used to buy at 9 to 
10 cents a pound started in this year on a basis of 13 and 14 cents a 
pound, and I put away thousands of pounds at 15 cents. 

Mr. Hoard. What do you mean })y saying you put it away? 

Mr. Lestrade. We are obliged to put it away for use in the winter, 
for we can not get it in the f;dl and in the winter. It is not made 
throughout the West. 

Mr. Hoard. How do you put it away ^ 



172 OLEOMARGARINE. 

^Ir. Lestuadk. Cold stonio'o. Creamery sturtcd in on a basis of 17 
and 18 cents. I am speaking of 1898, a year ago last s[)ring. That is 
when the new creamery butter begins. They begin to come in the last 
of May, and during June and July. The market started at IH^ to 17 
cents. Even that leaves a profit to us creamery men. The market 
gradually rose from IH.V and crept up. It kept quiet during the month 
of July, and then the export men started in again. Then we gradually 
raised the price of our held creameries — I nu>an our June goods that 
were put in cold storage — and some of us sold out as high as 28 and 
30 cents. That is where the illegitimate profits come in. 

Mr. Hoard. You are not a patron to creameries ? 

Mr. Lestuade. I am a part owner of three creameries. 

Mr. HoAUD. You are not a man who supplies milk to the creameries? 

Mr. Lestkade. No. 

Mr. Hoard. You are not speaking of the cost of butter to the farmer, 
are you '( 

Mr. Lestrade. No; the cost of butter to the creamery man, to the 
patrons, to the farmers who own the creameries. 

Mr. Hoard. Not to the patrons^ The patrons are the farm(>rs who 
supply the milk? 

Mr. Lestrade. Yes; and they are also interested in creameries, as 
I am. 

Mr. Hoard. No; only very few of them. 

Mr. Lestrade. They ought to be, then. They are not looking after 
their own interests if they are not. Every farmer ought to be inter- 
ested in a creamery. 

INIr. Hoard, ^^'e haA'e 80 patrons in 10 creameries and not a man of 
them owns a dollar in them. 

Mr. Lestrade. Then it is a monopoly. 

Mr. Hoard. You may call it what you please. They control the 
proposition. 

Mr. Lestrade. They should own them. That is what I am advo- 
cating, gentlemen, now, as a butter man. I say to the farmers: ''Put 
up your own creameries. There is money in it." I am now advoca- 
ting l)uying farm land in Massachusetts that has been lying idle, and 
farm land in New Hampshire. I went up to see some most elegant 
land, where the springs are constant!}" cold in midsummer, and I said 
to those gentlemen: "Why, men, fellow-dairymen, fellow-farmers, 
there is money in butter. Wh}' don't a^ou put your mone}" in it? 
Instead of growling that you can not get an3'thing out of milk, put 
your money into creameries instead of selling your milk.'' The gen- 
tleman who preceded me, the food commissioner of one of the Western 
States, made this remark, at which I could not help smiling, that in 
the winter, when butter is hard to get and high in price, then the oleo 
man gets in his licks. He did not use that term, but that is what he 
meant. You have no business to have butter so high in winter and 
hard to get if you manage your milk right, if you feed your cows right, 
if you look after them and take an interest in them. In other words, 
I do not blame the farmers so much. They are being educated every 
day. We are all trying to educate them — we who have other indus- 
tries, we who are distributing this ])utter right and left throughout 
the United States and throughout the world. We are endeavoring to 
educate the farmer to that extent, l)ut he works slowly. It is hard for 
him to make a change. It is hard even to induce him to use new imple- 



OLEOMARGARINE. ] 7o 

ments — these new ideas of makino- butter fa.st by ii)achiii(>i-v and by 
centrifugal force, and all that sort of thing. The}' will oradually get 
there, but the great dairy industry of this countr}^ has not begun to 
show itself. There is a tremendous field for it. 

Now to go back. Butter started in 1898 — notwithstanding this 
80,000,000 to 100,000,000 pounds of oleo— started in at the beginning 
of the season, with new butter, when prices are supposed to be the 
lowest of the year, on a basis of from 16^ to IT cents. 

Mr. Hoard. That was creamer^' butter? 

Mr. Lestkade. I am speaking now of creamery. The demand was 
so great throughout the United States and abroad that the price grad- 
ually arose to 21, 22. 24, 26. and some of it sold at as high as 27 and 
28 cents. That butter cost all the wa}^ from 17 to 20 cents. The 
export that 3^ear was about 14,000,000 pounds, if I remember rightly. 
In the spring of this year, to our dismay — for we have not felt the 
effects of it yet; 1 fear we will — this packing stock I spoke of this 
morning — this ladle stock, this original butter out of which we make 
ladles — started in on the high basis of from 14 to 15 cents; and a great 
deal of it was bought during the low prices, what we call low prices, 
the spring prices, at 15 to 16 cents. This is a most phenomenal price. 
It can hardh' be conceived of. 

This spring creameries started in at 19 cents. Verj^ few of them 
were sold below 19 cents. These were put away in cold storage, for 
that is the business of the country generally to-day. It is an under- 
stood thing. It is hardly called speculative to-da}^ although it is 
speculation; but there is hardly ever a time that a creamery man or a 
dair}' man or a commission man or a speculator can not bu}' his 
creameries in the spring and put them in cold storage during the 
months of June and July, and keep them until summer or fall and 
sell them at a handsome profit. Creameries started in at a very high 
figure, 19 cents, one of the highest figures that they ever reached for 
the spring of the year. The price gradually rose from 19 to 21, 22, 
and 28 cents, and they have been selling as high as 24 cents. I, myself, 
on account of the demand that I have had from abroad, bought within 
a month over a thousand tubs of creamer}- that cost the creamery from 
16i to 17 cents, not over 17 cents. I bought them at 23^ cents in St. 
Lawrence County, put down in New York. If the farmers are patrons 
of those creameries they should also be part owners and have derived 
the benefit of that advance of from 4 to 5 cents a pound. 

Now, you see the position of the Initter industry in this country. It 
is a money-making industry and always will be, if properly conducted. 
You ask, What has oleo to do with this, and wdiy is it that there is such 
an earnest attempt on the part of somebody to crowd out that product? 
Speaking from the standpoint of an expert, on account of the legitimate 
rise in value of cheap goods and of creameries, we exporters are hav- 
ing a hard time of it. leaving the oleo out. We Hnd that we can ship 
this cheap roll butter, this packing stock that I spoke of. at 10, 17, and 
18 cents in tins to the hot countries or throughout the world and get 
back a reasonable profit, but we find that through legitimate sources 
and the call for these cheap goods throughout the country, as I. say, 
they have put the price of original stock up to 15 or 10 cents. We are 
crowded pretty hard to see where our profit is coming in. for the rea- 
son that tiic foreign market — the Danish market, the Italian market, the 
French market, the Irish market, and the Australian market — are able 



174 OLEOMARGARINE. 

then to compete with us. They can put their butter in South America, 
in South Africa, and throughout the West Indies on a basis of 17 to 
18 cents. That is, tiieir clieap butter. When we come to creameries, 
when we are obliged to pay 21, 25, and 2(3 cents for creameries, we find 
that we are being again crowded close, because the foreigners can put 
their foreign butter throughout the world at that price, and a little less. 

It may surprise you, gentlemen, l)ut within ten years we were selling 
and sending to the hot countries a])out 10 per cent of the l)utter that 
they use. Ninet}" per cent has been placed l)y the foreign markets in 
those countries. We have increased that, I am happy to say, about 1 
per cent, mostly through our creamery butter. We have had a hard 
time of it to get our creamery l)utter into these foreign markets on 
account of the fact, as I remarked this morning, that we did not make 
creamery butter as it should be made. With our usual way of doing 
things here, the high nervous temperament in which we all live, our 
great ambition is to turn out butter quick — turn it out with a magnifi- 
cent flavor, and let it take its chance to keep^ Consequently we could 
not ship that butter. The process I am using now, that I am advo- 
cating right and left among the best creameries I can get hold of, is 
to change that all and make a better butter, costing a little more; but 
the demand for butter is so great that they can w^ell afford to do it. 

If you put this tax on oleomargarine, which, I think we all agree, 
means a prohibitory tax, means the wiping out of the 80,000,000 
pounds or the 107,000,000 pounds per year, what is going to take its 
place? What am I going to do to take the place of oleomargarine? 
In my study as a practical man, and having come in contact with it in 
my butter industry and seeing the effect it had on butter twelve or 
fifteen years ago, I noticed and recognized fully it is, as it were, a 
counterbalance to a small extent on butter. It keeps the price of 
butter down to a certain extent. It prevents, to a larger' extent, 
manipulation and speculation in Dutter. You gentlemen from Illinois 
well know, and I know also, that 3'ou would love to corner butter if 
you could, but you have not been able to do it. You have tried it 
over and over again and met your fate. I have been asked to go into 
it many a time; but fortunately having my interests in the East more, 
although I buy largel}^ from you, I have refused; but every time you 
have tried to corner butter j^ou have failed, for up to this time there 
has been sufficient butter to prevent it, although you, gentlemen, 
readily see by the remarks that have gone before me on the part of 
the dairy interests that we do not begin to have suflicient butter to 
supply this country. 

Butter goes higher and higher every winter. It starts in higher 
and higher every spring. Consequently I say from my oljservation 
that if you wipe out oleo and place 107,000,000 pounds of that stuff, you 
open a dangerous channel, and butter is bound to be hurt by it. We 
dair3^men are bound to be hurt by it. It will give an opportunity to 
men like Swift or Armour or any other man who has large sums of 
money to invest to go in and speculate. Do the farmers want that? 
My friend says the farmers are not interested as a rule in the cream- 
eries themselves. Then, consequently, in the end they will be hurt by 
it. Butter at times will go up high, it is true, on account of specula- 
tion, by taking away that which up to now has regulated it. After all, 
I ask you again, what hurt does oleo do^ If it were not for a few 
agitators who really are theorists, who really do not have the best 



OLEOMARGARINE. 175 

interests of the dairy industry at heart, you would not know anything 
about oleo in the dairy interest. I have proven that by my figures. 
You would never think of it. Every year our butter interests are 
growing, and we are making more money, and it is a better profit en 
our speculation or on our investment. Consequently I say let well 
alone. Do not wipe it out. 

Mr. Hoard, Do you say that the average wholesale prices of butter 
have been increasing for a number of years? 

Mr. Lestrade. 1 say that the lowest prices in the spring have been 
gradually working up on a higher level for the last five years. 

Mr. Hoard. Have the average prices of butter for the whole 3^ear 
been increasing for, sa}^, five or six years? 

Mr. Lestrade. Yes; they have been increasing. 

Mr. Hoard. Have they ? 

Mr. Lestrade. Yes. If you will allow me, Mr. Chairman, I will 
read from a report that I happened to pick up yesterday in my ofiice 
just before starting. This is a report from Mr. Kracke, of New York, 
the associate of the gentleman who spoke this morning. Mr. Kracke 
is your associate, is he not? 

Mr. Flanders. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Lestrade. This report is as follows: 

""BUTTER trade OF 1900 — RECEIPTS SHOW A GAIN OF NEARLY 48,000 
PACKAGES FOR THE YEAR — LARGE FALLING OFF IN EXPORTS — 
HOME CONSUMPTIVE DEMAND VERY LARGE, WHICH GIVES A HIGHER 
AVERAGE PRICE FOR NEARLY ALL DESCRIPTIONS. 

''Not for man}^ years, if ever, has the butter trade of the country 
seen just such conditions as we have had during the year 1900, and 
while many of the dealers and speculative operators will have no 
regret that the year has closed, because of the small margins they 
have had, the producers of butter will find much of encouragement 
and satisfaction in the larger consumptive demand and better average 
prices realized. 

"The product of the country has been larger; how much it is impos- 
sible to say. New York's receipts show an increase of 2i per cent, 
the total arrivals being 1,999,871 packages, as compared with 1,951,957 
packages the preceding year, 1,971,071 packages in 1898, and 2,109,503 
packages in 1897. This is the first time for more than three years that 
there has been an increase rather than a decrease. What is true of 
New York is to some extent true of other large distributing centers, 
and with the known fact that the consumption in the producing sec- 
tions has been expanding steadily, we are inclined to think that the 
total output of butter for the country has been fully 2 per cent greater 
than in 1899. This increase is encouraging, as it indicates a disposi- 
tion to give the dairy a better place on the farm. 

"The first three months showed a considerable falling oft* in receipts, 
due to only fair conditions for making butter and the fact that the 
storage stocks of the (country were entirely exhausted." 

Some of these men endeavored to get me interested in this dairy 
association. I am opposed to them merel}^ on the ground that I con- 
sider that they are working against my interests as a dairyman, against 
my interests as a creanKM y man, and against my interests as a farmer. 
They said to me, "Look at the surplus of butter we have constantly 



176 OLEOMAEGAKINE. 

over." I said to them, " My dear sir, go and study the statistics for 
last year and you will find there was no surplus. The year before 
you made no surplus. The year before that you made no surplus; and 
the year before that 1 think there was a surplus on account of the 
depression in this country, which all of us have been through. I will 
proceed with this i-eport: 

"Not until June did the arrivals begin to run ahead, and the gain 
was less than 10 per cent during the summer months. From Septem- 
ber on, however, the increase was marked, and during December the 
gain was a little over 30 per cent. This was due in large measure to 
the rapid unloading of western refrigerat-rs, the butter coming this 
way because of the strength of our market. 

" There has been a marked falling off in exports of butter from all 
the ports of this country. New York shipped 9,723,397 pounds, only 
a little more than one-half the amount that was cleared through this 
port during 1899. Of these shipments 81,786 packages, or, say, 
4,089,300 pounds, went to the markets of Great Britain, Germany, 
Denmark, and Scandinavia, and about 5,633,097 pounds were sent to 
the tropical countries, mainly South America and the West Indies. 
This shows a falling off in the latter business of nearly 1,000,000 
pounds, which was lost to us during the early part of the year when 
packing stock was so scarce and high. Wc have found it impracticable 
to attempt to compete much with other countries for the English trade, 
except in certain grades of wdiich we had a sutHcient surplus here to 
undersell other points. Most of the year the table grades of butter 
have been relatively higher on this side of the ocean than in Great 
Britain. 

"After the little flurry just at the opening of the year when prices 
momentarily touched so dizzy a height — 30 cents." 

That w^as for old goods, held goods, goods bought in June and put 
away and sold in the fall at 30 cents a pound and costing from 16 to 17 
cents. 

Mr. Hoard. Sold where'? 

Mr. Lestrade. That is in the creamery. 

Mr. Hoard. Sold at 30 cents a pound; cold-storage butter? 

Mr, Lestrade. That is, according to Mr. Kracke. 

Mr. Hoard. Sold in the United States? 

Mr. Lestrade. Sold in New York City. 

Mr. Hoard. Do jn^u know of any cold-storage butter selling last 
year at 30 cents? 

Mr. Lestrade. Yes; I sold them at 30 cents. I sold June goods a 
year ago in September at 30 cents — a year ago this fall. 

Mr. Knight. What was the market for fancy creameries at that time 
in New York? 

Mr. Lestrade. For fresh goods ? 

Mr, Knight. Yes. 

Mr. Lestrade. Very close. They ran right along together, because 
the fresh goods were very scarce, and that is the reason old goods went 
up. We could not get the fresh goods, because they were not being 
made. 

"The market got down to a fairly conservative basis until the 
storage season opened, when the competition set in keen because of the 
large profits realized on the 1899 crop, and speculative operations 
largely controlled values during the summer. The average price of 



OLEOMARGARINE. 177 

isincj creamery during June was 19f cents and for July 19i cents, 
which was more than 1 cent per pound higher than in the previous 
year. Relatively full rates were maintained later, and when we got 
well into the fall business was so good that prices steadil}^ hardened, 
reaching the high figure of 27 cents about the middle of November, 
which held for a week and then settled back gradually." 

Mr. Hoard. That is, New York? 

Mr. Lestrade. Yes; New York, and there was only about a cent's 
difference in Chicago. 

Senator Heitfeld. That is the wholesale price? 

Mr. Lestrade. Yes, sir; wholesale prices. 

"The average for the year was 22f cents for creamery as compared 
with 21i cents in 1899 and 19i cents in both 1898 and 1897. The 
lowest point of the season — 18 cents — was late in April, before we 
reached grass butter." 

I wish to call your attention, gentlemen, to the fact that in 1898 and 
1897, when the output of oleomargarine was in the neighborhood of 
60,000,000 pounds, or possibly 70,000,000 pounds, the price of butter 
was only 19 cents. 

Senator Heitfeld. What year was that? 

Mr. Lestrade. In 1898 and in 1897. The average, I mean, for the 
year was only about 19^ cents when the output of oleo was, I should 
imagine, from 60,000,000 to 70,000,000 pounds, and butter went up 
to from 19i to 22^ cents average price on an output of 108,000,000 
pounds oleomargarine. 

Senator Heitfeld. Does the price of oleomargarine fluctuate? 

Mr. Lestrade. No; I do not believe it ever does. Does it, gen- 
tlemen ? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Oh, yes; it changes some. 

Mr. Lestrade. I suppose it does. We send a good deal of oil to 
Rotterdam, and I suppose that is what makes the fluctuation of it. 

Mr. TiLLINGHAST. YcS. 

Mr. Lestrade. In the report of Mr. Kracke, the assistant in the 
agricultural department of New York State 

Mr. ScHELL. He is the principal, is he not? 

Mr. Flanders. Mr. Kracke is in charge of the work in the central 
division. 

Mr. Knight. May I ask you, Mr. Lestrade, the market price of 
butter in New York to-day? 

Mr. Lestrade. About 25 or 26 cents is the average price. 

Mr. Knight. Is that the quoted price — the oflScial price? 

Mr. Lestrade. Yes. 

Mr. Knight. And what was it a year ago at this time; do you 
remember? 

Mr. Lestrade. I think 27 or 28 cents ; possibly higher. I do not 
remember, exactly. It may have been 30 cents. 

Mr. Knight. It is about 5 cents cheaper than it was a year ago ^ 

Mr. Lestrade. Yes. I do not want the sale of oleomargarine pro- 
hibited. I want it for a balance, so to speak, to keep wild speculation 
down. I can not afliord as a creamery man, a man interested in butter, 
to put myself in the position, if I can help it, of allowing speculators 
to come in and manipulate butter. It is bad enough now as it is; but 
wipe out oleo, which you will if you put this 10-cent prohibitory tax 
on, and there is not a man in the country coukl do anything in regard 

S. Rep. 2043 12 



178 OLEOMARGARINE. 

to steady pricc^^. They can no more sell oleomargarine white than 
you could sell butter white. I have made white butter up in small 
quantities, and the only people who take white butter are our friends, 
the Israelites, and they only take it in small quantities. 

Mr. Hoard. One tirm in Milwaukee sells 30,000 pounds of white 
oleomargarine a year — one retail firm. 

Mr. Flanders. Did you read the first column of this paper 3'ou had 
in your hand? 

Mr. Lestrade. I read all that article. 

Mr. Flanders. That is not ))y Mr. Kracke. 

Mr. Hoard. You say oleomargarine would not be sold at all in its 
natural state? 

Mr. Lestrade. 1 say it would not. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. What class of people use this 30,000 pounds you 
spoke about. Governor? 

Mr. Hoard. The Polaks and Bohemians. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. I Venture to say there aie not 30,0()0 pounds of 
uncolored oleomargarine in the United States. 

Mr. Hoard. You may venture to say so, but the statement wiis inudc 
by the firm in Milwaukee who sold it. 

Mr, Lestrade. In regard to this report from which I read, which 
1 picked up ^^esterday in my olfice, I wish to say that it is in The 
New York Produce Review and American Creamery. 1 inquired who 
wrote this article, or w^ho gave the figures, and th(\v told me Mr. 
Kracke. You say he did not write this article? 

Mr. Flanders. The last column is an excerpt from his report to us 
at the Albany office. The first two columns are not his, and you read 
from them. 

Mr. Lestrade. These were not compiled by him, then ? 

Mr. Flanders. No. 1 was a little astonished, because his report 
comes to me personalh", and I did not recognize what you read as part 
of his report. 

Senator Heitfeld. Whose report is it? 

Mr. Lestrade. It is the New York Produce Review and American 
Creamery, a dairymen's paper from the city of New York. 

Senator Foster. What you read was probably written by some 
editor ? 

Mr. Lestrade. Yes. I asked one of the assistants yesterday where 
they got their figures, and I understood him to say they got them from 
Mr. Kracke. The record of cases he has tried, etc., is on the same 
page. 

Now, if you will allow me one minute longer, sir, I will try to finish 
what I have to say in my crude manner. If I had the eloquence of 
you three gentlemen as public men, I do not question that I could con- 
vince you of the fallacy of attempting to put what I consider a dangerous 
precedent upon the dairy interests of this country. I know conclu- 
sively that it will wipe out the export trade. I know conclusively that 
it will open the door for gigantic speculation, for cornering. It will 
be possible to do that. We can almost do it now at times. I am free 
to confess that I have lieen in where we have made some money cor- 
nering certain butter in certain ])arts of the country; and why is not 
the question pertinent to you as well as to me and to all of our dairy- 
men and men interested in butter ? Then what is the trouble i Merely 
that we are not making butter enouofh. If we want to fight oleomar 



OLEOMARGAEINE. l79 

garine, let us fight them with their own weapons. Let us make more 
butter. Let us malve bettei l)utter. Let us make more creamery butter 
and fight them that way. We have got a wide margin yet. We have 
got a good profit yet in butter. There is no danger of oleomargarine, 
as one gentleman said this morning, wiping out the butter industry. 
It has not wiped out the butter industry. Oleomargarine has been 
advancing year after year in quantit}'^, and butter has been advancing 
year after year in quantity and going up in price, and there has been 
a better profit year after year. Consequently there is no danger in 
that way. So, if you want to do anything, if you want to go to an 
extreme, why not propose to }' ou gentlemen down here in Washington 
to take the 2-cent tax on oleomargarine — there is a good deal of talk 
about subsidies just now — and give that 2-cent tax as a subsidy to the 
farmers to make better butter and fight oleomargarine in that way, 
the same as England did with Australia. The dairymen down in Aus- 
tralia made nothing but the same kind of truck which we were making 
before oleomargarine came into the country. It was so bad that it 
was dumped in the sea when it arrived in England; and England 
offered a subsidy. 

Mr. Hoard. Did England offer the subsidy or did Australia offer it? 

Mr. Lestrade. England. Australia is a colony of England. 

Mr. Hoard. I know that, but did England offer the subsidy? 

Mr. Lestrade. What difference does it make? 

Mr. Hoard. It makes a great deal of difference. One is a colonial 
subsidy and the other is a general subsid3\ This was a colonial subsidy. 

Mr. Lestrade. I do not think it is a matter of argument. It makes no 
difference whether the colonial government offered it or whether Eng- 
land offered it. There was a subsidy offered to Australia for a better 
grade of butter. If it came up to a certain test they were to receive 
a certain percentage. I do not recall it now, but possibl}^ we will say, 
a shilling on so many pounds. To-day the quantity of butter has 
advanced from 250,000 pounds a year to two or three or four million 
pounds a year, and they are putting as fine a piece of creamery butter 
into England as 3'ou want to see. That was done by subsidy. I say 
to the farmer and 1 say to Congress, if 3'ou want to do something for the 
farmers, give them 2 cents as a subsidy and fight the oleomargarine, so 
that we will make a l)etter creamery. 

In talking to some of the gentlemen connected with the dairy asso- 
cation I have said to them, "As a matter of fact, j^ou and I know that 
oleo is not hurting butter in this country." They said, "Well, we are 
going to wipe it out. It has got to be wiped out." Then I used the 
arguments that I have used to you. I told them my position per- 
sonally — that cheap butter was getting to that price that very soon if 
it kept on I could not ship it; that all our export would stop. They 
had no answer to that except to say, " Well, we are going to wipe out 
oleo if we can." I said, "All right; it will give a chance to you fellows 
who have a lot of money to go ahead and speculate." They said, 
' ' That may be. We won't make money on the other side of the grave. " 
I said, "That will be benefiting the few at the expense of the dairy 
interests again, and they will be the losers." I am trying now to 
interest a certain number of farmers up in Massachusetts to buy cer- 
tain lands that L know of where there is good cold water and endeavor 
to luake a cooperative society there for the making of fancy creameries 
by the Danish process, 



180 OLEOMARGARINE. 

The butter that I am making to-day will })ring from 1 to 2 aiid 2^ 
cents more a pound than the best fancy extra butter that you can send 
out of Chicago, and there is butter which is selling to-day, as you dairy- 
men know, if there are any of you here, as high as 40 and 50 cents a 
pound. Do you think that it is merely being sold on the brand ^ It is 
not. It is being sold on the exquisite flavor and the perfection of being 
made as it should be made. That is not to say that we are all going 
to get 40 and 50 cents a pound, but I do mean to say that for a long 
time to come, if you make good butter, you are going to get a good 
price, I said to these gentlemen from Chicago representing this asso- 
ciation: "You remind me a great deal of the walking delegates of the 
Knights of Labor. You are looking around for something to do and 
to earn your salaries, and consequently you are taking up this oleo- 
margarine question, which in the past has been, and, 1 think, even 
to-day is, a good friend of butter, and you are agitating it and all that 
sort of thing to endeavor to show the dairy interests that you are per- 
forming functions and doing your work as it should Ijc done; whereas, 
if you would let the thing alone and spend your time in edu<-ating the 
farmers how to make good creamery butter, j-ou would be doing a 
noble work and a grand work, and a work that every farmer and every 
dairyman through this country would bless you for in the end." 

Mr. Flanders. Mr. Chairman, may I ask the gentleman a question? 

The Acting Chairman. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Flanders. Do you not know, you being from New York, that 
it is a part of the work of the department of agriculture of the State 
of New York to do just exactly what you have suggested, and do you 
not know that ^ey keep live or six men continually employed in this 
division work? 

Mr. Lestrade, Yes. 

Mr. Flanders. And that department spends $20,000 a year in fai-m- 
ers' institutions throughout the State in that work? 

Mr. Lestrade. Yes, sir; but the work is not being done fast enough. 
It is going too slow. 

Mr. Hoard. Do you know that the men representing the dairy 
interests here are on a salary ? 

Mr. Lestrade. No. I know some of them are. 

Mr. Hoard. Who among them are on a salary ? 

Mr. Lestrade. I do not suppose every one of them is doing it Avith- 
out compensation. 

Mr. Hoard. I want to say to you, as president of the National Dairy 
Union, that I never have drawn a penny even for my expenses, and 1 
have paid out over $1,100 in the prosecution of this tight. 

Mr. Lestrade. Well, my remarks were made to two or three of these 
gentlemen, and I said if they would only spend their time in the noble 
work of educating the farmer, and spend on that the money that is 
being spent in fighting oleomargarine, they would be doing a far nobler 
and grander work. 

Mr. HuRD. I have been engaged in dairy educational work for thirty 
years and 1 have never heard of you before. 

Mr. Lestrade. I am glad to make your acquaintance. 

Mr. Knight. I would like to ask a question, if the gentleman will 
allow me. 

Mr. Lestrade. Certainly. 

The Acting Chairman. The gentleman has been plied with a good 



OLEOMARCIARINE. 181 

many questions and his tinic^ has about expired. 1 hop<^ the <|iiestions 
will bo limited. 

Mr. Knight. As another offieer of that organization he has referred 
to in conneetion with a salary, I want to go on record here as stating 
that I, as secretary of the National Dairy Union, never have in the 
four years I have been connected with the association had one cent of 
salary, nor has there ever been a salary attached to the office. 

Mr. Lestrade. I did not mean that as a slur in the slightest degree. 
There was no slur in my remark at all. 

Mr. Knight. I do not like to be referred to as a walking delegate. 

Mr. Lestrade. I was not referring to you personall3^ 

Mr. ScHELL. Just one question: You say the farmers who supply 
your milk are interested in your creameries? 

Mr. Lestrade. Some of them are; and that is what I am educating 
them to do. 

Mr. ScHELL. You really buy just the cream, as I understand? 

Mr. Lestrade. No; we buy both milk and cream. At some of our 
creameries we buy the cream alone and at others we buy the whole 
thing. 

Mr. ScHELL. How do you estimate what you pay the farmers for 
this milk and cream? How do you get at the value of the milk and 
cream ? 

Mr. Lestrade. How do you mean ? 

Mr. Schell. How do you fix the price you pay them for it; by 
contract, or how ? 

jVlr, Lestrade. In both ways; sometimes by contract and some- 
times otherwise. That part I am not familiar with, for I do not 
attend to it. 



STATEMENT OF WILLIAM H. THOMPSON, PRESIDENT NATIONAL 
LIVE STOCK EXCHANGE, CHICAGO. 

The Acting Chairman. Whom do you represent, Mr. Thompson ? 

Mr. Thompson. The National Live Stock Exchange. 

The Acting Chairman. How much time do you want? 

Mr. Thompson. I just w^ant the time that you think I ought to have. 
It is simply a business proposition, or a business talk, rather, that I 
propose to present. 

The Acting Chairivian. It would be agreeable to the committee to 
have you cover as little time as possible in making your statement. 

Mr. Thompson. I should hate to say ten minutes and only occupy 
five. 

The Acting Chairman. We will give you fifteen minutes. 

Mr. Thompson. Thank you, 

I am pleased to come l)efore you gentlemen to place the people 
whom I represent on the side of right and justice and against this 
Grout bill. 

To explain who I represent I ma}^ be permitted to briefly enlighten 
you gentlemen regarding the nature, make-up, objects, and purposes 
of the National Live Stock Exchange, which I. as its president, have 
the honor to represent. 

The National Live Stock Exchange is a commercial organization 
without capital stock, organized, not for the transaction of business, 



182 OLEOMARaAKINE. 

but to fo.ster, promote, and protect the interests of the live-stock trade in 
all of its many branches. It is composed of local liv^vstock exchanges 
located at the principal live-stock market centers of the United States, 
and counts among- its members in the great corn belt and beef -produc- 
ing- sections the local exchanges located at Sioux City, Iowa; St. Paul, 
Minn. ; Omaha, is'eln-. ; St. Louis, Mo. ; East St. Louis, 111. ; St. Joseph, 
Mo,; Fort Worth, Tex. ; Chicago, III.; Indianapolis, Ind. ; Pittsburg, 
Pa.; Louisville, Ky.. and Milwaukee, Wis. 

Each of these local exchanges are composed of live-stock bi-eeders, 
raisers, feeders, shippers, sellers, slaughterers, buyers, bankers, and 
commission merchants, and some of their employees, and have a rep- 
resentation in the deliberations of the national exchange based on the 
local membership roster, such representation being fixed at 1 repre- 
sentative for every 25 members. It is the official mouthpiece of the 
live-stock trade, and while it aims to protect, foster, and promote the 
interests of the producer of liv:^ stock on the one hand, it is equally 
as zealous in its protection of the interests of the consumers of live- 
stock products on the other. 

It is to this organization. The National Live Stock Exchange, that 
all these interests look for advice, assistance, and relief or protection 
on any general live-stock question of an interstate or iTiternational 
charactei". 

The Yearbook of the United States Department of Agriculture for 
the year 1899, page 818, gives the number of cattle in the United 
States other than milch cows on elanuary 1, 1900, as 27,610,054. From 
this numl)er I would deduct 1,610,054 head, which I believe i:o be a 
fair estimate of that number which are bulls, which jdeld little or no 
butter fat. This would leave 26,000,000 steer cattle, from Avhich I 
would deduct 12,000,000 head of young cattle, called in the parlance 
of the trade " stockers and feeders," which would leave 14,000,000 
head of fat cattle immediatel}" affected and depreciated by this pro- 
posed legislation. At the rate of $3.42 per head, provided the manu- 
facture of butterine is prohibited by legislation, this would entail a 
loss on the prochicers of this country of $47,880,000. 

We adopt those figures from the manufacturer, because we simply 
consider him as a manufacturer or as a creature of circumstances, as 
it might be termed. He goes onto the market and buys what we term 
the raw material — the bullock — and if he is enabled to manufacture out 
of that bullock the different articles that we know to be in the bullock, 
and make a healthful food for the people, he certainly should have a 
right to do so, and if in doing so he can pay this $3.42 a head, the pro- 
ducer receives the benefit. If he is not allowed to do it, he simply 
goes onto the market and buys those cattle at about $3.42 a head less, 
which is most assuredly a total loss to the producer. 

The National Live Stock Exchange has repeatedly and publicly 
solicited Congress and other legislative bodies to cause a critical exam- 
ination to be made through a committee of its own selection into the 
methods employed and ingredients used in the manufacture of this 
wholesome article of diet, with the request that, if after such informa- 
tion is satisfactorily and officially obtained it shall appear to any such 
committee that butterine is a legitimate article of commerce and a 
wholesome article of diet, they shall in their report recommend that 
no coloi'ing restrictions or taxes be imposed, except such as .shall 
appl}" also to the manufacture and sale of its only competitor, butter, 



OLEOMARGARINE. 183 

thereby permitting the manufacture and sale of butterine under such 
safeguards as the Federal Government may see tit to impose to insure 
its being sold on its merits. 

In round numbers there are 75,000,000 people in this country. I 
believe a reasonable estimate of the number of Indians and children 
under a butter-eating age to be 25,000,000, which would leave a popu- 
lation of 50,000,000 outside of these classes who are consumers of 
butter. 

Of this 50,000,000 people at least one-half are able to buy the best 
butter manufactured, irrespective of price, while the other 25,000,000 
are a class of people whom the butterine manufacturers aim to reach 
and benefit, and are a class of our citizens known as laborers, not in 
the common acceptance of the term, but as a class of people following 
a variety of pursuits at small salaries, and in most cases, owing to 
their dependencies and meager earnings, compelled to go without the 
luxuries of life. 

It is this class of people whose interests need careful consideration, 
whose claims upon you as their representatives are invariably backed 
b}^ justice, who are always the greatest sufferers by and the most 
sensitive to inimical legislation, who always are the first to respond 
to and cheerfully compl}^ with all just and reasonable laws. 

As the representative of the National Live Stock Exchange, I also 
plead for a consideration of the rights of this class of our citizens, who, 
from the nature of their surroundings and conditions, are unable to 
appear before you in their own behalf. 

They, who are the principal consumers of butterine, are not asking 
for any legislation. The producers and raisers of fat cattle are not 
asking you for any legislation in this respect. 

Why should it be any more unlawful to put into butterine, the prod- 
uct of the beef steer, the same coloring matter as is put into butter, 
the similar product of his sister, the dairy cow? 

Is there any equity or justice in such denial? Is it made necessary 
by the conditions? Is it warranted upon any grounds? If it is, I am 
at a loss to comprehend it. 

This kind of legislation is most assuredly the worst and most vicious 
kind of class legislation, because it is inaugurated solely for the pur- 
pose of destroying a competitive industry equally as important and 
equally as deserving of legislative support and protection. 

The Grout bill represents an attempt on the part of Congress to tax 
one legitimate industry out of existence for the benefit of another 
industry. The ostensible purpose is protection to the consumers against 
""imitation butter;" but the public has never asked for such protec- 
tion. It does not even object to the coloring of butterine the same as 
butter, so long as the butterine is properly labeled and sold on its 
merits. As a matter of fact, the consumers of butterine prefer to 
have it colored, so long as the coloring material used is harmless. They 
like butterine because of its cheapness and because they are satisfied 
with its purity and wholesomeness. 

The enactment of this bill will not only deprive the consumer of a 
healthy and nutritious article of food, but immediately it becomes a 
law will depreciate the value of the beef cattle and take from the pro- 
ducers of this country upwards of forty-five millions of dollars. 

In conclusion, I desire to thank you for granting me the privilege of 
recording our organization on the side of right and justice and in favor 



184 OLEOMARGARINE. 

of the man}^ believing that you will act in this matter for the best 
interests of the people as a whole. 

This kind of class legislation, if enacted, would establish a very bad 
precedent, one of the worst kind, as it is against a healthful article of 
food. 

A remark was made by a gentleman before you this morning that 
this article could be produced for 7 cents a pound. That shows to me 
most conclusively that it comes within reach of the laborer, just the 
man we should protect. 

Now, in regard to taxes. Suppose there was a tax of 10 cents put 
upon this butterine, and it should still remain upon the market, who 
pays the tax? The laboring man, of course. The man of wealth buys 
butter. The burden of the whole thing rests upon the consumer, who 
is the laboring man. If it is legislated out of existence, then the bur- 
den or the loss goes back to the producer. 

Mr. Flanders. May I ask one question ? 

The Chairman. Yes. 

Mr. Flanders. Have you any knowledge what the consumer pays 
for these goods ? 

Mr. Thompson. I can answer for a consumei". I pay 15 cents a 
pound for it. 

Mr. Flanders. In our State it never has been sold, taking it gen- 
erally — there may be isolated cases — cheaper than butter. For the 
last fifteen years, as far as I know, and I have been looking after it, I 
myself bought it for butter in the city of Troy and paid 22 cents a 
pound, and the butter right opposite it was 22 cents a pound. It is 
sold to consumers for butter and at butter prices. There is no excep- 
tion to it in the State of New York. 

Mr. Thompson. If you will allow me to answer for one consumer, 1 
will say that I pay 15 cents a pound for it for use on my table. I do 
it for this reason, that to get the best butter, which at times seems 
almost impossible, I would have to pay 30 cents a pound, to go to our 
grocer and get the butter, as they term it. It does not seem to me as 
though it was near as good as the butterine, and I would have to pay 
from 20 to 25 and 26 cents for it. 

Mr. Flanders. In our State that is just what has been done right 
along. It is sold for butter at butter prices. 

Mr. Thompson. I am speaking of Chicago. 

Mr. Knight. Do you bu}' the best grade of butterine at 15 cents? 

Mr. Thompson, I do not know, sir, what they call the best grade. 
I buy as good a grade as I can get and pay 15 cents for it. 

Senator Foster. Do j^ou call for butterine when you go to the store? 

Mr. Thompson. I do not buy it at the store. I buy it at the manu- 
facturer's. 

Senator Foster. Do you call for butterine ? 

Mr. Thompson. I call for butterine. 

The Acting Chairman. Have you finished, Mr. Thompson? 

Mr. Thompson. Yes; unless there are some other questions. I have 
a memorial here which is rather lengthy, and I would like to attach it 
to my remarks. 

The Acting Chairman. You can file it, and it will be printed with 
your remarks. 

The memorial referred to is as follows: 



oleomargarine. 185 

The National Live Stock Exchange, 

Office of the Secretary, 

Union Stock Yards, Chicago, III. , December '21, 1900. 

The Honorable the Senate of the United States: 

Your orator, The National Live Stock Exchange, respectfully rep- 
resents unto your honorable body that it is an association composed of 
local live-stock exchanges located at all the principal live-stock centers 
throughout the country, having a roster of over two thousand mem- 
bers actively engaged in breeding, raising, feeding, shipping, buying, 
selling, and slaughtering all kinds of live stock; was organized, among 
other things, for the purpose of promoting the best interests of the 
live-stock industry as a whole, jealouslj^ guarding the interests of the 
producer and consumer alike, and is the recognized and official mouth- 
piece of the live-stock industry on all questions of an interstate or 
international character, especially when the interests of the producer 
or consumer are in any way affected. 

Your orator in behalf of its constituency desires to enter its emphatic 
protest against the enactment of what is commonly known as the 
Grout bill, and in support of its protest desires to record a few of the 
many reasons in support of its contention. 

This measure is a species of class legislation of the most dangerous 
kind, calculated to build up one industry at the expense of another 
equally as important. It seeks to impose an unjust, uncalled for, and 
unwarranted burden upon one of the principal commercial industries of 
the country for the purpose of prohibiting its manufacture, thereby 
destroying competition, as the manufacturers can not assume the addi- 
tional burden sought to be imposed by this measure and sell their 
product in competition with butter. The enactment of this measure 
would throttle competition, render useless the immense establishments 
erected at great expense for the manufacture of butterine, deprive 
thousands of employees of the opportunity to gain a livelihood, and 
deny the people, and especially the workingmen and their dependents 
of a wholesome article of diet. 

In butterine a very large proportion of the consumers of this coun- 
try, especially the working classes, have a wholesome, nutritious, and 
satisfactor}^ article of diet, which before its advent they were obliged, 
owing to the high price of butter and their limited means, to go 
without. 

The "butter fat" of an average beef animal for the purpose of mak- 
ing butterine is worth $3 per head more than it was before the advent 
of butterine, when the same had to be used for tallow, which increased 
value of the beef steer has been added to the market value of the 
animal, and consequently to the protit of the producer. 

To legislate this article of commerce out of existence, as the pas- 
sage of this law would surely do, would compel slaughterers to use 
this fat for tallow, and depreciate the market value of the beef cattle 
$3 per head, which would entail a loss on the producers of this coun- 
tvy of millions of dollars. 

Your orator submits that it is manifestly unjust, unreasonable, and 
unwarranted to deny the manufacturers of the product of the beef 
steer the same privileges in regard to the use of coloring matter that 
are accorded the manufacturers of the product of the dairy. 

The rights and privileges of the producers of beef cattle should be 



18() OLEOMARGARINE. 

as woU respected as those of others, and as theyai'e the henticiaries in 
the manufacture of this wholesome article of food, they should not 
be burdened with unnecessary special taxes or needless restrictions in 
the manufacture of this product, other than is absolutely necessary for 
the support of the Government and the proper goyernmental regula- 
tions surrounding the handling of same. 

This product of the ''"beef steer" should receive at the hands of 
Congress no greater exactions than those imposed upon competing 
food products. It is already surrounded by numerous safeguards, 
which Congress in its wisdom has seen fit to provide, stipulating severe 
punishment for selling same under misrepresentation as to its com- 
position. It has by experience proven to be just what a large majority 
of the people of this country want, and in behalf of the producers 
and consumers of this great country we do solemnly protest against 
the enactment of legislation calculated to ruin a great industry, and 
to deprive not only the working classes, but man}- others, of a cheap, 
wholesome, nutritious, and acceptal)le article of food. 

The Executive Committee of the 

National Live Stock Exchange, 
By W. H. Thompson, President. 

Attest: 

C. W. Baker, Secretary. 

STATEMENT OF HENEY C. PIRRTJNG, GENERAL MANAGER OF 
THE CAPITAL CITY DAIRY COMPANY, COLUMBUS, OHIO. 

The Acting Chairman. Where are you from i 

Mr. PiRRUNG. From Columbus, Ohio. I am the general manager of 
the Capital City Dairy Company and the general manager of the Colum- 
bus Cream and Milk Company, producers of creamery butter and deal- 
ers in milk and cream. 

The Acting Chairman. You may proceed. 

Mr. PiRRUNG. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am 
present to-day to defend the butterine interests in the capacity of a 
manufacturer, being general manager of the Capital City Dairy Com- 
pany, of Columbus, Ohio, makers of high-grade butterine. 

It has been suggested to me to be as brief as possible in ni}' state- 
ment, and 1 will endeavor, therefore, to present the matter in as con- 
cise a form as possible, and yet as terse as I hope will meet the con- 
venience of you gentlemen. 

First of all, 1 desire to take up the sul)ject of so-called *' natural" 
butter. In my humble opinion, the term *■' natural" is an idiosyncrasy, 
fostered and fathered by the creamery and dairy butter churners and 
by the proprietors and editors of dairy papers, for the purpose of 
alluring, perhaps, more particularly the illiterate into the belief that 
butter is absolutely a product given to us in its entii'cty and tinished 
shape by nature. I, however, have never been able to find a cow, no 
matter of what breed, color, or size, that gives to us this much-talked- 
of product, "'natural" butter. Nor have I ))een able to find any tree, 
shrub, or plant upon which grows this much-talked-of "natural" but- 
ter. We, however, do know that l)utter is churned from natural prod- 
ucts, chiefly the milk of the cow, which milk undergoes a process of 
manufacture conducted through a system of mechanical hand or steam- 



OLEOMARGARINE. 187 

]i()ucr app.iiiitu.s, to which is custoiiiiiriiv a<l(l<'(!, cspcciully in this 
coiiiiirv, a niiiicral matter called salt, and <'itlier a mineral or vegetable 
compound commonly called '''l)utt(M" color/' After this cow's milk 
has iind(M"L;<)ne a mechanical process for separating tli(^ cream or fat 
out of it, and which cream is then set aside for ripening, to a suitable 
condition of acidity, it is now ready to be put into a mechanical con- 
trivance, either of a rounder square pattern, commonly called a churn, 
in which receptacle it undergoes a process of congelation, after which 
it is put upon another mechanical device, operated either by hand or 
steam power, for the purpose of introducing the salt, and which is 
commonly known as a butter-salter. The color is sometimes added on 
this Salter, but more generally is the color added in the chui'n. After 
these various processes we tind that we have a nice golden yellow 
product, resembling, perhaps, more a mass of deep yellow gold than 
anything else, but surely have a product that does not look one par- 
ticle like the milk it was made from, either in texture, form, or color, 
and we certainl}^ dare not class this article under any other head than 
a manufactured product. In my opinion we would have just as nnich 
right to call apple, peach, or quince butter "" natural" butter, although 
I think we wnll all agree that they are not entitled to be so named, 
because they are artificially made and compounded or manufactured 
from ''natural" products onl3% 

From what and how is butterine made ? It has been stated before 
the connnittee of the House of Representatives of this Congress, and 
no doul)t before this committee, of w-hat it is composed; so I will not 
dwell upon that, but simply state that the ingredients of butterine are 
mixed or churned by hand or steam power in a manner similar yet 
decidedly distinct from the process used for making butter. There is 
also introduced into butterine salt and a harmless coloring matter. We 
have therefore two food products manufactured, or churned, as it is 
more commonly called, and what do we find? In the language of Pro- 
fessor Burner, formerly dean of the department of chemistry in the 
Ohio Medical University, and chemist for the Ohio food and dairy 
department — we can best quote the finding in his own language, as 
follow\s: ""After extracting from butter all mineral matter, water, etc, 
there remains a residue of 100 per cent fat. After treating butterine 
in the same manner I arrived at the same result of having a residue of 
100 per cerit fat. An examination with the microscope of the diti'erent 
fats shows them to l)e very nearly id(Mitical, so much so that no accu- 
rate determination could ]je depended upon by this instrument. After 
a chemical analysis I find that they are still very nearly identical, except 
that the butterine contained less of the volatile acid." 

Prof. Henry A. Weber, of the department of chemistry of the Ohio 
State University, also chemist for the Ohio food and dairy department, 
testified under oath that there w'as no fat present in the sample of but- 
terine he analyzed which would not be present or might not be present 
in butter, nor w^as there an}' fat absent in butterine which you would 
find in buttei-; also testified that in niMther case is there a chemical 
combination, but that in both cases it is a mixture, and that the only 
difi'erence betwecji l)utter and ])utterine lies in the small difl'erencc of 
butyi'in. 

I couid go on ;ind give you innumeral)l(>. quotations from learned men, 
unbiased and unprejudiced, from various parts of the United States, 
full}' in tu'cord, and perhaps exen stronger in fa\'or of butterine than 



188 OLEOMARGARINE. 

the two previously quoted, from which opinions we ciin only derive 
that butter and butterine are identical, save in the diti'erence ot" the 
percentage of butyric acid and the difference in the process of manu- 
facture. The rancidity which makes butter so objectionable to taste 
and smell comes from the liberation of butyric acid, and thereby is 
explained the reason why butterine never gets rancid, because it con- 
tains only a small percentage of this butyrin, wholly insufficient to 
cause any objectionable odor. Having thoroughly explained that both 
butter and butterine are artificially made food products, and that the 
ingredients of both compounds are extracts from the animal provided 
by nature, and that they are nearly identical in every particular, we 
come to the all-important subject of "'coloring." 

We need not go back fifteen or twent3^-five years to remember that 
dairy butter was mostly white, or of a very light yellow, and very 
rarely, if ever, seen in that golden-yellow color so prominent and 
characteristic of butter to-da3^ Let us take up the subject of the color 
of dairy butter to-day — with all the advanced ideas of dairying, of 
making, and with all the advanced ideas of keeping, caring, and feed- 
ing the cow — and what is the results We find that the color of dairy 
butter is as varied to-da}^ and perhaps more so, on account of the inter- 
breeding of cattle, uncommon and perhaps not known twenty -five years 
ago. AVe also find that there is a difference in color of butter from 
nearly each different herd of dairy cattle, conditioned upon the care 
and the feeding of the cattle, and these different colors avo again mul- 
tiplied })y the different seasons' changes affecting the color of butter 
which is churned free from artificial coloration. This proves unde- 
niably and indisputably that ''nature" has made no changes in the 
milk-giving properties of her cow, and therefore we must in all reason 
firmly believe that the universal golden color of butter is due solely 
and alone to the introduction of an artificial ingredient called "color- 
ing." I beg to call your attention to the fact that not all butter is col- 
ored artificially, because there are a number of conditions from artificial 
feeding and caring for the cattle and certain seasons of the year during 
which different shades of yellow butter can be produced. 

In my opinion good fresh butter is better suited as an article of food 
when it is colored with a harmless coloring matter, yet one is very apt 
to be deceived in the purchase of colored butter, because the introduc- 
tion of coloring matter, which is allowed to be introduced and is most 
frequently used in inferior makes of butter, is calculated to deceive 
even the most wary. In this lies the greatest danger, not only in the 
deception of the quality, but also in the price of butter, because 1 do 
not believe that any person using only the sense of sight can distinguish 
rancid from fresh butter which is colored alike. I will not attempt to 
state that the introduction of coloring in butter should be prohibited. 
On the contrary, in my humble opinion the coloring of butter should 
be allowed, because even the school child who has passed the primary 
grade will define the color of butter as "yellow," and every adult 
expects at this advanced age to have the product served to him '\yel- 
low." Now, why should not all of the foregoing be applicable to this 
new food product legislatively called "oleomargarine," and why should 
not every argument in favor of colored butter be applied to buttei'ine? 
Butterine is as decidedlj^ a farm product as butter, because there is 
absolutely no ingredient in its composition that does not come from 



OLEOMARGARINE. 189 

the farm, and being identical in their nature and composition they 
should enjoy the same relative privileges for their appearance. 

There must be a reason for manufacturers of butter coloring their 
product, and as I am a manufacturer of butter also, owning four large 
creameries in Ohio, I think that I am entitled to give my opinion for 
the using of such coloring matter, and which, in my vast experience, 
has not been disputed, and that is that coloring is added to the butter 
made in our creameries at all seasons of the year to give it, first, a 
uniform color; second, to maiie it more marketable, and third, to 
enhance its value as a food product. Does not this same reasoning 
hold good for the coloring of butterine, and should not the manufac- 
turers of butterine enjoy the same privileges as those enjoyed l)y their 
competitors. I am assuming in my argument that there has been 
nothing said before the House committee hearing this testimon}^ nor 
have I heard that anything has been said before this committee against 
the healthfulness of either butter or butterine, and desire it to be 
understood that when making comparisons between butter and butter- 
ine I am describing the fresh products of both. The subject of col- 
oring butterine is not a new one, nor have our butter competitors 
confined themselves to "yellow" color, for they have gone so far as 
to usurp and coerce political influence to the extent of having several 
State laws passed actually prescribing a "pink" coloring for butterine. 
This, however, has been a significant failure, precipitating upon their 
heads the severest condemnation, not only from the consumers of but- 
terine, but from the butter-makers' liberal-minded constituency. It 
is an accepted theory that there must be a reason for everything, but 
following the old adage that "it takes an exception to prove a rule," 
there has been no reason given by the advocates of these "pink" laws 
for the enactment of such a measure. We therefore are privileged 
to draw our own conclusions. 

First and foremost, it appears that they decided that by prescribing 
a "pink" color the product would be so disguised that not even the 
most suspicious would ever entertain the idea it was butterine, and 
hence its sale would be stopped from lack of identification, or, even if 
identified, a refusal to eat such a discolored product as prescribed by 
these "pink" laws would follow. I may state, to the credit of the 
attempting destructors of this new food product, that they introduced 
these ''discoloring" laws in only a very few States, becoming quickly 
and painfully aware that the general public would not countenance 
such a glaring destruction of an industry and a desirable food product 
in such an insincere and unpardonabl}^ outrageous manivM-. Failing in 
their attempt to compel manufacturers of butterine to discolor their 
product with a "pink" coloring matter they are now attempting (and 
somewhat successfully, too) the " forbidding" the use of a " yellow" 
coloring matter, and the same coloring matter that they testify is used 
in their product, called butter. You will therefore readily perceive 
the reason for their astounding acrobatic performance in the guise of 
legislation, turning from the outrageous enactment of actually pre- 
scribing a "pink" discoloration to the enactment of laws prohibiting 
the use of any coloring matter. They have played their part splen- 
didly and somersaulting was well suited, because of the very impor- 
tant fact that by stopping the introduction of yellow coloring matter 
in butterine it would leaVe this product in its natural color of nearly 



190 OLEOMAKGARINE. 

white, Jind which color would be quite as repugnant and as offensive to 
sight in this twentieth century of culture and science as the prescribed 
introduction of a "pink" color, and would result in a positive and 
absolute refusal of the consumer to purchase butterine in a "white" 
color at any price. In order to prove that my reasoning comes from 
the most learned source, I would beg the privilege of quoting from 
Justice Peckham, of the United States Supreme Court, in his decision 
in the case of Collins v. The State of New Hampshire, which State had 
enacted one of the now invalid ""pink" color laws: 

He says: "Although under the wording of this statute the importer 
is permitted to sell oleomargarine freely and to any extent, provided 
he colors it 'pink,' yet the permission to sell, when accompanied by 
the imposition of a condition, which, if complied with, will effectually 
prevent an}^ sale, amounts in law to a prohibition. 

"If this provision for coloring the article were a legal condition, a 
legislature could not be limited to 'pink' in its choice of colors. The 
legislative fancy or taste would he l^oundless. It might equally as well 
provide that it should be colored blue, or red, or black. Nor do we 
see that it would be limited to the use of coloring matter. It might, 
instead of that, provide that the article should onl}- be sold if mixed 
with some other article, which, while not deleterious to health, would 
nevertheless give out a most offensive smell. If the legislature has the 
power to direct that the article shall be colored 'pink,' which can only 
be accomplished by the use of some foreign substance that will have 
that effect, we do not know upon what principle it should })e confined 
to discoloration, or why a provision for an offensive odor would not be 
just as A^alid as one prescribing the particular color. The truth is, 
however, as we have above stated, the statute in its necessary effect 
is prohibitory, and, therefore, upon the principle recognized in the 
Pennsylvania cases, it is invalid.'' 

Now, gentlemen, you will note from the above abstract of Justice 
Peckham's decision that he sa3\s a legislature can not be limited to 
"pink" in its choice of colors, and that the legislative fancy would be 
boundless. He further states the legislature might equally as well 
provide that it should be colored blue or red or black, and he might 
nave gone on and said "white," for it is the very commonest knowledge 
that "white" is one of the most distinctive colors known in this age, 
and has been from time immemorial. Justice Peckham confined him- 
self to the mention of only three colors, because we all know that to 
have recited the entire list of colors would have filled a book nearly the 
size of an encyclopedia. We must, therefore, presume that by his 
recitation of only three colors he meant to convey, and in fact does say, 
that the legislative fancy or taste for colors would be boundless, and it 
is only reasonable to presume that he meant to include a "white" color 
as being equally as repugnant to the taste of the consumer as "pink," 
"blue," "red," or "black." You can readily see, therefore, why the 
astounding acrobatic performance of the dairy interests is necessary, 
and I can plainly see concealed in all of this luidue "yellow" color agi- 
tation that a no plainer expose of their leg(^rdemain could be given 
than in the words of »Justice Peckham, and I do not think that anyone 
will attempt to say that they ha\'e })een a particle overdrawn. It is as 
plain as dajdight that the attempted legislation forl)idding the use of 
yellow coloring is only a subterfuge to overcome the invalid law pre- 
scribing a "pink" discoloration. Since we are on the subject of opin- 



OLEOMARGARINE. 191 

ions from learned men of the Supreme Bench of the United States, it 
mi^ht not be irrelevant herewith to quote an opinion from Chief Jus- 
tice Fuller in the case of Plumley v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 
in which, among- other things, he says: 

''Upon this record oleomargarine is conceded to be a wholesome, 
palatable, and luitritious article of food, in no way deleterious to the 
public health or welfare. It is of the natural color of butter, and looks 
like butter, and is often colored, as butter is, by harmless ingredients — 
a deeper yellow — to render it more attractive to consumers. The 
assumption that it is thus colored to make it appear a different article 
generically than it is has no legal basis to rest on." 

It is noteworthv that in the first case appearing before the Supreme 
Court of the United States the court was nearly a unit against butter- 
ine, because this article at that time was not so well known as at 
present, but quite as steadily as this product ingratiated itself com- 
mercially the court in its opinions more equally divided itself, until 
only recently it gave its opinion almost unanimously in favor of butter- 
ine; and this further proves, through these learned men, that the 
product is not such a menace to public health or commerce as the dairy 
or creamery interests woidd have us believe. I desire to take up a 
few of the charges by the creamerymen against this product, the most 
prominent one being that when butterine is colored it is done so to 
imitate "yellow butter." I do not believe that an}" one person in the 
world to-day possesses the exact knowledge of the number of "'^^el- 
low'' colors that could be given to butter l)y any one coloring matter, 
and therefore say, without fear of contradiction, that there is no one 
capable of giving the number of shades of yellow colors that can be 
produced in butter with the numerous makes of mineral and vegetable 
colors on the markets to-day. 

We all know that there are very light yellows, canary yellows, straw 
yellows, light yellows, medium yellows, light and dark golden j^ellows, 
sunflower yellows, orange yellows, deep yellows and, in fact, yellows 
indescribable from the almost indistinguishable faint yellow to the most 
intense pumpkin yellow. They say we color our product to resemble 
butter. I, for one, would like to have either the adherents of this 
Grout bill or Congress to decide what yellow we are imitating. It 
just occurs to me that if these dairy exhorters were really sincere in 
their motives to have butter and butterine distinct in color, and in con- 
nection therewith desire to extend the equity due their fellow man, they 
would ask Congress to regulate and specify a deep, rich, golden yellow 
for dairy and creamery butter, and specif}' for the butterine maker a 
lii'ht straw yellow for his product, which, in my judgment, would 
thoroughly inform the consumer of what he is purchasing. Or, in 
order not to be a lut choice in the matter, let the regulation of colors 
be reversed if it should please the butter makers. Other adherents of 
this Grout bill have said that we make and color our butterine in 
"sem])lance of butter," which in my opinion is still more indefinable, 
because it not only takes in all of the ""yellow" colors of butter but 
the whit«^ and various other hues of butter which I will not even begin 
to define, but all of which illustrates how ridiculous these charges 
appear to the most ordinary observer. 

To those who are interested in this controversy there can 1)e but 
one conclusion, that either the adher<Mits of this bill do not know what 
they want, or want a spread-eagle law that amounts to actual prohibition, 



192 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

To prove that there is less gained b}^ coloring butterine than butter we 
will take some average prices of the different products for the summer 
and winter months, admitting, for the sake of argument, that both but- 
ter and butterine are colored during all seasons of the year. During 
the grass or summer months of the year butter retails at from 15 to 
20 cents per pound, and butterine at from 15 to ITi cents per pound. 
During the winter months butterine retails at about 20 cents per 
pound, while we all know that butter brings an average price of about 
27i cents per pound. By this comparison you will note that butter- 
ine advances about 2^ cents per pound during the winter season, and 
butter about 7i cents per pound, and that both products are admitted 
to be colored. Now, then, I would ask. What price butter would bring 
in the winter time if it was sold in its natural color of white? I will 
answer this myself by stating that the average price would be some- 
thing like 10 to 15 cents per pound, and could then only be sold for 
cooking or baking purposes. You will therefore note by the above 
illustration, and I think that the prices are fairly given, that there is 
not such a fearful fraud committed in coloring butterine as some of 
the dair}^ papers would have their readers believe, and indeed the shoe 
could be put on the other foot if the Elgin butter prices of last winter 
are taken into account. 

Creamery butter makers will remember very distinctly that the Elgin 
Board of Trade last winter steadily advanced the price of butter to 29 
cents per pound wholesale, and we all know that these prices are made 
each Monday on the Elgin board and are supposed to hold good for the 
remainder of the week. A great many people predicted that this high 
price of creamerj^ butter was fictitious, and their prediction was veri- 
fied when the next meeting of the board reduced the price from 29 
cents to 24 cents per pound, and Avhich, as far as we know, is the 
greatest drop that ever occurred in the Elgin Board of Trade in one 
week's time. We can only conjecture what would have been the price 
of butter on the Elgin Board of Trade last year if there had been a 
law forbidding the use of yellow coloring, but we can be reasonably 
positive that the price would not have been 29 cents per pound. 
Another absurd charge made through the dairy journals is that but- 
terine is sold for butter and that if the consumers really knew that they 
were eating butterine that the manufacture and sale of butterine would 
almost amount to nothing. To this charge we can only refer our com- 
petitors to the statement of the honorable Commissioner of Internal 
Kevenue, in which he says that less than 3 per cent of butterine was 
sold contrary to law. Now, then, who eats the other 97 per cent? 
Close observation on this point has divided the consumers of butterine 
into two distinct classes, the first being those who consume it from 
choice and who are familiar with its composition, manufacture, etc., 
and the other class are those who consume it from necessity, on account 
of the reduced price at which it can be purchased, and close observa- 
tion further proves that a great part of the former class is made up 
from the latter, because of the cultivation of the taste for the product 
which is encouraged by continuous consumption. 

Friends of the Grout bill say that the sale of butterine is growing to 
an alarming extent. That, in my opinion, is the best indorsement that 
the product is meeting favorably not only with the pocketbook but 
with the taste of the consumer. Of course, the sale of butterine is 
growing every year, and it will ever continue to do so. Because of its 



OLEOMAEGAKINE. 198 

very composition and manufacture, it is an ai-ticle that commends 
itself to the most fastidious person and especially to the literate, who 
positively know that its manufacture is conducted under the rigid 
supervision of the most punctilious revenue officials and, in most 
States, under the prejudiced and biased supervision of food and dairy 
departments. The best indorsement for the purity of butterine is the 
fact that Government and State analytical experts have never found a 
flaw in its ingredients or its manufacture; otherwise the}^ would have 
been compelled, and in State cases would have been glad, to wipe the 
manufacture and sale of butterine out of existence under the now 
oppressive and unreasonable laws. 

The adherents of the Grout bill make the bold and astounding an- 
nouncement that there is nothing in this bill to prevent the sale of 
uncolored butterine, and even refer with great pride to their magna- 
nimity in the reduction of the present tax of 2 cents per pound to one- 
fourth cent per pound on butterine free from coloring matter. This 
astounding declaration either precedes or succeeds a statement that 
butterine is unfit for human food. I therefore would ask if it is their 
acknowledgment that this Congress should be asked to encourage the 
sale of uncolored butterine by a reduction of the present tax, and 
should by an exorbitant tax prohibit its sale simply because it is col- 
ored with a harmless coloring matter, and such a coloring matter as 
the butter makers admit using in their product. It is certainly the 
height of inconsistency to ask Congress to encourage the sale of a 
product which they claim unfit for human consumption. Everyone 
knows that color in butter and butterine is a nutritive ingredient, 
adding neither flavor, texture, nor weight, but is used in very minute 
quantities, and therefore can not possibly make colored butterine any 
more unhealthy than colored butter. I can not, therefore, understand 
the logic of such attempted legislation, which presumably intends to 
increase the sale of uncolored butterine at a lower rate of taxation and 
intends to prohibit the sale of colored butterine through an exorbitant 
tax. 

It has also been common phraseology in the dair}^ journals to refer 
to colored butterine as being adulterated, which, in my judgment, is a 
two-edged sword, provided the term is used correctly. Upon refer- 
ence to Webster's Dictionar}^, however, we find the definition of the 
word "adulterated" to be as follows: " To corrupt, debase, or make 
impure by an admixture of baser materials. " It is readily perceived, 
therefore, that the term "adulterated " as applied to the coloring of 
butterine is inconsistent, unless the makers of butter or the editors of 
the dairy journals desire to establish a new definition for the word 
"adulterated," or that they will admit that they have debased their 
product or made it impure by the admixture or addition of baser mate- 
rials, such as coloring matter. 

Another one of their prize cries in the dairy journals is that they 
want protection. Who asks for it ? The manufacturer ? The merchant ? 
The retailer? The mechanic? The artisan? The laborer? No; my 
dear sirs, not these. It is the publishers of the creamer}^ and dairy 
journals and a few would-be promoters for a creamery butter trust. 
Nor is it, as they publish in their papers, the farmer that asks for pro- 
tection, liocause, in the first place, the farmer does not have to eat but- 
terine, and consequef^itly needs no protection on this point, and, besides, 
butter making on the farm never was an important factor, and during 

S^ Rep. 2043 13 



194 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

the present advanced age of creamery butter making- is almost a lost 
art, on account of creameries springing up at every crossroad and to 
which farmers deliver milk, because it pays them better than to make 
butter in small quantities, taking up a great deal of their time for 
delivery and sale in the cities, etc. In our opinion if anyone needs 
protection it is the consumer that should ask for it, and let this cry of 
protection die out until it emanates from the proper source — the con- 
sumer. 1 could go on at length pointing out arguments entirely incon- 
sistent to the charges made against the butterine manufacturers of the 
United States, but will content myself with the few cases already .sub- 
mitted, and will conclude by submitting my humble opinion of what 
ought to be done with this biannually vexatious problem of coloring. 

First of all, I, as a manufacturer, stand upon the broad base and 
high pinnacle of fair-mindedness, and openly state, without retraction, 
that if butterine is not wholesome, pure, and nutritious, and if its man- 
ufacture is not conducted in a scrupulously cleanly manner, and if it is 
not in every way a food product fit for the consumption of our citizens 
of the United States, it is a plain and recognized duty to forbid its 
manufacture entirely; but, on the other hand, if its ingredients are 
pure and its manufacture conducted in a proper manner, and if it is in 
every way proportionately as wholesome and satisfactory as butter, it 
should be allowed to be manufactured containing that very insignifi- 
cant but all-important ingredient of yellow color, which is so liberally 
prescribed for butter. I also broadly assert that Congressional and 
State legislation should tend solely for the betterment of food products, 
and particularly in the case of butter and butterine should actually 
prescribe that both products should be colored with a harmless color- 
ing matter, and while in a certain sense it would be equitable to forbid 
the coloring of butter if the coloring of butterine be disallowed, 3^et 
I, for one, would condemn an}^ such action, because I think, as stated 
before, that legislation should encourage the coloring of both products 
in order to enhance their value and improve the sightliness of both, 
which would please the eye, and through the eye, which is in direct 
communication with the stomach, increase the palatability of the prod- 
ucts, naturally aiding the digestive organs, which is the creator of 
"better health," and which should be the sole object of all food 
legislation. 

Mr. Knight. Ma}^ I ask a question, Mr. Chairman? 

The Acting Chairman. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Knight. Are you sure, Mr. Pirrung, that the Commissioner of 
Internal Revenue said that it was 3 per cent of oleomargarine that was 
sold as butter? 

Mr. Pirrung. That is common knowledge all over the United States. 

Mr. Knight. But I am speaking of his statement. He made a state- 
ment before the Agricultural Committee of the House, and jou have 
made the statement here. I say are j'ou sure of that? 

Mr. Pirrung. That was my information; yes. I did not read his 
report. 

Mr. Knight, Another thing. In speaking of the inspection of the 
Government in the oleo factories, do you mean to infer that the Gov- 
ernment does inspect the oleo factories ? 

Mr. Pirrung. Most decidedlj-. 

Mr. Knight. Do they make chemical analyses of the oleomargarine 
right along? 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 195 

Mr. PiRRUNG. Yes, sir; the Bureau of Chemistry of the Agricultural 
Department does that for them. 

Mr. Knight. How many factories are there in the United States ? 

Mr. PiRRUNG. I think about twenty -five or thirty. 

Mr. Knight. And about how many inspections do they make of 
the products 3'ou turn out? 

Mr. PiRRUNG. I can not state for other manufacturers, but perhaps 
they come to us five or six times a year. They do not only require 
samples from the factories for the inspection. They go all over the 
United States, or States where our product or any other manufactured 
product is sold, and take up samples unknown to us. 

Mr. Knight. Do they analyze them? 

Mr. PiRRUNG. Yes. 

Mr. Knight. That is done among the retailers? 

Mr. PiRRUNG. Yes; I presume so, and among wholesalers as well. 

Mr. Knight. There are about 10,000 retailers in the country, 
according to the last report. 

Mr. PiRRUNG. I do not know. You are better posted on that than 
I am. 

Mr. Knight. What is the penalty if anything is found in your prod- 
uct that is not wholesome ? 

Mr. PiRRUNG. I have always understood the Government would be 
compelled to close up our factory. 

Mr. Knight. You are not acquainted with the law very well, then, 
are j^ou ? 

Mr. PiRRUNG. I thought 1 was. 

Mr. Clark. They would not only close it up, but would confiscate it. 

Mr. Knight. They would confiscate the goods that they find ? 

Mr. PiRRUNG. The}^ will close up our factory. If you will read the 
law, you will post yourself. 

Senator Heitfeld. What are the restrictions on the sale of oleo- 
margarine in the District of Columbia? 

Mr. Knight. I can not answer as to the District of Columbia, Mr. 
Heitfeld. 

Senator Heitfeld. When you have time, I wish you would look 
that up. 

Mr. Knight. They are not the same as they are in the States. 

Senator Heitfeld. 1 find that at the Center Market here they sell 
a good deal of it. I also found, after caref uU}' looking over the ground, 
that they were selling butter at one side of the stand and butterine at 
the other side, and there was a sign above the stand saying ""Butter- 
ine." I could not see anything on the product itself that showed that 
it was butterine, except that it was piled in each case on boxes, and 
the boxes had the revenue stamp on them, and there was paper lying 
on the counter which had the stamp "Oleomargarine" across it. I 
was very much interested in the matter, and I found that they had 
butterine on one side of the stand and butter on the other side. I did 
not know whether there was an}' law that compelled them to keep it 
separate from the butter product, but I did not see any case of but- 
terine being sold on the butter side of the stand. J asked one of the 
salesmen there whether this was the common way of doing this, and 
he said it was. I said to him, "Now, there is not a thing that tells me 
this is butterine except the fact that I see it above there, and I might 
not look up there. Do you tell anybody you are selling butterine 



196 OLEOMARGARINE. 

here?" He said, "No, we do not; but then," he said, "you can see 
it when we wrap it in paper," which is true. I said, "Are you afraid 
to state that this is butterine?" He said, "No; but we get called 
down pretty often if we do call it that, because it seems to be objec- 
tionable to the people to have their attention called to it." 

Mr. Springer. I will state, Senator, that on page 12 of the House 
hearings the synopsis of the District of Columbia law is given. It is 
the act of Congress approved March 2, 1895: 

"Substances in semblance of butter or cheese, not made exclusively 
of milk or cream, but with the addition of melted butter or any oil, 
shall be plainly branded on each package 'Oleomargarine,' and a label 
similarly printed must accompany each retail sale." 

Mr. Knight. In answer to your question. Senator, I will give you 
a little information on that. You said you saw no marks on the bricks ? 

Senator Heitfeld. I saw no mark. 

Mr. Knight. In the House hearing the oleomargarine people. Swift 
& Co., came before the committee and exhibited some bricks of oleo- 
margarine with those wrappers on. That was in accordance with a 
certain ruling. 

Senator Heitfeld. I think that mark was on the brown paper they 
wrapped it in down here; but I did not see any marks on the product 
itself. 

Mr. Knight. I will tell you why those marks were absent. A few 
years ago they used to put the words "Jersey," "Holstein," and all 
kinds of creamery names on butterine. Just about a year ago the 
Internal-Revenue Department made a ruling to the effect that if they 
put any printed matter whatever on the parchment wrappers that went 
around butterine, they must also put the word "Oleomargarine" in 
letters of a certain size. Immediately in this market every vestige of 
printed matter disappeared from every package of oleomargarine, and 
I do not believe you can find in the city of Washington to-day a pound 
of oleomargarine on sale that has a printed wrapper on it; because, if 
they put the printed wrapper on, or any kind of printing, it must have 
the word "Oleomargarine" on it. 

Senator Heitfeld. They wrap it up in a wrapper that has the word 
"Oleomargarine" on it. 

Mr. Knight. But it does not have that word on the brick. 

Senator Heitfeld. No, not on the brick. The brick is wrapped in 
tissue paper. 

Mr. Knight. Formerly they had the words "Swift's Jersey" and 
such words as that; but when the ruling was made that they should 
put the word "Oleomargarine" on if they had any printing, immedi- 
ately everything dropped off. I made a search of this town, in 
company with Representative Neville, of Nebraska, Representative 
Haugen, of Iowa, and Representative Dahle, of Wisconsin, and we 
searched every place to find a package of oleomargarine in parchment 
paper that had any printing on it at all, and we failed to find one in 
the city. 

Senator Heitfeld. Of course, if anyone were looking out for it, 
he could find it very nicel}^ in this sign above the stand. 

Mr. Knight. That may be, in the Center Market. 

Senator Heitfeld. If anybody desired to avoid buying it, he could 
see that sign; or if anybody wanted it very bad he could see it. 

Mr. Ejshght. It is just as likely to be butterine on the butter side, 



OLEOMARGARINE. 197 

though. I want to tell you an experience I had in the house of this 
man who is promoting this National or Standard Butterine Company 
here. We called in there, and asked him if he had any of Swift's 
Jersey Butterine. He said he had, Mr. Neville and Mr. Haugen and 
Mr. Dahle were with me. I said, "Let me see a package, please.'' 
He brought out a package which was absolutely plain. I said, "Is 
this Swift's Jersey Butterine?" He said, "It is." I said, "But I am 
accustomed to seeing it. 1 am quite familiar with the brand." He 
took me for a dealer, from the knowledge I displayed of the differ- 
ent brands of oleomargarine, and he said, "Well, I will tell you. 
According to a new rule that has been issued by the Internal-Revenue 
Department, if they put anything on they must put on the word 
'oleomargarine,' don't you see; so you would have to have the word 
'oleomargarine' on it if there was anything printed on it at all." 
Congressman Neville and Congressman Haugen and Congressman 
Dahle heard him tell me that thing at that time; and he is now pro- 
moting a million-dollar plant for manufacturing butterine in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. 

Mr. PiRRUNG. Mr. Knight, the United States internal-revenue laws 
prescribe, under penalty, that each retail lot of oleomargarine shall 
have on the wrapper, on the wooden dish, plainl}'^ stamped, the name 
of the seller, his address, and the word "oleomargarine?" 

Mr. Knight. Yes. 

Mr. PiRRUNG. Tell me what injustice there would be to have on the 
product itself "Swift's Jersey," "Holstein," "Elgin," or any other 
name, with that wrapper on the outside, as prescribed under penalty 
by the United States interal-revenue laws? 

Mr. Knight. What injustice there would be? 

Mr. PiRRUNG. Yes; what injustice? 

Mr. Knight. It would be just about like printing it on ice. You 
could print it on ice with about the same effect. 

Mr. PiRRUNG. What does the consumer first see? 

Mr. Knight. He does not see anything, as a rule. 

Mr. PiRRUNG. He sees the outside of the wrapper. 

Mr. Knight. And what is the outside of the wrapper ? I have a 
few of them to exhibit to the committee. 

The Acting Chairman. We must proceed in order here. Who is 
the next gentleman who desires to be heard? 

Senator Heitfeld. Is it not time for the committee to adjourn? If 
we adjourn so late in the afternoon, it does not give me time to look 
over my mail in the evening, and it makes it rather burdensome in the 
morning. 

The Acting Chairman. I understood there were four gentlemen here 
to speak for the oleomargarine side. 

Mr. Clark. The samples of one of the gentlemen have not arrived 
yet. 

The Acting Chairman. How many of you will be prepared to go on 
to-morrow? How long a time do you want, Mr. Tillinghast? 

Mr. Tillinghast. I shall be through in a hour, at least; perhaps 
less. 

The Acting Chairman. Another gentleman said he would desire to 
speak for an hour. 

Mr. ScHELL. Yes; but I can say what I have to say at any time. 

The Acting Chairman. You are both ready to go on to-morrow ? 



198 OLEOMARGAKINE. 

Mr. ScHELL, If there is no one here who wants to get through and 
get away I will be ready; yes. 

Senator Heitfeld. Did not Senator Proctor say that he had prom- 
ised some time to some of Mr. Penrose's constituents to-morrow? 

The Acting Chairman. Yes; they will be here to-morrow. 

Senator Heitfeld. Of course we will have to be guided by what 
the chairman arranged for in the matter. The gentlemen who are 
ready to proceed had better be here to-morrow morning. 

The Acting Chairman. I assume that these two gentlemen can be 
heard to-morrow as well as the Pennsylvania people. 

Mr. ScHELL. Mr. Chairman, just one suggestion there. It seems to 
me it would be fairer if the friends of this bill should get their case in, 
and then we can reply. As it is, they put it in piecemeal. They have 
the right to close, and we are talking in the air. The burden of proof 
is on them, and they should make their case and then give us a chance 
at it. 

Senator Heitfeld. Some of your men are dilatory also, so we will 
have to do the best we can. We find that some of those who desire to 
appear before the committee can not be here until next week, and if 
we do not have these dairymen to fill in, we will probably be without 
work. 

The Acting Chairman. The Chairman understands that Governor 
Hoard and Mr. Knight desire to close their case, but in the meantime 
you are asking- each other questions back and forth, and taking up 
time in that way; and it is not quite the fair thing. 

The committee stands adjourned now until half past ten to-morrow 
morning. 

The committee, at 4.30 o'clock p.m., adjourned until Saturday, 
Januaiy 5, 1901, at 10.30 a. m. 



Washington, D. C, Saturday^ January 5, 1901. 

The committee met at 10.30 a. m. 

Present: Senators Hansbrough (acting chairman), Foster, Money, 
Heitfeld, and Dolliver. Also, Hon. W. D. Hoard, ex-governor of 
Wisconsin, president of the National Dairy Union; C. Y. Knight, sec- 
retary of the National Dairv Union; Hon. William M. Springer, Frank 
M. Matthewson, Frank W". Tillinghast, Charles E, Schell, Francis W. 
Lestrade, and others. 

The Acting Chairman. You may proceed, Mr. Tillinghast. 



STATEMENT OF FRANK W. TILLINGHAST. 

Mr. Tillinghast. Before I begin ni}- remarks, Mr. Chairman, I am 
requested to read a short letter written to the committee b}^ the Hol- 
land Butterine Company, manufacturers of high-grade butterine, of 
Pittsburg, Pa. , whose representative could not be present. It is very 
short, and I will read it. 

The Acting Chairman. You may have it printed without reading 
it, if you so desire. 

(The letter above referred to is as follows:) 



OLEOMARGARINE. 199 

Pittsburg, Pa., January 1, 1901. 
Hon. Redfield Proctor, 

Chairman Committee on Agriculture^ 

United States Senate^ Washington , D. C. 

Dear Sir: Being the only manufacturers of oleomargarine in Penn- 
sj^lvania, operating under a charter granted b}^ our State, and situated 
in Pittsburg, one of the largest markets for oleomargarine in the 
country, we are in such close touch with the trade that we can speak 
correctly on the situation here. 

We know and can furnish indisputable proofs that scarcely any of 
our product is sold to consumers as butter. Our goods cost the con- 
sumer 17 to 20 cents per pound, while creamery butter costs 30 to 
33 cents. We maintain that 90 per cent of the purchasers of oleo- 
margarine in the Pittsburg district know exactl}^ what the}'^ buy. 

The great difference in prices of the oleomargarine and butter has 
been the best possible source of enlightenment, especially to the labor- 
ing classes, and it is on these that such a tax as proposed by this 
bill will be the greatest burden; being deprived of oleomargarine as an 
article of diet to which they have become accustomed, the}^ will be 
compelled to pay a much higher price for the same or a similar article. 
Custom, habit, and the involuntary influence of the eye on the palate 
demands that all butter and substitutes for it shall be golden in color, 
and seeing that natural butter is artificially colored in order to be more 
palatable, why should oleomargarine not be also? 

If necessary to tax oleomargarine to prohibition because artificially 
colored, why not also tax all compounds which are vile substitutes for 
molasses, jellies, vinegars, preserves, liquors, etc., in the same manner. 
This exorbitant and unjust tax will not prevent, but rather encourage 
fraud, because the increased cost will bring retail prices so much nearer 
that of butter, thereby taking away the best possible proofs to the 
consumer whether he buys oleomargarine or butter. For example, in 
our market where the prevailing price is 3 pounds for 50 cents it will 
be 3 pounds for 75 cents, and consequently much more easily repre- 
sented as pure butter at 2 or 3 cents higher. 

If the sole object of this bill is to prevent fraud and not to deprive 
the laboring classes of a cheap and wholesome article of food there are 
many ways of fully advising the purchaser what he buys without 
changing its present constituent parts or color. 

It is plainly evident that the object of this bill is to increase profits 
for one class, butter makers, and to do so at the expense of three 
others, stock raisers, oleomargarine manufacturers, and the class of 
millions who consumed about 100,000,000 pounds of oleomargarine in 
1900. This last class mentioned must pay for all in the end — millions 
of dollars in unnecessary taxes to the United States Treasury or else 
corresponding millions to the ''innocents" who furnish them pure 
butter at advanced prices. 

Is it possible that such legislation can be enacted by our great United 
States Senate? We hope not. 

Very respectfully submitted. 

Holland Butterine Company, 
W. W. Prince, Ma/nager. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. In the discussion of this measure I shall make no 
reference to the legal status of the bill oul}^ in so far as it is necessary 



200 OLEOMAEGAEINE. 

to characterize the spirit of the advocates of the measure. This bill, 
if it rests upon good legal foundation, must of necessity base its 
strength upon the taxing power of Congress, an all-powerful weapon; 
and it is confessedly, by its advocates and by its opponents, a bill 
which will not raise a revenue, but which will destroy the revenue 
which is now collected by the present tax on oleomargarine. There- 
fore, we must say at once that the bill is not honest in raising revenue, 
but really is an attempt under the guise of a revenue measure to do 
that which it could not do directly. In other words, Congress could 
not pass an act prohibiting the sale of colored oleomargarine. Its 
police power would not extend to the States in that matter. The po- 
lice power of the States, and they have almost sovereign power within 
the limits of the State constitution and the Constitution of the United 
States, is supposed to extend itself to those matters affecting the pub- 
lic health, public morals, and public safety; and within those limits 
the States have the right to legislate and do legislate, so that if any 
State requires to pass a law against colored oleomargarine, it has been 
decided, as you well know, that they have that power; and, indeed, 
I am told that some thirty -two States have already passed laws against 
the sale and manufacture, or against the sale, at least, if not the man- 
ufacture, of colored oleomargarine, or oleomargarine made in sem- 
blance of butter. 

So that the States having full power to pass those laws and having 
the entire machinery of the States to enforce them may do so as they 
please. They have no excuse whatever to come to Congress and ask 
Congress to pass police regulations for the several States. The only 
excuse that can possibl}^ be offered in coming to Congress and asking 
it through the guise of taxation to extend itself and pass police regula- 
tions in the several States, is the cowardly confession that the laws of 
those States are not enforced; that the laws against colored oleomar- 
garine are violated in those States while those laws obtain; and they 
would have just as good an excuse to come here to Congress and ask 
Congress to pass some sort of legislation under some guise or other, 
taxation or whatever you please, to enforce the laws against larceny or 
adultery, or any one of the criminal code. 

Therefore, gentlemen, the proposition for you to extend the police 
regulations of the United States to the several States is something which 
you have not the constitutional or moral or historical right to do, if it 
came in exactly that form. It must be done under the deception of a 
revenue measure, and that is the way it is attempted to be done here. 
What possible right, what possible reason can be suggested that you 
shall impose upon the State of Rhode Island a police regulation which 
it does not desire. The State of Rhode Island is quite well satisfied 
with the enactments of its own legislature. It legislates concerning 
this oleomargarine question just as it pleases, and it is quite satisfied 
with that legislation. It looks with alarm, as every jurist and thought- 
ful person must look, at the attempt on the part of Congress to extend 
a police regulation into a State that is supposed to have had heretofore 
the right to make its own police regulations. 

I am not attempting a constitutional argument. That can better be 
made by those who are more qualified to make it than myself; but I 
am enforcing that point, that Rhode Island, with other States, clairas 
the right to exercise its own police powers, and that this is nothing 
more than a police law. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 201 

I said that the only excuse they could have for coming here was the 
confession that those laws are not enforced concerning- colored oleo- 
margarine in those States where those laws obtain ; and I said that that 
was no excuse for coming- to Congress, and it is not, even if it were 
admitted, for the purposes of argument, that there was a large amount 
of colored oleomargarine sold in those States contrary to law, and sold 
in fraud of butter — a proposition which I am not read\^ to admit. But 
I am ready to confess and state what I believe to be true with reference 
to that matter, that there is more colored oleomargarine sold contrar}^ 
to law in those States which have laws against it than there is in those 
States where oleomargarine is permitted to be sold for exactly what it 
is; and concerning that question I can speak with some personal 
experience and some knowledge. This committee has sat most 
patiently, and they have the gratitude, I am sure,, of all the oleomar- 
garine people as well as the dairymen, because they have been most 
fair and lenient; and if we have been, perhaps, very anxious to pre- 
sent our claims, it must be pardoned because of the fact that the con- 
sideration of this bill is of the greatest importance to us, of far greater 
importance to us than it is to the dairy interests. There should be no 
argument left unmade, and no fact, disguised or unknown, that should 
not be put in the possession of this committee. 

I was about to say that I had some knowledge of how oleomargarine 
is sold in one State, at least, where the only regulation concerning 
oleomargarine is that it must be sold for what it is and can not be sold 
for what it is not; and that does not appertain to the color. In Rhode 
Island oleomargarine has been sold ever since it was invented, and the 
sales of oleomargarine have constantly increased in that State. While 
those sales have constantly increased, I will say that with reference to 
the city of Providence there is not a better butter market in the world 
in comparison to the population. There is not a place where butter 
brings a higher price, or where better butter is found upon the mar- 
ket. Within less than one week I have myself tasted butter in the 
city of Providence that is better than I have seen in the city of Wash- 
ington or in the city of New York. 

Further, oleomargarine is not sold in Providence or in the State of 
Rhode Island for butter, and 1 would be willing to state that I would 
pay a forfeiture of $500 for every violation of the oleomargarine law 
of the State of Rhode Island. There is no temptation whatever in 
that State to sell oleomargarine for what it is not, because it comes 
in competition with butter. It is advertised on the streets for what it is. 
Everybody knows that they can buy oleomargarine for 15 cents a pound 
in wholesale quantities in 10-pound packages, or 17 cents at retail; 
and it is in the stores side by side with butter. You have free course 
to buy whatever 3^ou please, and there is no attempt on the part of 
the retail dealer or the wholesale dealer to induce you to buy it. It is 
so generally known as a food product in the stores and throughout the 
States, that there is no temptation whatever to deceive anybody, and 
try to sell it for butter. 

It is true in the State of Massachusetts, as I suppose it is true in all 
other States that have the anticolor law, that a percentage, perhaps a 
considerable percentage (I can give you my guess, as other people can 
give you theirs) is sold for butter. I want to be honest about this — 
I want to treat this question fairly; and I sa}^ the reason that any of 
it, or any considerable amount of it, is sold for butter is due to the 



202 OLEOMARGARINE. 

State laws that prohibit its being sold for what it is; and it is simply 
running up against the experience of all mankind — that if people want 
an article they will give it. They will obtain it; and you can no more 
enforce prohibition of oleomargarine in Massachusetts than you can 
enforce prohibition of liquor in the State of Maine. You can enforce 
them approximately, but there will be constant violations of the law, 
and people will obtain the article if they really want it— if it is an 
article which they desire. 

But I am not ready to admit, sir, that any large amount of oleomarga- 
rine is sold in Massachusetts — for I am quite familiar with the sales of 
oleomargarine in that State for butter — or that many people in the 
State of Massachusetts are deceived who get oleomargarine when they 
buy butter. As a matter of fact, three-fourths of all the oleomarga- 
rine sold in Massachusetts is sold in the original package, and it is, I 
think, a fact — it is so far as I have examined the matter, and 1 have 
been very familiar with the prosecutions in Massachusetts — that during 
the entire time that they have had the anticolorlawin the State of Massa- 
chusetts there has not been a prosecution for selling oleo for butter. 
The prosecutions have invariably been for selling oleo for oleo; and 
in courts where I have been many times the testimony is this : "I 
went to a store and asked for oleomargarine and I obtained oleomarga- 
rine;" and the court has only to say, ^' You are guilt^^" 

I should say that it is possible that 25 per cent of the oleo in those 
States that have such laws — laws to the effect that it can not be sold for 
what it is — in those 32 States it is possible, perhaps, that 25 per cent 
of the amount sold is sold for butter. Now, gentlemen, suppose that 
were true. It has been estimated here by the gentleman who spoke 
yesterday that in Pennsylvania he thought 50 per cent of the oleo sold 
in Pennsylvania was sold for butter. Another man, I think, said he 
thought what was sold in Ohio w^ould be equivalent to 50 or 75 per cent 
of the whole. But neither of those gentlemen could give you any infor- 
mation whatever as to the amount of oleo that was sold in Pennsylvania 
or the amount of oleo that was sold in Ohio; and if they could not give 
you any estimate as to the entire amount I should doubt very much 
the accuracy of their judgment as to what proportion was sold for 
butter. 

Suppose it were true that 25 per cent of the oleo of the country — 
and certainly the percentage could not be more than that, for as I said 
a little while ago it is only in those States that have these severe laws 
where oleo is sold for butter — suppose that thoughout this entire 
country last year 25 per cent of all the oleo of the country was sold for 
butter; what effect would that have upon the farmer? One hundred 
and seven million pounds of oleo were sold year before last. We have 
not the returns for last year. 

Mr. Springer. That w as for the year ending last June. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Ycs, sir. Twenty-five per cent of that in round 
numbers would be 25,000,000 pounds. Every ingredient that went 
into that oleo came oft' the farm. The farmer did not lose it all, because 
it was sold for oleo instead of butter. Every dollar that the raw 
material cost came from the farm. I have estimated it, and estimated 
it fairly, I think, at 6 cents per pound, so that the farmer did receive, 
even for that oleo which was sold for butter, $1,500,000. Now, the 
onl}" thing you can say he lost was the difference between what he 
would have had if that same amount had been sold for butter and what 



OLEOMARGARINE. 203 

he did g-et; in other words, if they had bought the farmer's product 
instead of oleo, figuring- that as 16 cents a pound, the farmer would 
have received $4,000,000 — or the farmers would have received it as a 
class, as a Avhole— $2,500,000 more than they did receive when they 
bought oleo instead of butter. What percentage of profit would that 
figure to the farmer? The profit is there, because the farmer only lost 
his profit. He could not receive the $2,500,000 for his butter without 
giving up something for it. He would have to give up labor; he would 
have to give up cows; he would have to give up everything that went 
into the cost of the butter; and I am told here by farmers that with 
butter at 16 cents a pound the profit is not anj^thing; but assuming the 
profit to be at least a cent a pound, or 5 per cent, which the wholesale 
dealer tries to make, then the profit which the farmer lost would be 
exactl}' $500,000 — the farmers as a class. 

If we speak of the farmers as a class, that is what they would have 
lost, $500,000; and if the estimate is correct, that there are 5,000,000 
farmers in the United States, the loss to each farmer would be exactly 
10 cents, and no more. But it is not right to speak of farmers as a 
class and say that they lost it, because we are only a part of this great 
community of 75,000,000 people, and instead of the farmers getting it 
it went elsewhere, perhaps into channels as meritorious as the farmers 
themselves. It is sometimes wrong, it seems to me, to speak of farm- 
ers as a class. The farmer of to-day becomes, perhaps, the mechanic 
of to-morrow, or becomes the teacher or the legislator. His daughters 
and his sons become teachers and professors and lawyers, so that it is 
not (juite correct to single out a certain class and say that class is entitled 
to so much money. It is simply a part of one growing unit. 

So that the loss to the farmer was not more than 10 cents apiece 
throughout the United States, what possible reason is there, gentle- 
men, for their coming here to Congress to make the howl about this 
bill that the}^ are making ? What possible benefit would it be to the 
farmer over and above that small amount to have this amount of oleo 
which is sold for butter — admitting that there was so much sold for 
butter — taken out of the market and butter supplied in its place ? You 
understand, gentlemen, that if these people are honest in their conten- 
tions they mean simply this: They say they have no objection to the sale 
of oleo so long as it is sold for what it is; that they have no objection to 
selling oleo, whether colored or uncolored, if it can be sold for what it 
is. They simpl}^ tell you, gentlemen, that it can not and never will be 
sold for what it is unless it is so made that it can not be sold for butter, 
so that nobod}" can be deceived. 

Now, gentlemen, it seems to me that the ingenuity of a legislature, 
it seems to me that anybod}^ with ordinary capacit}^, could so frame a 
law and enforce it that oleo must be sold for what it is, whether it is 
colored or uncolored. It strikes me that if we had a law providing 
that the packages themselves must be so done up in certain paper, so 
marked, so branded, as to make it distinguishable, and then if we had 
a regulation that it should only be sold in those original packages from 
the factory, nobody could ever be deceived as to what they were 
l)uying. 

Now, if you tell me that even then the deception would be continued, 
because a man would buy it and take it home to his wife and deceive 
his wife and his children in putting it on the table and telling his wife 
he was buying butter, I submit to you, gentlemen, that if 3'ou attempt 



204 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

to regulate the table of the home you are attempting something which 
is absolutely impossible, and there is no use in attempting it. It would 
be an absurd thing to attempt. You might as well say that I shall put 
upon my table a s3^nopsis, a digest, of what the hash is made of, or that 
I shall brand my coffee, and say that it cost only :20 cents a pound, or 
that I shall expose my poverty to my guest by saying that this is oleo- 
margarine. I will not discuss this further, because I am sure, gentle- 
men, that that is too absurd to talk about, and it is not necessary to 
consider in any sense that it is proper or legitimate to go into the secrets 
of the home and try to regulate the home table. 

Senator Dolliver. Have you discussed the reason why the product 
is colored ? Why do they not put it on the market in its natural con- 
dition ? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. That has been discussed by others who preceded 
me, and very thoroughly, too. 

Senator Dolliver. If it is in the record, that is all that is necessary. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. I TV ill Say that it is simply conformable to the 
law of custom and taste, one of the strongest laws to run up against. 

Senator Dolliver. Do you think anybody would buy it if it was 
light or white colored? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Ybs, sir; I think it would be sold in very limited 
quantities. 

Senator Dolliver. 1 understood from some of your people that 
they thought if they were compelled to color it white it would destroy 
the market. They have written to me to that effect. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Yes, sir; there is no doubt about that. It would 
entirely destroy the industry as an industry. An industry putting out 
107,000,000 pounds a year w^ould be practically totally destroyed, 
because nobody would buy white oleomargarine to put upon their table. 

Senator Dolliver. Is that mere prejudice and custom? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Solely that and nothing more, sir. 

Senator Dolliver. It seems to me you might overcome that preju- 
dice. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. You could not overcome it so long as butter is 
colored. So long as butter is put upon the table yellow, in my judg- 
ment, it would be impossible to sell white oleo as against colored butter. 
You can sell white oleo against white butter. 

The Acting Chairman. Would it destroy the butter business if 
butter were not colored ? 

Senator Dolliver. The great hotels, I notice, are serving white 
butter. Have you noticed that ? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Ycs, sir. 

Senator Dolliver. Without even salt in it? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Ycs, sir. I know that is true in some cases. 

Senator Dolliver. I noticed that in a hotel in New York the other 
day. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Yes; that is true, I think, at the Waldorf. 

Senator Dolliver. They do that, perhaps, in order to guarantee 
their good faith. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. In response to your question, Mr. Chairman, I 
am of the opinion that people would eat butter, that they could not 
get along without the use of butter, and that if all butter was white 
there would be the same quantity of butter used as is used to-day. 



OLEOMAKGAKINE. 205 

Senator Heitfeld. Then jou. think if all butter was uncolored, 
3'ou could let your oleo go uncolored i 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Why, certainly. 

Senator Heitfeld. I would suggest a compromise with the dairy- 
man — throw away all the color. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Ycs, sir; if they will do that. I noticed the gen- 
tlemen on the other side laugh when I said that if all butter was white, 
we could sell oleomargarine white. 

Senator Heitfeld. Oh, well, j^ou had j^our laugh yesterday. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. I am going to have it again. I said that if all 
butter was white we could sell oleo white; and that is true, I will tell 
you why it is true. I am here to confess and to state that oleomargarine, 
notwithstanding it is a distinct product known to science, is a product 
that is used by people who use it for butter knowing that it is oleo- 
margarine, and using the substitute instead of the real article. They 
use it because it is a substitute. You may use the word ''imitation" 
if you please, and I will agree with you. It is an imitation of butter; 
and being an imitation it is sold as the imitation, and people buy it 
because it is an imitation, and they would not want it if it was not an 
imitation. It is an imitation, precisely the same as cotton may imitate 
worsted. People buy it because it is an imitation, and they know what 
they are buying and they know what they are using. Would you 
pass a law here that would destroy the use of all imitations? Why, 
it is one of m}^ delightful recollections to think that for 25 cents I can 
buy a painting that will imitate the finest paintings in the world by 
the finest masters, and I buy it because it is an imitation. It is grati- 
fying to me to know that for 25 cents I can buy a volume of Shakes- 
peare that will contain just as good reading matter as the most expen- 
sive edition that could possibly be put out. Imitations are not to be 
legislated against. They are proper; they are legitimate; they are 
right; and people will have them just as long as people live. 

So that if oleomargarine imitates butter, as it does, and people buy 
it because it imitates butter, and would not buy it if it did not imitate 
butter, then unless there is some reason other than has been given 
here, there should be no legislation against it. The only reason sug- 
gested is that in some instances it is sold for butter. I have already 
stated that that is of too small consequence to be considered by the 
Congress of the United States, because it amounts to so very, very 
little. 

There is one feature of this discussion that I had supposed would be 
entirely unnecessaiy to enter upon. That is the wholesomeness and 
healthf ulness of the article. I had supposed before coming here that 
if there was one question that had been settled to the knowledge of all 
men it was the question of the healthf ulness of this article. Indeed, it 
was so generall}^ understood that I was not at all surprised at one 
member of this committee, when that question was spoken of, saying 
that he did not understand that that question was raised here. But, 
gentlemen, it has been raised here. It has been raised here incidentally 
by almost everv speaker who has spoken in advocacv of this bill, and 
notwithstanding the mass of testimony, the number of chemists, doc- 
tors, and scientific men throughout the United States and elsewhere 
throughout the world have testified to the entire healthfulness of this 
article; yet, notwithstanding this, in this temple distinguished for learn- 



206 OLEOMARGARINE. 

ing and research, you will find that it is suggested even at this late day 
that the article which they are asking you to tax at the rate of 10 cents 
a pound may not be a wholesome and healthful article. Look at the 
fiims}'' argument that they submit as tending to show that that is true. 
Why, they say, gentlemen, that it does not digest as quickly as butter, 
that its melting point is higher, and therefore it is more difficult to 
digest, as they say; and they read from Professor Wile}^ to that eflect — 
that its melting point was higher. As a matter of fact, gentlemen, the 
melting point of butter and butterine of the best grades is precisely 
the same. But they did not read all of Professor Wiley's statement 
about its being slower to digest. If they had they would have been 
fairer to the committee. I therefore call the attention of the com- 
mittee to this again. 

Dr. Wiley. My impression in regard to the digestibility of butter 
as compared to oleomargarine is formed from a purely theoretical 
standpoint, without having tried experiments on human beings and 
noted the time of digestion, because I do not know that that has been 
accomplished, and more than that the actual time of digestion is a 
matter of very little consequence, provided the food is digested. In 
fact it is a very good thing that we do not digest all our food instan- 
taneously, because otherwise we would be hungry after one meal 
before we would get the next. The fact that a food is slow of diges- 
tion, like fruit, for instance, is no reason that it is unwholesome. No 
one would say that meat is necessarily more wholesome than fruit 
because it is more easily digested. You can digest meat in much less 
time than you can digest fruit, and yet nobody claims that fruits are 
unwholesome. 

Mr. Flanders. Will the gentleman permit me to ask a question for 
information ? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Flanders. You said that the melting point of the better grades 
of oleomargarine is the same as that at which butter melts ? 

Mr. Tillinghast. Yes, sir; according to Professor Wiley's experi- 
ments. 

Mr. Flanders. I would like to make a double question of this. 
What constitutes the better grades of oleomargarine? What is the 
difi'erence between the poorer grades and the better grades as to 
ingredients ? 

Mr. Tillinghast. There is very little difference between the better 
grades and the ordinary grades of oleomargarine, with the exception, 
as I understand, of the use of butter. A larger amount of butter is 
used in the more expensive grades of oleomargarine; but the percent- 
age is small. 

If you will notice on page 200 of the report of the House committee, 
you will iind given there the melting point of the different grades of 
butterine which were submitted to Professor Wiley. You will find 
that the best butter melts at 96.80 and the best butterine at 96.80 — pre- 
cisely the same. 

Senator Heitfeld. Are those Mr. Wiley's experiments ? 

Mr. Tillinghast. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Edson. I beg your pardon; that was not made by Professor 
Wiley, but by Professor Schweitzer, professor of agricultural chem- 
istry and chemist to experiment station. 

Mr. Tillinghast. The fact is, gentlemen, that oleomargarine is a 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 207 

purely healthful food product, desired by the people of this country. 
It is desired by the citizens of Rhode Island, that I have a right to rep- 
resent; it is desired by the people who live in Rhode Island and work 
in the mills; it is desired b}' the poor people of that State, who can not 
afford to pay the high prices for butter, and you have no moral or 
constitutional right, in my judgment, to deprive them of the privilege 
of bu^'ing it as they are now bu^'ing it. 

Senator Heitfeld. You speak of the large consumption of oleo in 
Rhode Island. One of the gentlemen who appeared here said that it 
was about 8 pounds per capita for last year. 

Mr. Springer. That was my statement. Senator. 

Senator Heitfeld. Can you tell me what the consumption of butter 
per capita was in that State ? 

Mr. TiLLiXGHAST. I Can not tell you the consumption of butter in 
any locality in the United States, 

Mr. Flanders. Are you about to leave the health question, Mr. 
Tillinghast^ I would like to ask a question before joii leave that. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Flanders. Have you any evidence as to any physiological tests 
as to digestion of oleomargarine and butter ? 

Mr. Tillinghast. I have the tests of the whole State of Rhode 
Island. 

Mr. Flanders. I do not mean that. I mean a scientific experiment 
as to the digestibility of butter as compared with the digestibility of 
oleomargarine. The testimony you have given there is simply as to 
the melting point of two samples by the particular chemists. 

Mr. Tillinghast. All 1 have to say about that matter is that if that 
fact has not been established, that oleomargarine is a perf ecth^ healthy 
food product, without a single thing in it that is deleterious, it seems 
to me that before this discussion goes any further this committee 
should resolve itself at least into a committee of one or two and find 
out whether that is so or not; but the evidence throughout the world 
is overwhelming on that question. 

Mr. Flanders. I do not want to press this too hard, Mr. Chairman, 
but the evidence so far is in dispute. We brought from the State of 
New York and left here with this committee evidences of scientific 
experiments in digestion. We have raised the question here as to the 
right of a chemist to determine a physiological question. The gentle- 
man is making a very nice argument from his point of view, and I 
like it. It would like him to tell me if he knows anything on that sub- 
ject. He has submitted here the melting point of oleomargarine and 
of butter, as found b}^ a chemist, of some particular samples. The 
evidence we submitted here was of oleomargarine bought on the open 
market and known to be oleomargarine, and it went through digestive 
experiments. I say that is evidence on the comparative digestibility 
of the two, and I ask him, so long as he is trying to make so fair an 
argument, if he has any evidence from his State or anj^where relative 
to the comparative digestibility of the two, because if a sample of 
oleomargarine of the best kind were submitted to a chemist it is hardl}^ 
a fair illustration of the oleomargarine found in the open market, and 
particularly when he submits it only as to the one proposition of its 
melting point, not to the proposition of digestibility. I would like 
the gentleman to discuss that if he has anything on the subject. 

Mr. Tillinghast. If I have not taken too much time, I would like 



208 



OLEOMARGARINE. 



to refer the committee to page 209 of the report before the House 
Committee on Agriculture. I will read a few lines: 

[Extracts from pages 659, 660, and 661 of No. 7, Vol. XI, of United States Experiment Station Record, 

edited by E. W. Allen, Ph. D.] 

' ' The relative digestibility of several sorts of fat hy man. /, Margarin 
and natural butter, li. Luhrig {Ztschr. Untersuch. Nahr. u. Gemtssnitl., 
2 {1899), No. 6, pp. J^8I{,-506).—T\iQ author reviews the literature of 
the subject and reports results of 4 experiments on the digestibility 
of margarin and butter, made with a healthy man, 29 years old, weigh- 
ing 74 kg. Holstein butter and 3 sorts of margarin were used, called, 
according to their quality, No. 1, 2, and 3. The tests were quite similar, 
the fat in each case forming part of a mixed diet of meat, bread, vege- 
tables, etc. The composition of the margarin and butter was determined 
and the fat content of all the articles of diet. 

"The average results of the tests follow: 

Average digeslihility of margarin and butter. 



Fat. 



In daily 
food. 



In daily 
feces. 



Digested. 



Margarin No. 1, consumed with mixed diet 6 days 
Margarin No. 2, consumed with mixed diet 4 days 
Margarin No. 3, consumed with mixed diet 4 days 
Butter, consumed with mixed diet 4 days 



Qrams. 
138. 35 
118. 64 
112. 89 
111. 79 



Qrams. 
4.62 
3.91 
3.46 
4.82 



Per cent. 
96.68 
96.70 
96.93 
95. 69 



"If corrections are made for the fat in the food supplied by other 
materials than margarin or butter, the average coefficients of digesti- 
bility in the 4 tests are 97.35, 97.39, 97.90, and 96.53 percent, respect- 
ively. The author studied the undigested fat in the 4 experiments and 
determined the amount of true fat in the undigested ether extract. 
Taking account of these values, the corrected digestibility of the mar- 
garin and butter fat in .the tests reported above is 98.31, 98.25, 98.46, 
and 97.77 per cent, respectively. In the author's opinion the true 
undigested fat was not butter or margarin fat, and accordingly he 
believes that it is safe to conclude that butter and margarin are com- 
pletely digested. (The fat recovered in the feces is believed to be 
derived from the digestive juices and metabolic products produced in 
the body during the experiment.) If it is insisted upon that the two 
kinds of fat are not completely digested, it must still be granted that 
as regards digestibility they are practically alike, since the difference 
is very small. * * ** 

"From a study of the chemical characteristics of the undigested fat 
the author introduces certain corrections in the above values and con- 
cludes that 97.86 per cent of the butter was actually digested and 97.55 
per cent of the margarin. From a physiological standpoint the 2 fats 
are thought to be completely digestible and of equal value. " 

Mr. Miller. I would like to inform the committee that that article 
was a contribution by a scientist to the Agricultural Department, and 
that report is from the experiment station records of the Agricultural 
Department. Here is a similar article that was given in the testimony 
before this committee before Christmas. It also came from the experi- 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 209 

ment station of the Agricultural Department, and I would like to ask 
Mr. Tilliughast to read the conclusion in this same test. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. The principal conclusions follow: When properly- 
prepared, margarin differs but little from natural butter in chemical 
and ph3'sical properties. On an average 93. 5 to 96 per cent of fat was 
assimilated when margarin was consumed, and 94 to 96 per cent when 
butter formed part of the diet. The moderate use of margarin did not 
cause any disturbance of the digestive tract. 

Mr. Flanders. Mr. Chairman, 1 do not want to interrupt the gen- 
tleman too much, but I would like to ask another question. 

The Chairman. Do you object to being interrupted? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Not in the least. I want to get at the truth. 

Mr. Flanders. That simply bears out the contention we made here 
yesterday 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. If the gentleman is going to make a speech I 
object to his interrupting me. 

Mr. Flanders. No; 1 want to put it so that we can understand each 
other. That experinient, as I understand it, simply determined how 
much fat was taken out of the system, out of the material put through 
the animal, does it not? Does it determine the physiological effect on 
the animal, or the length of time or exertion of the animal to handle 
it? That is the bone of the contention. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. I take it that the statement of that scientist, say- 
ing there is very little difference between the digestibility of butter 
and butterine, goes for the opinion, at least, of the scientist who made 
that statement. 

Mr. Flanders. If we are going to leave it that way, then I would 
like to say this: We admit all he saj^s. We make that assertion our- 
selves, that the amount taken out did not determine the question of 
the effect upon the animal nor the length of time that it took. Those 
are the only two essential questions that we contend for — as to the 
effect upon the system and the time it takes to take it out. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Let me state one thing more. I have talked with 
a good many physicians in my State and elsewhere who have observed 
the use of oleomargarine carefully, and who know some of its chemical 
properties, and who know some of its effects upon patients and upon 
well people; and the universal testimony without a single exception is 
that it is just as valuable a product as butter, and just as easily digested 
by both sick and well persons. Of course that statement is second- 
hand, hearsay; but it is a statement which I expect to be believed. 

As I remarked, if it is possible that that question has not been set- 
tled within the last quarter of a century, since oleomargarine has been 
upon the market, if it is possible that that question has not been set- 
tled when people who have been interested in dealing in oleomargarine 
and putting it upon the market, it is time it was settled; and I tell jou. 
that inasmuch as it has had an upward movement, onward and upward 
constantly since it was tirst put upon the market, until last year we 
had a production of 107,000,000 pounds, that itself is an argument 
that it must be a healthful product, or it would not be used. It has 
not been put upon the market surreptitiously. It has not been put 
upon the market in deception of the rights of people who were to use 
it to any large extent. Why, gentlemen, the oleomargarine dealers 
and manufacturers of this country have endeavored to exhibit their 
goods wh(n-ever they had the opportunity — at all food exhibits, at 
count}' fairs, where they could get the opportunity. They have pre- 

S. Rep. 2043 14 



210 OLEOMAEGAEmE. 

sented their goods, put them before the people, and they have said to 
the people, "Here, try these goods; take them home. Take them to 
3^our wife. Don't tell her it is butter, but tell her it is butterine. 
Make an honest, fair test of it." That is the way the oleomargarine 
dealers have tried to introduce their product. It is the way they have 
introduced it, and it is because the}^ have introduced it in that open, 
straightforward manner that it has grown in favor throughout the 
United States. And 1 say because it has grown in favor it must be an 
article which the people desire, and one which scientists, doctors, and 
chemists have indorsed and will indorse, whatever may be said to the 
contrary by anyone who has not made that investigation which it is 
necessary to make to find out whether it is an article that is really 
deleterious to health. 

Why, gentlemen, while I am on this point I want to call your atten- 
tion to an advertisement that I have seen I think a thousand times. It 
is ver}^ short, and I will read it: 

"Have you ever seen any butterine? Did 3'^ou ever try it on your 
table or for cooking? If not, we ask you to do so. Try it. Take home 
a pound. Don't tell your family it is butter. Tell them it is butterine. 
Show it to your family physician. Ask his opinion about it. All we 
ask is a fair show, and the truth." 

That is all, so far as the oleomargarine industry is carried on in Rhode 
Island, at least, and in the East, that the oleo dealers have done. They 
have tried to put their product on the market honestly and fairly. 
They want people to use it for what it is, and for nothing more than 
what it is; and I tell you when people come here and say they must 
have a law which will tax that product at 10 cents a pound because it 
is sold for butter, and because no law can be framed, as they say, that 
will prevent its being sold — they asked this law to be passed because 
they say no law can be framed whereby it will be sold for what it is 
except this taxation law — you know, as intelligent men, that that can 
not be the fact, and that that can not be true. Frame a law, if you 
please, and no one will take any exception, no matter how strenuous 
you make it, no matter how many safeguards you may put around it. 
You may say that every pound of it shall be put in a piece of paper of 
a certain color; that it shall have all the printing on it that is necessary 
to inform everyone as to its contents; and that it shall only be sold in 
that original package. Now, if they are honest, if they mean what 
they say, what objection would there be to such a law as that? They 
tell you, gentlemen, and they have told me, that they only care to stop 
the sale of oleomargarine as butter. If so, gentlemen, it can be 
arranged so that it can not be sold for anything except oleo, by the 
proper law. 

Senator Dolliver. I have often wondered where the swindle comes 
in. There have been prosecutions in this city of grocers for selling 
oleomargarine for butter, and some of the grocers claimed that they 
were swindled in buying it. The public has claimed that they were 
swindled in buying it; and 3^ou seem to have laid it off on the man 
who takes it home and swindles his wife with it. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. I would sa}^ that that undoubtedly has happened, 
that men have taken it home to their wives and have not told them 
anything about it. I have heard of many such cases, and I have no 
doubt 3^ou have. As a matter of fact, I can not see how the retail 
dealer can be deceived, because he buys necessarily in the original 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 211 

package. This has stamps on it, and everything to apprise him of 
what he is bu3ang, so that it is not possible that the butter dealer in 
Washington or elsewhere could ever be deceived as to what he is buy- 
ing. The retail dealer buys a 10-pound package or a 60-pound pack- 
age, or whatever it may be, of oleomargarine in the tub. The retail 
dealer under the present system can cut out of that tub anything that 
his customer desires. Well, here is this tub standing up here, we will 
say, on the shelf. The cover is off, and you look at it, and it looks 
like butter; and the only thing to apprise the customer of the fact 
that it is oleo would be the stamp on the tub, which may be laid down 
or on the side or may not be called to his attention. He comes in and 
calls for, say, two pounds of butter, and if the retail dealer is a dis- 
honest man, and desires to palm oleo off on him, why of course he 
would cut it out of that tub and sell it to the customer. 

Senator Dolliver. Then how could your scheme of wrapping a deli- 
cately colored paper around it have that effect ? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. I would not permit it to be sold in the original 
package in tubs. I would have the original package a small package 
of, say, five pounds, and not permit it to be sold in the manner in 
which it is now sold. 

Senator Dolliver. It seems to me if it was only identified by a 
paper, the man would take the paper off and put another paper on. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. No ; because it could be stamped, and it could be 
provided that it should only be made in prints, and it could also be 
provided that the word ''Oleomargarine" should be printed into the 
substance itself. 

Senator Dolliver. Even that is not a very permanent record. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Well, that with the cover itself would be suflS- 
cient, it seems to me. 

Senator Dolliver. If the dealer was trying to swindle, he could 
take the imprint out of the butter. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. It Strikes me that if the laws were enforced as 
they should be, and as they possibly would be, there would be very 
little difficulty and very little fraud practiced, if 3^ou had the most 
stringent regulations. 

Senator Dolliver. I have not heard lately any charges of fraud 
against those manufacturing the article. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. No; there is undoubtedly very little fraud on the 
part of the manufacturer. I have not heard of any for a good many 
years, and I can conceive of no temptation on the part of the manu- 
facturer to sell his article for anything except for what it is, for he is 
not allowed to keep anything else in his factorj^, and his factory is 
subject to the inspection of the United States revenue officers daily. 
If he should attempt to put goods out of his establishment as butter, 
the penalties are so severe that he would be deterred from doing so. 

Mr. Knight. I would like to ask one question about the present law. 
Does not the present law require the retailer to stamp the article ? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. I aui not familiar with the retail trade. 

Mr. Sghell. Yes; it does. 

Mr. Jelke. If you will permit me to explain. The retailer is per- 
mitted to sell in quantities not exceeding 10 pounds. Ho must take 
up his own package, and stamp the package with his name, his address, 
and the word ''oleomargarine," and the quantity contained therein. 
That is the present law. The retail dealer sells his goods in that 
manner. 



212 OLEOMAEGABINB. 

Mr. Springer. Will you allow me, Mr. Chairman, to make an 
explanation here? 

The Acting Chairman. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Springer. The present law, as it will be seen, permits the retail 
dealer to make a large original package, say 60 pounds a tub, and from 
that he can retail it out in small quantities by breaking the original 
package. The Wadsworth bill, which was favored by the minority of 
the Committee on Agriculture in the House, provided that all oleomar- 
garine should be put up in 1 and 2 pound packages; that each package 
should contain on the material itself, imprinted in it, the word 
"Oleomargarine;" and that each package should be wrapped sepa- 
rately, and should be sold separately to the purchaser; that on each 
package there should be the stamp of the Government and a paper also 
wrapped around that with the word "Oleomargarine" printed on it in 
large letters, to be regulated by the Commissioner of Internal Reve- 
nue. So that while now the merchant may fix up a package and sell it 
so as to deceive, if you want to compel him to sell it for what it is, take 
the provision of the Wadsworth bill and require each package to have 
a stamp engraved in it and wrapped together, and do not allow the 
merchant to break that package at all, but let it go into the hands of 
the consumer with the stamp on it just as it comes from the manufac- 
turing establishment. Then if the consumer wants to take it home 
and deceive his wife with it, he will have to cut off the word 
" Oleomargarine." 

Mr. Flanders. May I ask Judge Springer one question in regard to 
that? 

The Acting Chairman. Yes. 

Mr. Flanders. Does not that same bill make that 1 -pound pack- 
age the original importer's package? 

Mr. Springer. It provides that 1 and 2 pound packages must com- 
prise all of the output of the factorj-^, and that they must be put in that 
shape, and can onl}^ be sold in those packages by the retail merchant. 

Mr. Flanders. My question is, Did not that bill provide distinctly 
that they should be considered an original importer's package ? 

Mr. Springer. Certainly. That was to be considered as an 
importer's package, and the sale was confined to those packages so as 
to prevent the retail merchant from imposing on his customer; so that 
it went into the hands of the consumer he was obliged to know and 
could not help knowing that it was oleomargarine. After that the law 
leaves it with the head of the family or the wife or whoever purchases 
it— the hotel proprietor, if you please. 

Mr. Flanders. How about the guest of the hotel ? 

Mr. Springer. If the guest of the hotel can not discover the differ- 
ence he is not robbed. 

The Acting Chairman. The Chaii» hopes the gentleman will be 
allowed to finish. 

Mr. Tillinghast. I will say that in the State of Massachusetts, and 
1 do not know but in many other States, the law provides that if hotels, 
restaurants, and boarding houses do use oleomargarine on. the table, 
they must apprise the guests of the fact that they do use it. With 
that regulation it seems to me there can be very little fraud practiced. 

Senator Money. Can an ordinary guest tell what he is eating ? Can 
you tell whether you are eating oleomargarine or butter? 

Mr. Tillinghast. Yes, sir. 



OLEOMAEGAKINE. 213 

Senator Monet. I can not. 

Mr. TiLLiNGiiAST. In response to your question, Mr. Money, 1 
should say that the ordinary person would not distinguish between a 
nice specimen of oleomargarine and the ordinary butter. 

Senator Monet. If they can not tell the difference, and they are both 
healthful, what are the odds? 

Senator Foster, And a nice specimen of oleomargarine has more 
butter in it. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Ycs, sir. 

Senator Foster. So that, the more butter you get in it, the better 
the oleo,' 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. This matter has been before Congress several 
times, and a committee of the Senate, the Committee on Manufactures, 
I think it was, investigated this very question under the pure-food 
law. Without going into their report to any extent, but as substan- 
tiating what every committee, it seems to me, must find if they investi- 
gate it carefully, what every man must find if he investigates it caref ull}", 
with the desire or intention of getting at the truth of the matter, I 
will read what they find: 

"The committee finds from the evidence before it that the product 
known commercially as oleomargarine is healthful and nutritious, and 
that no additional legislation is necessary." 

I do not mean to say that this is res adjudicata for this comjuittee, 
but it is some evidence, at least, that a committee of this Senate, after 
an investigation of this whole question, did find that it was a health- 
ful and nutritious article; and it seems to me, gentlemen, that if one 
question could be proven by such a preponderance of evidence as to 
permit of no shadow of doubt in the mind of anyone that it has been 
shown and established, it is that oleomargarine is healthful and nutri- 
tious and that it is f oll}^ to attempt to raise any question on that score. 

I take it, gentlemen, that you will find that as proven and that the 
only question that will disturb your minds at all will be whether there 
is any legislation needed — whether, under the guise of a revenue meas- 
ure, the circumstances are such and the expedients are such as to war- 
rant your extending the arm of this Government to assist the laws of 
the States in preventing oleo being sold as butter. I have shown to 
you that it can make but very little difference, if any, to the farmer 
whether that is done or not; but it makes a vast difference to the cap- 
ital employed and the men employed whether you in effect confiscate 
my property and destroy an established industry. It makes a differ- 
ence of a great many millions of dollars, and besides it is going so far 
as to destroy an industry which came into existence legitimately and 
fairly, and which desires to remain in the same manner. 

Now, gentlemen, I do not anticipate that such an act of injustice 
will be done by the United States Senate. I do not anticipate that 
this bill will ever become a law, but I have found many times to m}^ 
sorrow that what appeared very clear to me was not alwa3"s so clear 
to others; and so, gentlemen, there is one thing that I want to call 
3^our attention to, if by any possiblity a bill of this character should 
become a law, and that is the language of the proviso, on the seventh 
line of the second page: 

"That nothing in this act shall be construed to permit any State to 
forbid the manufacture or sale of oleomargarine in a separate and dis- 
tinct form, and in such manner as will advise the consumer of its real 



214 OLEOMAEGAEINE. 

character, free from coloration or ingredient that causes it to look 
like butter." 

The words I complain of are the words following the word ''colora- 
tion." If it stopped there, then there would be no opportunity to put 
any coloration into the oleomargarine. It would have to be made 
white if it were made at all, but there are added there these words: 
"or ingredient that causes it to look like butter." With those words 
in there, they may be a disturbing element. We claim that every 
ingredient that goes into oleomargarine and that makes oleomargarine, 
whether color is used or not, is an ingredient that makes it look like 
butter. We claim that oleo oil looks like butter, some shades of but- 
ter. It was explained to you j^esterday b}^ a gentleman who knew all 
about the business, that butter is of many shades, and of course that 
is common knowledge. I have seen butter that is just as white as 
white oleomargarine, and Senator Dolliver this morning said that not 
very long ago he had seen in New York within a day or two some 
white butter. Now of course if we make white oleomargarine, we use 
ingredients that look like the butter the Senator saw. The dairy 
interests do not desire a prohibitory law if they are honest, and I con- 
cede honesty to them. I think they are misguided. The}" are willing, 
they say, as I understand, that we should make all the white oleomar- 
garine that we can sell. Is not that so? 

Mr. Flanders. Yes, sir. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Very good. If that is so there is no need, if you 
please, of the words following the word "coloration" in that section. 
And, gentlemen, if you forget everything else that I have said — and I 
do not flatter myself that you will remember very much of it — please 
remember this, that I suggest to you that if by any possibility you 
should consider any part of this bill f avorabh^, you will strike out that 
part of that section, because otherwise we shall be right up against 
this same proposition and have the same prosecutions whether we make 
white oleomargarine or whether we make colored oleomargarine, 
because every ingredient will make it look like butter, and perhaps 
make it look more like what is generally spoken of as natural butter 
than it would if we colored it. I presume there is more butter made 
in the twelve months of the year that would be white if no coloring 
matter were used, or if not white a ver}^ light shade of yellow, than 
there is made of colored butter. You must remember that oleomarga- 
rine has considerable of a yellowish tint by the use of cotton-seed oil, 
and the only thing white that goes into the oleo is the leaf lard and 
the milk, and of course the milk has a slight color. Then we use a 
quantity of butter. That has a slight color. So that there would be 
many of the ingredients that would cause it to look like some butter. 

So, gentlemen, take care of that question. Be honest with us and 
fair with us, and do not put us to the difiiculty of any question before 
the courts that we are using ingredients that cause oleomargarine to 
look like butter, because it is not needed in this case; and it seems to 
me that the gentlemen representing the dairy interests themselves, in 
fairness, should say they have no objection to those words being 
stricken out. 

Gentlemen, I thank you for your attention. If I have said anything 
that I ought not to have said, I beg you will overlook it, and if I have 
left unsaid some things which I should have said, I beg you to supply 
them. 



OLEOMARGARIJSTE. 215 

The Acting Chairinian, It is now ten minutes of 12 o'clock. I 
tiiink the committee will have to take its recess. 

Mr. Lestrade. Mr. Chairman, will you allow me to make a short 
statement before you retire? 

The Acting Chairman. Yes, sir. 



ADDITIONAL STATEMENT OF FRANCIS W. LESTRADE. 

Mr. Lestrade. Mr. Chairman, after the session yesterday after- 
noon I was approached by a member of the dairy association who 
seemed to have a misunderstanding- — I do not mean so far as the com- 
mittee was concerned — of the remarks I made in relation to the prices 
of butter; and perhaps the committee might also have had an erroneous 
impression or a wrong impression, or did not understand it exactly. 
It will take me but a few minutes to repeat what I said, and if any 
of the dairy gentlemen here can show me where I am in the wrong, I 
shall be very glad to have them do so. If they are silent we will take 
it that they agree with me perfectly in my statement. 

I said yesterday that the cheapest butter in this country, the pack- 
ing stock, which I endeavored to make plain to }■ ou what it was, is put 
away in large quantities in cold storage during the last part of May 
and in the months of June and July, as the lowest price for fresh 
butter is reached at that time of the year. That is gathered in from the 
Western farmers as I explained. During these early months in 1899 
it was put in cold storage at a price as low as Hi, 12, 12i, and 13 
cents. 

Senator Heitfeld. Let me understand. Is that the price at the 
storage point, or what the packer got? 

Mr. Lestrade. I am now quoting prices in New York, freight all 
paid. It is gathered up by these different men, put into cars, packed into 
barrels, tierces, and tubs, and brought into New York. I am quoting- 
prices from the New York standpoint. There is a difference of about 
three-quarters of a cent to a cent in Chicago. This is put in New York 
at a cost of 12 to 12^ cents to the butter men, and as high as 13. 
Gentlemen, it was sold out by the butter men generall}-^ throughout 
the country at a profit of from 3 to 6 cents a pound in the fall and 
winter. It was sold as high as 18 cents — this cheap, common, roU 
butter that is made in the commonest manner possible. Those were 
the figures it was sold at — at a very handsome profit by the dairymen, 
and by the butter men interested in the butter, particularh' in this biU. 

What we call fancy extra creamery butter was put into cold storage 
in New York city and other points at from 16^ to 18t cents. The 
butter men kept this butter to a greater or less extent, and it sold out 
as high as 30 cents. A gentleman from Chicago, who, I believe, repre- 
sents the dairy interests here, was surprised at that statement, and 
asked me the question, you remember, '"Was it sold at 30 cents ? "' I 
said, "Yes, sir; it was sold at 30 cents." He, apparently, did not 
know that, and j^et he should have known it. There was a profit of 
nearly 50 per cent for the butter men. 

Senator Foster. That is between the highest and the lowest? 

Mr. Lestrade. From the highest to the lowest. 

Senator Foster. During the j^ear ? 

Mr. Lestrade. In six months' time. So that you can see, gentlemen, 



216 OLEOMAKGAKIlSrE. 

we are not poverty stricken. We are not going to the poorhouse, as 
the gentleman from Pennsylvania said yesterday. Oleomargarine is 
not wiping us out, but, on the contrary, we are making better profits 
every year, according to my statements, which can not be contradicted. 

I will say that as far as this year is concerned, this last May on 
account of the high prices butter started iji from 18^ to 19 cents, these 
fancy extra creameries. They were put in cold storage during the 
months of June and July, and they have been sold out during this Sep- 
tember and October and up to within two or three weeks as high as 24 
cents, making a handsome profit of 3 to 4 cents a pound. To-day, 
although the market is depressed, although the butter market is declin- 
ing, as it usually does in January, you can sell your best fancy extra 
creamery butter, if you have it — I am speaking now of old June but- 
ter — at 23 cents. These gentlemen will probably say you can not do 
that. The butter you can not sell at 23 cents is butter that has been 
bought by speculators, not knowing what the}^ are buying, and put in 
cold storage, and now when they turn it out they find it is poor and 
old and has no flavor; but if the butter is made properly, although it 
is an old butter, it still has an elegant flavor and taste and smell. 

Senator Heitfeld. Is that old butter all sent to Washington? 

Mr. Lestrade. I do not know much about that. 

Senator Heitfeld. I judge it is from my difficulty in getting good 
butter. 

Mr. Lestrade. I desire to ask the dairymen here whether they have 
been approached in regard to a butter trust. I have, and the moment 
that this bill is passed there will be the biggest butter trust that ever 
was organized in these United States. If this bill does go through, I 
shall be one of them to go in if I can. 

All I ask of you, gentlemen, is, if I have shown you in any way that 
these facts are as I state, you will give them consideration; that j^ou 
will explain upon the floor of the Senate and let the people of the 
United States know what we are doing in the dairy interests; that we 
are not poverty stricken; and let the people be the judge whether the 
dairy interest of the United States is in such a poor, forlorn condition. 

The committee (at 12 o'clock meridian) took a recess until 2.30 p. m. 

At the expiration of the recess the committee resumed its session. 

Present : Senator Hansbrough (acting chairman); also, Hon. William 
W, Grout, a Representative from the State of Vermont; Hon, W. D. 
Hoard, ex-governor of Wisconsin and president of the National Dairy 
Union; C. Y. Knight, secretary of the National Dairy Union; Hon. 
William M. Springer, of Springfield, 111,, representing the National 
Livestock Association; FranR W, Tillinghast, representing the Ver- 
mont Manufacturing Company, of Providence, R. I,; Charles E, 
Schell, representing the Ohio Butterine Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio; 
W. E. Miller, representing the Armour Packing Company, of Kansas 
City, Mo., and John F. Jelke, representing Braun & Fitts, Chicago, 
111., and others. 

The Acting Chairman. I understand, gentlemen, that an arrange- 
ment was made for the hearing, this afternoon, of the gentlemen who 
represent the dairy interests of Pennsylvania. Is that correct? 

Several Gentlemen. Correct. 

The Acting Chairman. And how many of you are here ? 

Mr. Kauffman. Mr. Chairman, I am the attorney for the Pure 
Butter Protective Association of Pennsj'^lvania, and we have four dif- 



OLEOMARGARINE. 217 

ferent interests from Philadelphia and Pennsylvania represented here. 
Those interests are the creamery men, the wholesale dealers in butter, 
the farmers, and the retail dealers. If your committee will permit, I 
would like to suggest that you allow us a certain time, and let each 
of these gentlemen, in five or ten minutes, give the facts from the 
point of view of his own specialty. Then I, as attorney, will round 
up the matter in such time as you will permit me to occupy. 

The Acting Chairman. And how much time will you want altogether ? 

Mr. Kauffman. I think we ought to have at least an hour and a 
half, Mr. Chairman. 

The Acting Chairman. That will be agreeable. 

Mr. K1A.UFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, if 3^ou will permit me I will say, as 
I stated before, that we have four different interests from Pennsylva- 
nia here represented. Each one of these interests will be represented 
by a speaker, who will occupy, say, about ten minutes of time, and 
who will show how this bill afiects his special interest, and why that 
special interest desires the passage and enactment of the bill. 

The first speaker will be Mr. Habecker, of Philadelphia, a wholesale 
butter merchant. 



STATEMENT OF JOHN J. HABECKER, BUTTER MERCHANT, PHILA- 
DELPHIA, PA. 

Mr. Habecker. 1 have not much to say, gentlemen. I am not an 
orator, nor am I a paid attorney. I have been in the butter business 
about twenty-one years, and have gone through this whole controversy 
from the beginning to the end, and I understand that this Grout bill 
is for the purpose of compelling the manufacturers of oleomargarine 
to sell it for what it is. 

That is all we desire. We are not afraid of honest competition in 
oleomargarine or anything else that may come on the market. But 
our experience has been, from the beginning, that these men who 
manufacture oleomargarine, and the men who sell it, do it in a way to 
deceive the public into buying it. In all my experience I know of 
only a ver}^ few cases where people have bought oleomargarine know- 
ing what it is, except in the case of boarding-house or hotel keepers. 

In the very beginning, allow me to say that we come from a city and 
a State where we claim that we have the finest butter in the country — 
that is, Philadelphia and the State of Pennsj^lvania. Let us take the 
county of Bucks, for instance. There it has been the custom for years 
and years for the people to make their dairy butter up into round 
prints and pack it up in a certain way, and the people have been 
accustomed to using their butter in that way. Now, these oleomar- 
garine dealers (who, from what I can gather here and from the evi- 
dence that I have heard at different times, are trying to make you 
believe that they are honest in their dealings and that they want to 
have their goods sold for what they are) made up their product in 
semblance of Bucks County dairy prints to suit a certain class and ship 
them into our market. They know at the time that they are making 
it into that style of print in order that they may aid and abet and help 
the retailer of oleomargarine to sell those goods for what they are 
made to imitate and counterfeit. 

Then we have another section of our State, up in Bradford County, 



218 OLEOMARGARINE. 

for instance. There it has been the custom of the people to have their 
butter packed in what they call Bradford County tubs or half tirkins. 
Now then, in order to suit the people in that section of the country 
and deceive them they have Bradford County tubs made, and pack 
their oleomargarine into tubs of that kind and ship it into that dis- 
trict, and the oleomargarine is sold there by retailers for Bradford 
County butter. That is part of the history of the past. 

Then we have another section of the State, that adjacent to Pitts- 
burg. Up until a very few years ago it was the custom all through 
the State of Ohio for the farmers to make up their butter principally 
into rolls; and then they would take a little paddle and mark it on the 
top, and pack the rolls into a 60-pound tub — a thin-staved tub. And 
in order that the oleomargarine people might deceive the people of 
Pittsburg into buying their stuff for pure butter they have tubs made 
in semblance of the Ohio tubs and then theyhave their oleomargarine 
made in semblance of the Ohio dairy rolls, with the little marks on the 
top, and packed with the same sort of cloth on top, and have it shipped 
into Pittsburg — knowing at the same time they do that they are helping 
the retailer to deceive the unsuspecting public into buying an imitation 
of Ohio rolls for the pure Ohio rolls. 

Now, later on, as we go on in years, the manufacture of butter has 
changed ; and they have got to making it more generally in creameries 
and the dairies have been dropping out. The creameries through our 
State have been in the habit of making up their butter into square 
prints, with a sheaf, I think, or some sort of a monogram, stamped on 
them. In order to compete with that these oleomargarine manufac- 
turers throughout the country, who have been telling you here how 
honest they are and how it is their purpose to have the stuff sold for 
what it is, make it up into square pound prints and ship it into our 
market, knowing that if it is sold in that way it is sold for Pennsjd- 
vania creamer}^ prints. 

That has been the history of this matter all through in our State. 
I do not know how it is in other States; but in the State of Pennsjd- 
vania, not only is the oleomargarine made in semblance of our difi'erent 
styles of butter, dairy and solid-packed and rolls and prints, but it is 
put up in packages so that there is no question about the disposition 
of it. 

Now, I personally went into the butter business in 1878. I stood 
behind the counter, and retailed butter to the amount of $35,000 a 
year; and I have yet the first person to come to me and ask me for 
oleomargarine — that is, a private individual. My experience in the 
business all through is that oleomargarine is a fraud from the begin- 
ning to the end; that it is made in the semblance of butter and is sold 
for butter. There is only one thing that we desire in the line of legis- 
lation, and that is that such a law may be enacted as will compel these 
"honest" oleomargarine manufacturers and dealers to sell the goods 
for what they are. We are not at all afraid of that kind of competi- 
tion — not at all. And if any one will take the trouble to hunt up the 
business from the factory to the consumer, he will find bej^ond any 
question of doubt in his mind that it is one of the most stupendous 
frauds that was ever fostered upon the people of this Commonwealth. 
There is not any question about that. I know that it is insidiously 
covered up. I know that. It is a lie from the beginning. I am not afraid 
to make that statement, because I know it to be a fact; and I can make it 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 219 

honestly. You can take all the branches of the combined agricultural 
business of the country, and put them together, and you will find that 
the whole combination is not as corrupting in its influence as oleomar- 
garine. 

Now, I can show you very clearly how that is. For instance, take 
a market like some of our markets in Philadelphia. Here is a man 
who buys oleomargarine to sell. Let us say that he has the privilege 
of doing it. He buys oleomargarine; and a person comes and asks, 
""Is that pure butter?" He says, "No, that is oleomargarine;" and 
the person leaves and goes to another stand. He inquires of that 
dealer whether what he sees is pure butter. The dealer has oleomar- 
garine on his stand, but he is unscrupulous, and he says that it is pure 
butter. Then the party buys it, believing it to be pure butter. 

Now, under those conditions the balance of the men in that market 
have either got to become corrupt and liars themselves, or they have 
got to get out of the business; and the temptatioa is strongly in favor 
of their becoming liars. So that if you follow the thing up closely, 
you will find that it is one of the most corrupting things that has ever 
been fostered upon the people. We are honest in this matter. I will 
admit that there is not a man here who has -not a measure of selfishness 
in him. I will admit that. Take the farmers, and there is a measure 
of selfishness in them; and in the retailers, and in the wholesale deal- 
ers, and the buyers of ordinary butter. We hav^e all got a measure of 
it; but there is one truth here and one fact, and that fact is this — that 
oleomargarine is a fraud. It is a cheat. It is not fair to call it an 
imitation. It is a counterfeit, and it is the most deceiving thing that 
has ever gone in the mouths of the people. 

I went home not very long ago and our folks were out of butter and 
I found a very nice half pound of "butter" on our table. As soon as 
I saw it, being accustomed to butter and knowing what it is, 1 of course 
readily detected that it was oleomargarine. I said to my wife, " Where 
didyou get that?" "Well," shesaid, "I bought it around the corner. 
We just happened to be out of butter." Said I, "What did j^ou pa}^ 
for it?" "Twenty cents for half a pound." "Well," said I, "that is 
oleomargarine." And I was one out of probably ten thousand people 
who would have noticed it. 

Gentlemen. I do not want to take any more time. I am ver}^ much 
obliged to you. 

Mr. Jelke. Will the gentleman permit me a question ? 

Mr. Habecker. Certainly. 

Mr. Jelke. You are in the butter business? 

Mr. Habecker. I am in the butter business. 

Mr. Jelke. Do joii know anything about process butter? 

Mr. Habecker. Yes, sir ; I do. 

Mr. Jelke. You handle that? 

Mr. Habecker. I do, sir ; have you got anything to say against it? 

Mr. Jelke. That is all, sir. 

Mr. Kauffman. Mr. Chairman, the next gentleman who wishes to 
address you is Mr. Joseph C. Sharpless. 



220 OLEOMAKGARINE. 



STATEMENT OF JOSEPH C. SHARPLESS, OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

Mr. Sharpless. Mr. Chairman, I have onl}^ a few words to say. As 
Mr. Kauffman stated, I am a creamery man. I put up most of my 
butter in half-pound prints with m^^full name on them. M}^ attention 
was called a little while ago to some butter that was found in the mar- 
ket with my name on it, a half-pound print, and when I came to exam- 
ine it it was oleo. Somebody had gotten that block made and gone 
and printed oleomargarine with my print, whereas if the stuff had 
been white, as we want it to be, and not colored in imitation of our 
goods, the people would not have bought it as my butter. I simply 
wanted to make that statement. 

Mr. ScHELL. Mr. Chairman, may I ask a question, please? I would 
like to ask the two gentlemen whether, if a law could be prepared 
which would compel colored oleomargarine to be sold for what it is, 
they would then object to the color in the oleo? 

Mr. Habecker. How is that? 

Mr. ScHELL. Would you object to colored oleomargarine being on 
the market if some law could be framed by which the dealer would be 
compelled to sell it for what it is ? 

Mr. Habecker. It could not be. 

Mr. Schell. Well, if it could be? 

Mr. Habecker. I do not think that is the question. 

Mr. Kauffman. I will answer that question, if you please. 

The Acting Chairman. We will defer the answer to that question 
until the turn of this gentleman to speak, because I imagine that he, 
who is trained in the law, will perhaps know more about statutes than 
the gentlemen who are trained in the creamery busmess. 

Mr. Schell. I understand; but that simply goes to the question of 
whether or not such a law can be made. I want to get at the intent of 
the people who are actually in the business, and who are here advocat- 
ing this bill. I want to know whether they want colored oleomargarine 
stamped out, or whether they simply want it subjected to such restric- 
tions as will insure its being sold for what it is. 

Mr. Kauffman. I will answer that question when my turn comes. 
You can ask me all the questions you please, and I will be glad to 
answer them. 

The next gentleman who will speak is Mr. Isaac W. Cleaver, who is 
manager of 65 grocery stores in the city of Philadelphia. 



STATEMENT OF ISAAC W. CLEAVER, OF PHILADELPHIA, PA. 

Mr. Cleaver. Mr. Chairman, I represent the Acme Tea Company, 
which operates not 05 but 63 retail stores in Philadelphia. 

We are known as cut grocers. Consequently, we think that we reach 
the masses of the people. It has been our desire and our policy, and 
our practice, to conform strictly to all the laws with respect to pure 
food. We have found that we were beaten by our competitors, who 
sold an imitation or a counterfeit for butter at about a cent a pound less 
than we were selling it. We know this because we bought it from 
them as butter, for butter, had it tested, and it proved to be oleo- 
margarine. 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 221 

About two years ago we were asked to join the Pure Butter Pro- 
tective Association, whose object was to enforce the laws against the 
illegal sale of oleomargarine. We at once united with them, and have 
been pa^dng our money and using all possible efforts to have these 
laws executed so as to stop the illegal sale of oleomargarine for butter. 
We have not been successful. 

We are in no way interested in the manufacture of butter; only in 
the sale of it. If we could sell oleomargarine legally and there were 
a demand for it, we would just as lief sell it as we would butter. 

With reference to whether or not there is a demand for it, I have 
only this to say: We have a printed slip, with questions on the slip 
which must be answered every week by every manager in each of our 
stores. One of those questions is this: "Has there been anything 
asked for during the week that we do not keep? If so, what?" We 
have yet, from all those 63 stores, to have an inquiry for oleomarga- 
rine or butterine. Consequently, we are convinced that the masses of 
the people in Philadelphia do not want oleomargarine or they would 
ask for it. 

Mr. Springer. Is the sale of oleomargarine prohibited by law in 
Philadelphia? 

Mr, Cleaver. No, sir; it is not. 

Mr. Jelke. What is the law in Pennsylvania relating to the sale of 
oleomargarine ? 

Mr. Cleaver. I do not know exactly what the law is. All that I 
know is that we have been assisting, in every way in our power, with 
our money and with our efforts, to have that law enforced, and without 
success. We still find that our competitors beat us, right alongside 
of us, because they offer for a penny less something that they sell for 
butter. 

This is all, I believe, that I have to say, unless questions are asked me. 

Mr. Knight. About how much butter do you sell a day? 

Mr. Cleaver. We sell from 4,000 to 6,000 pounds of butter per 

Mr. Jelke. Have you ever handled process butter? 

Mr. Cleaver. We do, as process butter. We handle it in con- 
formity with the law — every package stamped. In everything con- 
nected with pure food we adhere to the law strictly, both literally and 
in spirit. 

Mr. Schell. Do you have calls for process butter? 

Mr. Cleaver. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Schell. Is it distinguished as such ? When the customer asks 
for it does he say, "Let me have some process butter"? 

Mr. Cleaver. Every package is marked, "Renovated butter." 

Mr. Schell. I know; but when the customer, the consumer, comes 
in does he ask for "process butter" or "renovated butter"? 

Mr. Cleaver. Renovated butter. 

Mr. Schell. Does he specify that he wants that kind? 

Mr. Cleaver. That I can not answer. You understand, I am the 
buyer and the manager of the butter, egg, and cheese department. I 
am not in the stores, you know. I am the general manager, with my 
office at the headquarters, at our warehouse, and I do not know about 
all those little details. But I am familiar with these questions, be- 
cause the same sheet contains any complaints that are made. So I say 
that any complaints that are made about butter or eggs come to me on 
those sheets, in the way I have stated. 



222 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

Mr. Jelke, Do these sheets specify that you have calls for reno- 
vated butter ? 

Mr. Cleaver. Oh, we keep that, you understand. We keep that. 
The question I refer to, you must understand, is this: " Have we had 
calls for anything that we do not keep ? " Now, we keep renovated 
butter. 

Mr. Knight. To what class of trade do jon cater ? 

Mr. Cleaver. I think I said that we are known as cut grocers, and 
of course we reach the masses, those who want good goods for little 
money. Of course our aim is all the time to improve our qualit}^, but 
we are known as cut grocers, and of course our customers want goods 
cheap. I should suppose, therefore, that if these dear people who are 
said to want oleo are anxious for it they certainly would come to us 
for it. 

Mr. Springer. You would not sell that which the law prohibits you 
from selling? 

Mr. Cleaver. Well, there is no way that they would know our rep- 
utation in the pure-food line except by coming and finding out. We 
do not publish to the world that we are strictly reliable and straight- 
forward. They would have to find it out by coming and asking. 

Mr. Springer. You doubtless have a good reputation in the com- 
munity where you live? 

Mr. Cleaver. Well, we try to have. 

Mr. Kauffman. Mr. Chairman, the next gentleman will be E. D. 
Edson, who is one of the largest wholesale butter dealers in the city 
of Philadelphia. 



STATEMENT OF E. D. EDSON, OF PHILADELPHIA, PA. 

Mr. Edson. Mr. Chairman, I can only indorse the sentiment that 
has been expressed by those gentlemen that have preceded me. As a 
business man and a butter dealer, I can but add to what they have 
already stated, that in a business of eighteen years I have been in con- 
stant touch with the creamery men, the dairymen, and the butter 
makers throughout the East and the West, and right in touch with 
the retail butter dealers, a great many of whom during the past sev- 
eral years have sold oleomargarine. Recently a number of them have 
gone out of the oleomargarine business, on account of the prosecutions 
in Philadelphia. And in almost all cases, without any exceptions, 
those men with whom I have discussed this oleo question have admitted 
to me that they could not sell oleo unless they sold it as pure butter. 

Now, as a matter of business, if the public wanted oleo, every rep- 
resentative butter house in Philadelphia would sell it to them if it could 
handle it legally. I might venture to say that there is hardly a respect- 
able commission butter house to-day in Philadelphia which would 
entertain the idea of selling oleomargarine, because they all have the 
knowledge before them that they can not sell it legally. That is, if 
they were to sell it legally, they would have to sell it as oleomargarine, 
and they know that they can not do that, and they also know that the 
retail dealers to whom they would sell this oleomargarine would have 
to sell it as butter in order to dispose of it. 

Now, in order to get at the marrow of this oleo business, just com- 
pare the way the farmers or the butter makers dispose of their prod- 



OLEOMAKGAKINE. 223 

act with the way the oleo manufacturers dispose of theirs. The butter 
makers make their butter and send it to reputable commission houses, 
where it is disposed of for the account of these shippers on a commis- 
sion basis. The oleo dealers, after having exhausted ever}^ means in 
their power to interest the respectable element in the butter trade, 
and induce them to handle their oleo, without avail, with the aid of 
expert salesmen encourage illiterate people, this low class of Russian 
Jews, men who have been unsuccessful in business, who can not com- 
pete legitimately with up-to-date business men, to embark in this trade, 
with the guilty knowledge before them that these men to whom they 
are selling this oleo must violate the law in order to dispose of their 
product. 

I think that speaks for itself. If the people wanted oleo, every 
butter man in Philadelphia would endeavor to get it for them, if he 
could sell it legally. 

I believe that is all I have to say. 

Mr. Jelke. Just one question. You have been in the butter busi- 
ness eighteen years ? 

Mr. Edson. Eighteen years; yes, sir. 

Mr. Jelke. Have you ever sold oleomargarine? 

Mr. Edson. Yes, sir; I have. 

Mr. Jelke. How long ago ? 

Mr. Edson. Not for the last ten or eleven years. I should be very 
glad to answer questions here for an hour, as far as I am concerned, 
gentlemen. 

Mr. Knight, Mr. Edson, wh^'' did you cease selling oleo? 

Mr. Edson. Because it was against the law to sell it. 

Mr. Springer. Do you not recognize this difference, Mr. Edson? 
The law prohibits the sale of any imitation of butter, colored — any- 
thing colored in imitation of butter. If the dealer were to sell it for 
either butter or oleomargarine, he would be guilt}?^ of violation of 
the law. 

Mr. Edson. No; the law, as it stands now, as I understand it, per- 
mits him to sell it if he sells it for oleomargarine. 

Mr. Springer. No, sir; no sir! 

The Acting Chairman. The law of Pennsylvania prohibits the 
manufacture or sale of oleomargarine made in semblance of butter. 

Mr. Edson. Oh, the law of Pennsylvania! I did not know you 
meant that. 

Mr. Springer. So, Mr. Edson, if they sell it for oleomargarine, 
they confess that they are guilty ? 

Mr. Edson. Yes. 

Mr. Springer. If they sell it for butter, the burden of proof, on 
the other hand, is upon the Government to show that what they sell is 
not butter, but oleomargarine ? 

Mr. Edson, Yes, sir. 

Mr. Springer. So that it is to their interest to sell it as butter unless 
they want to confess themselves guilty ? 

Mr. Jelke. Just one question, please. Do you sell process butter? 

Mr. Edson. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Kauffman. Mr. Chairman, the next speaker will be W. F. 
Drennan, who is also one of the largest butter dealers in the city of 
Philadelphia. 



224 OLEOMARGARIlSrE. 

STATEMENT OF W. F. DRENNAN, OF PHILADELPHIA, PA. 

Mr. Drennan. I would like to state my reasons for being in favor of 
the Grout bill; and I will try to confine my reasons to facts. 

As a commission merchant, of course I might be called somewhat 
selfish in the handling of genuine butter. We used to handle oleomar- 
garine many years ago. We handled it largely up to the time the first 
law was enacted, and we have handled it pending the decision on the 
constitutionality of our State law. After it became a settled fact that 
we could not handle it without violating the law, we quit it. 

As a dairyman, as a land owner and a man interested in the dairy 
business, I am in favor of the Grout bill, because 1 think it offers the 
best protection to the legitimate industry of butter making, 

I also would be glad to offer what testimony I can give you as to 
some points which I have heard discussed here to-day, and which I 
have seen through the medium of the press. One is the claim that 
olemargarine is largely sold for what it is; that the people demand it 
and want it, and that the manufacturers and wholesale dealers are 
anxious that it shall be sold for just what it is. 

Now, I deny that in toto. Our experience, which I will try to verify 
here to-day, has been exactly to the contrary. After being in the 
commission butter business over twenty years I can call to mind only 
one instance in which a consumer ever admitted that he bought it 
willingly or bought it for what it was. That may seem very strange 
to you, and yet it is true. I repeat that I can recall but one instance in 
all my lifetime w here any person admitted that he bought it knowingly 
for what it was because he wanted it on his table. 

Now, then, I think the facts will bear me out in that. As chairman 
of the executive committee of the Pure Butter Association, we were 
compelled two years ago to enforce our State law through the medium 
of what money we could raise on the street and through appointing 
our own attorney and our own detectives. After having purchased 
about 161 samples and having them analyzed, and having those pur- 
chases recorded in a book where we could have access to them, the 
question came up: '"How many purchases were made in which the 
vendor gave them to the purchaser for oleomargarine ? " Butter was 
asked for, of course. Out of 161 cases, one was sold for exactly what 
it was. The 160 were sold for butter and at practically butter prices. 

Now, are those facts sufficient to convince anyone here that these 
goods are not sold for what they are? Less than 1 per cent in that 
particular instance was sold for what it really was. 

You can have those facts if you want them. It has been stated here 
on this floor to-day that there is only a small percentage of oleomar- 
garine sold for other than what it is or what it purports to be. I 
think that this case disproves that claim, and even if it does not, I have 
enough knowledge of the oleomargarine business to know that it is 
not sold for what it is; that there is no wholesaler who wants it sold for 
what it is, and that in fact there is no manufacturer who really wants 
it sold for what it is, for the reason that he can make a great deal more 
out of it and sell a great deal more of it through having it sold for 
butter. 

My friend Mr. Jelke, here (a man whom I have known a long time, 
and whom 1 respect), would probably tell you that he would prefer 
that these goods should be sold for what they are. I think that the 



OLEOMAKGARINE. 225 

Grout Ijill gives such men the opportunity of building up their 
industry on its own merits, and that it simply draws the line so that 
ever}' human l)oing can tell exactly what he is buying. 

It may be a hard job to do that just at once. And 3"et there is 
nothing unfair about the Grout bill, unless you take the stand that 
3T)U can not make or introduce white oleomargarine or oleomargarine 
without color. But even that is nothing. If that is the fact, then let 
it stand on its own merits instead of posing as pure butter. 

There is not a man here who, if he went to a dealer's stand and 
asked for butter and was given oleomargarine after he had paid the 
pure-butter price, would not kick. Mr, Jelke himself would do it. 
Any gentleman who has spoken to you would do it. 

Now, I state this fact, that according to my positive knowledge 
there is not over 1 per cent of oleomargarine sold for what it is in our 
market. 1 would not make the statement if I could not prove it. 

If there are any questions anyone wishes to ask me, I will try to 
answer them, 

Mr, Springer. This is in Philadelphia, is it not? 

Mr. Drennan. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Springer, Is what you have stated due to the fact that if the 
merchant sold it for anything but butter he would confess himself 
guilty of a violation of the law? 

Mr, Drennan, I have not any doubt that that has a very great 
bearing; but even that is no argument, 

Mr. Springer. It explains the fact, however, that men do not go 
into the community and say, "I am guilty of violating the law by 
doing this." If a dealer sells it for oleomargarine, the law prohibits 
that, and he confesses himself guilty. If he sells it for butter, the 
State has to prove that what is actuall}^ sold is oleomargarine in order 
to convict him. 

Mr. Drennan. Yes. 

Mr. Springer. People do not convict themselves, as a rule. 

Mr. Drennan. My experience as a man and as a merchant for the 
last twenty }' ears has taught me positively that the average buyer of 
butter does not want oleomargarine, and that when he buys oleomar- 
garine he gets it when he asks for butter, and he would not have it 
did he know it. Now, then, I will admit that it is possible to work up 
a trade for oleomargarine on its merits. That is all we ask them to 
do. The Grout bill gives them the opportunity to do that. It 
removes part of the tax. It leaves the color out. It puts it squarely 
on its merits. There is no one who can denj' that. 

Then there is another thing: We have a lot of irresponsible dealers 
who take up oleomargarine because of the immense profit in it. I do 
not need to stand here and tell you what it costs to make it or what it 
costs to put it into the hands of the wholesale dealer. We all know 
that. Everybody knows that. But when the retailer, in its colored 
condition, can bring it up to within 1 or 2 cents of the price of genu- 
ine butter and sell it to the customer at that price, he has a profit of 
anywhere from 10 to 12 cents. Therefore he is bound to go into that 
business if there is any such business; and just as long as there is 
color in it we can not reach him. 

You may talk about the Wadsworth bill. I am soriy to say that 
the revenue department of our city does not enforce the revenue law. 
It will prosecute a case if we will make it and bring it to the depart- 
S. Rep. 2043 15 



226 OLEOMARGARINE. 

ment with the evidence; that is all. But it is the worst law we ever 
could have enacted, according to my best judgment. 

Ml". Knight. You mean the Wadsworth bill^ 

Mr. Drennan. The Wadsworth bill. 

Mr. Jelke. Just one minute, Mr. Drennan. Do I understand you 
to say that you have had no call for oleomargarine as oleomargarine? 

Mr. Drennan. Why, while we were in the business we had a great 
many calls for it. We were in exactly the same position, Mr. Jelke, 
that you were. We could not sell it for butter if we had tried to sell 
it for butter. We kept it stamped in our own house for sale. The 
man who came there, if he wanted it at all, wanted it as oleo. He 
would do the other work. 

Now, then, I do not want to forget anything. 1 came neaj' forget- 
ting a point that I wished to make. We formerly sold to one man 
perhaps $50,000 worth of high-grade oleomargarine every year. That 
man had a rule behind his stalls, where he had four cutters, that if 
one of them ever gave away the fact that oleomargarine was being sold 
in that stall he did it at the peril of his position, and he maintained 
that rule for years. I can think of three gentlemen in Camden who 
bought it and sold it, and they will tell you to-day that a pound never 
went out of their possession except for genuine butter, and they would 
not dare do it, and they would not do it. They sold it all for butter. 

Now, those are the facts. I would be glad to be permitted to sell 
oleomargarine if there were any demand for it as such. But 99 per 
cent of it is sold fraudulentl3^ That is absolutely my candid convic- 
tion, and it is what I gather from facts that have come under my own 
knowledge. Every dealer to whom we sold oleomargarine would tell 
5^ou that he never could sell it, or would not sell it, except ag butter, 
for the reason that he would not want his trade to know he was han- 
dling oleo. If he did, the customer would say, "Why don't you let 
me have it at a reasonable price V The dealer would sell it at a price 
about a cent below that of fancy butter; hence the enormous profit. 

Now, that is the way the thing is run in our market. There are 
wholesale dealers there who would contradict me, but I know that 
those wholesale dealers — and you may take the most respectable of 
them — have insisted that our trade, in coming to us and buying butter, 
must take up the oleo. They have said, "If you will only take it up 
we will see that you are not at one cent expense for legal matters. 
We will bear all the expense. We will stand behind you and protect 
you as regards that part of it. Go in. You might as well go in and 
sell it as somebody else. We will stand back of you." If one man 
has said that thing to me in the last six months, in the endeavor to 
urge us into handling oleo, fifty have done it, and ev^eryone with 
assurance (whether or not it would have been carried out I do not 
know) that they would stand back of us and protect us. 

That is the way it is sold in Philadelphia, and there is not a man 
here in the business but what knows it. 

Mr. Jelke. Mr. Drennan, just one question. You handle all kinds 
of butter, do 3"ou not? 

Mr. Drennan. Yes, sir; pretty much. 

Mr. Jelke. Process butter? 

Mr. Drennan. No, sir; we do not. 

Mr. Jelke. Renovated butter? 

Mr. Drennan. No, sir. We do not handle it; not because we have 
any scruple against it, but because we have no particular trade for it. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 227 

Mr. Jelke. Well, you know how it is packed or put up, do you^ 
I refer to process butter, renovated butter. 

Mr. Drennan. Yes. We have handled it in years gone by; V)ut 

Mr. Jelke. It is put up in these same square prints and round prints, 
just the same as creamery butter? 

Mr. Drennan. Yes. 

Mr. Jelke. And dairy butter? 

Mr. Drennan. Yes, sir. I suppose every man here knows what 
renovated butter is. In the course of my business I have sold millions 
of dollars' worth of this dairy butter — real butter, put up in tubs, 
rewashed, and repacked. We have sold it for what it was. We have 
sold it for dairy butter, sold it for ladle butter, and all that sort of 
thing. We have sold carloads of it every week. Now, then, the dif- 
ference between that and process butter is that they simply take that 
raw material and render it and take out a great deal of filth, although 
you understand 1 do not handle it, and I am not speaking for it myself. 
Our law in Pennsylvania compels them to stamp it for what it is; but 
it is a much better product than it originallj^ was. Still, I do not han- 
dle it. 

Mr. Jelke. The process removes the filth in the butter? 

Mr. Drennan. Yes, sir. I do not know of anything under heaven 
that has more of it than common butter — the ordinary roll butter, 
such as is not made in the creameries. I think it is filthy. 

Mr. Edson. Mr. Drennan, you do not wish to convey the impres- 
sion that all dair}^ butter has the rancidity of which you speak? 

Mr. Drennan. Oh, no. You will allow me to qualify that. There 
is a gentleman here from Chester County who makes butter in such 
a way that the finest product in the world could not be made an}'^ 
finer, and there is no finer product than dairy butter. I am speaking 
simply of the butter that is brought by the average country farmer 
throughout the West to the store and traded ofl" for goods. It gets 
rancid. Some of it is dirty; some of it is clean. 

Mr. Kauffman. Now, Mr. Chairman, these gentlemen are but a few 
of those who are here. I think I can safely say of the wholesale 
dealers here that they represent three-fourths of the wholesale butter 
trade of the city of Philadelphia; and they, of course, will indorse 
what these two gentlemen have said as their views in relation to the 
Grout bill as afi'ecting the wholesale trade. 

Now, I have one more speaker to introduce. That is Mr. Thomas 
Sharpless. He is a farmer, a dairyman — not a creamery man, but a 
farmer — and he will talk to you, if you will permit him, from the 
standpoint of a farmer. 



STATEMENT OF THOMAS SHARPLESS, ESCl., OF CHESTER 

COUNTY, PA. 

Mr. Sharpless. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, my profession in 
life does not lead me to be a public speaker, but this is a question 
which affects me and all us farmers very nearly. 

I live in Chester County, Pa. Chester and Delaware counties are 
given up, body and soul, to the keeping of cows for the making of 
butter and the production of milk. We think it is an outrage that we 



228 OLEOMAEGARINE, 

men who manufacture genuine real butter should be compelled to 
compete in the market with a fraudulent article which is made in 
imitation of our butter. 

I do not think the wholesomeness which I heard discussed here this 
morning enters into the question at all, pro or con. The question is 
simpl}'- the fraud that these men perpetrate when they make an article 
which is not butter and sell it as butter. 

Now, we color our butter. There is no use denying that; because 
we have never attempted to deny it at all. We color it to suit our 
trade; but it is what we sell it for. It is butter; we say it is butter. 
It is not made of tallow and cottonseed oil and lard, or anything else 
of that kind. It is butter, and it is nothing but butter, and we sell it 
for just exactly what it is. 

I say that these manufacturers have no moral right to color another 
product and sell it in the market as butter in competition with our 
product. They have no moral right to compel us to compete with an 
article of that kind. It is not justice; it is not right. 

Pennsylvania has profited by the protective tarifl*. It has been one 
of the great protective-tariff States, and everj^ one of our industries 
is protected except us farmers who manufacture butter. 

I have been making butter for twenty-five years. In that time I 
have seen the actual value of our lands depreciate 40 per cent. 
Within one mile of my place there are seven farms owned by aliens 
and run by tenants. Within a mile and a half of my place (and we 
live in a fairly good country, on the Brandywine Hills) I have seen 
two farms put up for sale without a single actual bidder for them. 
They were fine farms, too, one of them containing 137 acres and the 
other some 160 odd acres, and they never had a bidder. That is 
simpl}^ because our business has become so unprofitable that only those 
who are compelled to stay in it or go bankrupt stay there. 

Mr. Springer. What is the business? 

Mr. Sharpless. Making butter^ — making dairy butter. I do not 
furnish milk to a creamery at all. I make my own butter in m}' own 
spring house on the place, and furnish it to private trade. 

Mr. Jelke. At what price do you sell your butter ? 

Mr. Sharpless. I sell my butter at 35 cents the year round, whole- 
sale. I have no secrets at all about my trade. I make butter and 
nothing else, and I sell it for butter, too. I sell it to people who appre- 
ciate butter, and they do not buy oleo. Now, I have eaten oleo, and, 
for anything that I could taste about it, I knew I was eating oleo when 
I ate it. For anything that I could taste about it, it tasted f airl}^ good. 
But that is not the question — whether it is good or whether it is bad. 
There is bad butter made as well as there is good butter made. The 
question is simph^, '''Shall I, who make an honest, square article of 
butter, be compelled to compete with an article that is not butter, 
raade in the semblance of my product?" I say it is not fair; it is not 
right. Whether the Grout*^ bill is the remedy for it or not I do not 
know, but it looks that way to me. 

Mr. Miller. Mr. Sharpless, do we understand you to say that j^ou 
can make nothing on butter at 35 cents a pound ? 

Mr. Sharpless. I did not say that. 

Mr. Miller. What do 3^ou say. then ? I understood you to say that 
the business is very unprofitable, and that the value of land is 
decreasing. 



OLEOMAKGAEINE. 229 

Mr. Sharpless. Because I make a fair article of butter, and sell it 
to a fair trade, and get a little bit better price than most people do, 
that is no reason why everybody gets that price. You can buy an}'^ 
amount of butter around in our neighborhood, say at 25 cents — proba- 
bly not just at the present time, but you can through the summer sea- 
son, any amount of it. The farms of our neighborhood can not make 
butter out of their land and sell it for 25 cents and make any money 
out of it. They simply can not do it for that; and I know it, because 
I have been right there, and my accounts will show it. 

Mr. Miller. From the statement made yesterday b}^ Mr. Hamil- 
ton, the dairy commissioner of Pennsylvania, we should judge the 
Pennsylvania butter business to be in a very health}' condition. 

Mr. Sharpless. We have a law regulating the sale of oleomargarine 
in Pennsylvania, and the enforcement of that law rests with Professor 
Hamilton. He claims that he is not able to enforce that law. Either 
that is a fact, or else he is unwilling to do so. Some of us are unchar- 
itable enough to believe that he is unwilling. We have not had very 
much faith in his attempts to enforce that law. 

Mr. Tillinghast. Have you any idea how much oleomargarine 
there is sold in Pennsylvania? 

Mr. Sharpless. No, not to my certain knowledge; but 1 will tell 
you what I do know, that one of my friends who was in Pittsburg 
went into the stores there and asked for butter, and he bought what 
they sold him as butter and took it out and had it anal} zed and it 
proved to be oleomargarine. 

Mr. Edson. Mr. Sharpless, will you tell me how many quarts of 
milk there are in a pound of butter ? 

Mr. Sharpless. It varies; it depends altogether upon the cows. 

Mr. Edson. At this time of year, I mean. 

Mr. Sharpless. It varies; it takes about 9 quarts, or a fraction 
less than 9 quarts, of my milk to make a pound of butter. 

Mr. Edson. On an average it takes more than that, does it not "i 

Mr. Sharpless. The ordinary creamery does not make it under ten. 

Mr. Edson. Then, at the present price of butter, how much does a 
farmer get for a quart of milk ? 

Mr. Sharpless. It depends altogether on the price he gets. 

Mr. Edson. Based on 25-cent butter — 22 to 25 cent butter? 

Mr. Sharpless. He would not get but 2 cents and a half. 

Mr. Edson. Does he get 2 cents and a half ? 

Mr. Sharpless. He has to pay the creamery for manufacturing his 
butter. 

Mr. Edson. Well, finally, when the farmer gets his money, how 
much a quart does he get for his milk? 

Mr. Sharpless. He gets about 2 cents. 

Mr. Edson. He gets about a cent and a half, I should say, or some- 
where around that neighborhood. He gets about a cent and three- 
(juarters to two cents a quart at the best of times. That is what it 
costs. 

Mr. Sharpless. He can not produce milk in our county and sell it 
at that price and make a profit out of it. 

Mr. Edson. Mr. Chairman, it is a well-known fact that there are 
from 10 to 11 quarts of milk in a pound of butter. At the average 
price of butter throughout the year a farmer in the East or in the 
West will net aljout a cent and a half a quart for milk on butter sold 
at from 18 to 20 cents. 



230 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Now, you can see that that is little enough. The actual cost of the 
production of a pound of butter is about 16 or 18 cents; so that where 
butter is compelled to compete with oleomargarine, which is made 
at 10 or 11 and 12 cents a pound and sold at identically the same price, 
the farmer has got to go out of business. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Was the price of butter any higher before oleo- 
margarine was used? 

Mr. Sharpless. Yes, sir. I never thought anything of getting 50 
cents a pound for butter. 

Mr. Springer. When? 

Mr. Sharpless. When I first began; when I first entered into the 
dairy business, twenty-five years ago. It was gradually cut down to 
45 and 40, until it got down to 30 cents. 

Mr. Springer. When the country got on a gold basis it went down 
to 30 cents, I suppose ? 

Mr. Sharpless. When I got down to 30 cents, I thought I was 
pretty near the bottom. Now, I do not want to take up your time, 
gentlemen, but the only point I have in this matter is that I say it is 
unjust and unfair that we farmers, who make an honest, fair article, 
should be compelled to compete with a fraudulent article made in 
imitation of our product. That is all I have to say about it. 

The Acting Chairman. You have made your point very clearly, sir. 

Mr. Kauffman. Now, Mr. Chairman, before I call the next speaker, 
I desire to say about Mr. Sharpless, that the Sharpless butter is known 
all over the United States. It is the highest brand of butter that is 
known in the United States. 

The next speaker whom I want to introduce, Mr. Chairman, is the 
president of the Produce Exchange of Philadelphaia, Mr. Isaac W. 
Davis. 



STATEMENT OF ISAAC W. DAVIS, ESQ., PRESIDENT OF THE 
PRODUCE EXCHANGE, PHILADELPHIA, PA. 

Mr. Davis. Mr. Chairman, I do not know that I have anything at 
all to add to what has already been said. I did not expect to be called 
on, and I have very little to say. What I have to say is simply by way 
of confirmation of what has already been stated. 

I believe that one of the reasons for our coming here is our belief 
that the passage of the Grout bill will be the most effectual means of 
correcting what has been very emphatically stated here as a fraud. 
That is our belief, and it is mine. The history of the traffic has been 
one of illegality, and all the legislation that has been enacted, so far as 
1 have known of it, has been necessarily of a restrictive character. 

The legitimate butter interests have been compelled, by way of 
defense, to hedge about this thing, when, if it had been legitimate and 
fair, as it has been claimed here that it is, there would not have been 
the slightest necessity for that kind of legislation. And all the laws 
that have been enacted have more or less failed. We think the Grout 
bill will meet the case in every particular, for the reason that it will 
compel the manufacturers of this product to compete fairly ; that is, 
they can not get away from it. It will compel them to sell their 
product for what it is, and it will bring the article down to the con- 
sumer. For instance, under the Wadsworth bill, if this product goes 



OLEOMARGARINE. 231 

to a hotel or a restaurant, or into a private house, these supposed safe- 
o-uards, or wrappers, or whatever they may be, wliich are used to 
identify it as oleomargarine, are taken off, and the consumer does not 
know anything- about it; and he is imposed on. The same kind of 
imposition goes all the way through, and all the methods, so far as we 
have been able to discover, of the manfacturers and dealers of oleo- 
margarine have been those of systems of deceit — to put oil' on the 
people articles of food which they did not know they were using. 

Now, 1 do not know that I can say anything further about this mat- 
ter. The only point is that we are here in the butter interest — dairy- 
men, dealers, and consumers — to state our belief in the efficacy of this 
Grout bill. We want it. We think it is a remedy for all these ills in 
the butter trade, and that it will compel legitimate competition. The 
butter dealers do not want to destroy this product. They have no idea 
of doing that. If people want oleomargarine, they are entitled to 
have it. But, as 1 understand it, statistics show that 90 per cent of 
this stuff goes into consumption as butter, and that verj' fact ought to 
stamp it as a fraud. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. What statistics do you refer to ? 

Mr. Davis. I have not them in my possession; but I have heard the 
statements made and the facts given, and they have not been contested 
at all. 

Mr. Kauffman. We will give them to you. 

Mr. Davis. That is all 1 have to say. 

Mr. Kauffmax. Now, Mr. Chairman, there is only one more gen- 
tleman who will speak to you — Mr. Jamison, who is a very large 
wholesale dealer in Philadelphia. 



STATEMENT OF SAMUEL JAMISON, ESQ., WHOLESALE BUTTER 
DEALER, PHILADELPHIA, PA. 

Mr. Jamison. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, we speak in favor of 
the Grout bill for the reason that we have tried, b}' experience, all the 
previous legislation, and we are still spending our mone}^ to have the 
laws enforced. I suppose it has been ten years since the butter trade 
of Philadelphia has made an effort to control the sale of oleomargarine 
according to the laws which were passed by the United States, to 
enfore the national law, or our own State law. AVe find great diffi- 
culty in enforcing the laws as individuals. We have probably spent 
in the neighborhood of $50,000 of our own money to have oleomar- 
garine sold according to the laws of Pennsylvania. We have been com- 
pelled, from year to year, to have additional legislation passed, making- 
it harder and harder for oleomargarine to be sold as butter. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Will the gentleman permit a question? 

The Acting Chairjuan. Allow the gentleman to proceed, please. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. I will, unless he desires to be interrupted. 

The Acting Chairman. You can ask him questions at the end of his 
remarks, unless he desires to l^e interrupted now. 

Mr. Jamison. It does not make any difference. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. 1 wiU ask if, during that period, you have not had 
in Pennsylvania a prohibitive law, absolutely prohibiting the sale of all 
oleomargarine? 

Mr. Jamison. We had a prohibitive law for some time, and we found 



232 OLEOMARGARINE. 

that there was no appropriation made by the State to enforce it. I think 
the ti'ade, as a rule, has spent its own money to have that law enforced. 
During that period, I think, we have also had a revenue law, which 
requires oleomargarine to be marked plainly, so that all consumers 
would know what they were bujnng; and we found both the State and 
the national laws absolutely void. They were not enforced, except 
through the elJorts of the trade. We have our own business to attend 
to. We are not the police power of the State. We have been forced, 
notwithstanding that fact, to that attitude. Fortunately, a few years 
ago the State appropriated a sum amounting to about $25,000, which, 
I think, had been obtained indirectly by license, but the dairy and pure 
food commissioner of the State has stated here that he has found it 
exceedingly difficult to have that law enforced. 

We ask for additional legislation because we find that the goods can 
not be controlled except at the factory. The minute they leave the 
factory the deception begins. As reputable merchants, merchants of 
standing, with capital behind us, and with prominent locations in the 
center of a large city, we can not violate these laws. We are the first 
men to be arrested if we do violate them. But we have customers 
who sell these goods at retail. After they get possession of those 
goods, they remove all marks absolutel}^. They remove the revenue 
stamp; they scrape the word ''oleomargarine'*' off the boxes. They 
receive the oleomargarine itself without any marks whatever on it. 
Then, they proceed to sell it as butter. And of all the retail dealers in 
oleomargarine who have a Government license in the city of Philadel- 
phia — how many are there, Mr. Kauft'man? 

Mr. Kauffjvian. Only 32, now. 

Mr. Jamison. I doubt very much whether &.nj individual can go to 
any one of those retail dealers who has a Government license to sell 
oleomargarine and succeed in obtaining oleomargarine if he asks for it. 
I have repeatedly asked retail dealers who had a Government license 
(generally under some assumed name; instead of taking their own 
name, the}^ call themselves some creamery compan^^ or other) for oleo- 
margarine. I have said to these men, "Are 3'ou handling oleomar- 
garine?" "■ No; I do not sell it." Still, we know that they pay for a 
Government license. We know that they receive the goods. We 
know that they sell to their regular trade, every day, oleomargarine 
for butter. A stranger who comes to one of their places of business 
and asks for butter will probably receive butter, because he is an 
unknown buyer; but to their regular trade we find that they sell oleo- 
margarine to this day, in spite of what may be called the prohibitory 
law of the State of Pennsylvania and a national law which requires 
oleomargarine to be marked. We find it simply impossible to control 
the sale of oleomargarine as oleomargarine after the goods leave the 
factory. I have had considerable experience with oleomargarine; we 
sold it ourselves previous to the legislation in the State which made it 
impossible to sell it legall}', and that is why 1 say these things. 

As 1 was sajang, these retail dealers have continued to sell oleomarga- 
rine as butter to this day, and that is the reason I think the goods 
ought to be controlled at the factory, because as soon as they leave 
the factory they are in such a shape that they can not be controlled 
by either the State or the present national law. If they are taxed at 
the factory or put in such shape that they must go to the consumer 
as oleomargarine we will be perfectly satisfied. Individuallv I have 



OLEOMARGARINE. 233 

no objection to oleomargarine and would probabl}- sell it to-morrow 
if I could sell it according- to the laws, and it the people to whom 1 
sold it would comply with the laws so as not to get me in a position 
like they did a few years ago. If a retailer was caught violating the 
laws of Pennsylvania he would take advantage of the laws and simply 
say, "Well, I can not pay 3^ou, because you are in an illicit business," 
and he would give that as a reason for not paying his bills. The traffic 
is in a very serious condition. As I have said before, 1 have no seri- 
ous objection to the sale of oleomargarine as oleomargarine; but the 
trade to which we sell can not compete with the men who are willing 
to take the chances of arrest for violating the present State and national 
laws. 

I hope, therefore, that the bill will pass because it will relieve, in a 
great measure, the present expensive system of enforcing the national 
as well as the State law. The States know that they can not control 
the sale of this product without the use of a great deal of money, and 
it is impossible to watch the thousand and one small dealers. A great 
many of them are unlicensed. There are in the city of Philadelphia 
and in the State of Pennsylvania a great many unlicensed dealers. 
The revenue men are not able to find illicit dealers sufficient even to 
collect the revenue. One revenue collector himself told me that he 
went to Pittsburg and in a few da3^s found 35 illicit oleo dealers who 
had not paid the Government tax at all, and were violating both the 
national and State laws. 

Mr. Springer. Mr. Jamison, let me ask you a question, please. 
You are a commission merchant? 

Mr. Jamison. Yes. 

Mr. Springer. Could you not devise a law which would so identif}^, 
at the factory, manufacturers of oleomargarine, that it could be car- 
ried in that condition to the consumer without any risk of coming into 
competition with creamery butter? 

Mr. Jamison. I know of no way of accomplishing that result. I 
have given it serious thought. We supplied the best hotels at one 
time. W^e sell butter to hotels from Maine to Florida. We supplied 
this town here for j'^ears with probably 90 per cent of the fine butter 
used here. And I do not see how, after the goods leave the factory, 
they can reach the hotel, the restaurant, the boarding house, or the 
retailer, and not be used as butter. The retailer can take a machine, 
and no matter how you brand it, even if you put something in the 
interior of the butter, he can take it out and print it over and sell 
it for butter. 

Mr. Springer. If the law required the retail dealer to sell it to the 
consumer in the original package, without the paper being broken, 
would it not then reach the consumer as it came from the factory, in 
the original package? 

jNIr. Jamison. The national law requires to-day that every package 
of oleo sold at retail must be marked with the word " oleomargarine," 
the address, and the number of pounds. Every retailer in Philadel- 
phia, 3^ou may sav, violates that law to-da^^ 

Mr. Springer. But if they were required by the law to sell it in the 
original package, without breaking the seal or the internal-revenue 
stamp, and deliver it in that shape to the consumer, would you see any 
danger then from its coming in competition with the sale of creamer}' 



234 OLEOMARGAKINE. 

butter, as far as the retail merchant is concernocl, or as far as you are 
concerned ? 

Mr. Jamison. So far as the manufacturer and the wholesale dealer 
are concerned, the business is thoroughly legitimate. And yet, even 
before these absolutel}^ prohibitory laws were passed in Pennsylvania, 
we were asked by dealers to enter fictitious names on our revenue 
books, and to do other things which we did not care to do, and which 
we refused to do. But I am sorry to say that there are other dealers 
in the business, competing with us, who have not hesitated to do these 
things. 

Mr. Springer. That was because the law made it a crime to do these 
particular things. If it had been lawful for you to sell the oleomar- 
garine in the original package, just as you got it from the factory, 
without breaking the seal and without breaking the internal-revenue 
stamp, would you have had any embarrassment in delivering it so to 
your consumers — to your purchasers? 

Mr. Jamison. Not as a wholesale dealer; no. 

The Acting Chairman. I will ask Judge Springer, is there anything 
that will prevent the retail dealer from removing the article from the 
package ? 

Mr. Springer. Nothing but the law. The penalties of the law would 
prevent that, 

Mr. Jelke. May I ask Mr. Jamison one question? Do you handle 
renovated butter? 

Mr. Jamison. We do; but nobody wants it. 

Mr. Knight. Mr. Jamison, do you handle creamery butter? 

Mr. Jamison. We do. 

Mr. Knight. Do you handle ladle butter ? 

Mr. Jamison. Ver}" little. That is another thing they do not want. 

Mr. Knight. Do you handle dairy butter ? 

Mr. Jamison. We get no dairy butter of any consequence. 

Mr. Knight. Do you handle packing stock? 

Mr. Jamison. Whenever we can get a consignment, but not often. 

Mr. Tillinghast. I want to ask the gentleman if he has any infor- 
mation as to the amount of oleo that there is sold in the State of 
Pennsylvania? 

Mr. Kauffman. I will answer that. 

Mr. Jamison. Mr. Kauffman has the figures. 

Mr. Springer. 11,000,000 of pounds. 

Mr. Schell. Mr. Chairman, I think you will bear me out in stat- 
ing that I have been very patient, and have interrupted but very little, 
and have always been the last one to ask questions. 

The Chairman. That is true. 

Mr. Schell. The point I want to make now, while all these gentle- 
men are here, and one on which I think I have a right to insist, is that 
they go on record before this committee as to their attitude toward 
colored oleomargarine. That is, I want them to state whether they 
want to drive it entirely out of the market or whether they are willing 
that it shall be sold for what it is, if it can be sold for what it is. 

Mr. Kauffman. I will answer that question. 

Mr. Schell. Now, they have been headed off'; they have not been 
allowed to answer it. I would like them to sa}^ for themselves. 

Mr. Kauffman. I will answer that question. 

Mr. Schell. I know; but we do not want your answer. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 235 

Mr. Kauffman. I represent them all, and you can put all the ques- 
tions to me 3'ou want to put. 

The Acting Chairman. There has been no restraint upon questions. 

Mr. SoHELL. No; but when I ask the question this gentleman says 
he will answer it. 

Mr. Kauffman, You are just taking up my time, sir. 

Mr. ScHELL. No; you are taking my time. I should have gone on 
to-day. 

Mr. Kauffman. No; you are trespassing upon my time. 

Mr. Jamison. I have no objection to answering that question. Per- 
sonally, 1 have no objection to colored oleomargarine as colored oleo- 
margarine. The fact is that butter is sold white. The highest priced 
butter made in the United States is sold white. It goes to New York 
City, Philadelphia, and the best parts of the United States. The color 
question is immaterial. It varies in every State and in every market. 
All we want is a law which will compel oleomargarine to reach the 
individual as oleomargarine. I doubt very much if there is a manu- 
facturer of oleomargarine, a jobber, retailer, or anyone else who would 
eat oleomargarine himself; but he will sell it to other people for them 
to eat. 

Mr. Jelke. I serve it on. my table to my family every day, and 
eveiy man in our employ takes it home for his own use. Mr. Brown, 
the president of our company, has used it for 3^ears on his family table, 
and prefers it to butter. 

Mr. Jamison. Well, that is a vitiated taste. 

Mr. Drennan. Gentlemen, as long as it is sought to make a point 
here about colored oleomargarine I have no objection at all to going 
on record. If you will give me a law which will compel every man to 
sell these goods for exactly what the}" are I have no objection to the 
color; but, then, that is not the point. The}^ know just as well as they 
know they are asking the question that it can not be done. 

Mr. Knight. That is the point. 

Mr. ScHELL. We are only asking if you would have any objection 
*5f it can l)e done. 

Mr. Drennan. I stand here to contradict you. You know it can 
not be done; and 3'ou are trying to drive us into a corner. You know 
that as long as those goods are colored they will be sold for butter, 
ind don't you forget it. 1 know it, too. 

The Acting Chairman. Order, gentlemen. 

Mr. Drennan. I want to state emphatically that my experience for 
twenty years has been that as long as those goods are colored they 
will dodge any law under heaven. You talk about the revenue law! 
The revenue agency in our city pays no attention whatever to the 
enforcement of the law. If a man is found selling oleomargerine 
without a license they will simply ask him to go and take one out. 
They say, " Go and take out your license," and that is the end of it. 

Now, you talk about a certain law called the Wadsworth law. It is 
no better than the present revenue law, and not half as good as the 
present law. 

The Acting Chairman. We will now hear Mr. Kauffman. How 
long a time do j^ou want, Mr. Kautf man ^ 

Mr. Kauffman. I want to have all the time j^ou can give me. I do 
not want to trespass upon 3'our patience, however. 

The Acting Chairman. Are \ ou ready to go on, Mr. Schell, after 
this gentleman is through ? 



236 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. ScHELL. I am ready at any time, Mr. Chairman. 

The Acting Chairman. I would like to hear this gentleman, and also 
to hear you, to-day. 

Mr. Kauffman. How much time have we left^ 

The Acting Chairman. It is now quarter to 4 o'clock; and if we 
close our session at 5, that will leave us an hour and a quarter. 

Mr. Kauffman. Whenever you have heard enough of me, just tell 
me to stop. 

The Acting Chairman. We do not like to do that. Proceed, Mr. 
Kauffman. 



STATEMENT OF LUTHER S. KAUFFMAN, ESQ., ATTORNEY FOR THE 
PURE BUTTER PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION, OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

Mr. Kauffman. Mr. Chairman, tirst let me say, in order that you 
may know that I am speaking from experience and with authority, 
just who I am and just what I represent, and what experience I have 
had in relation to oleomargarine. 

I am the attorney of the Pure Butter Protective Association. My 
experience in this matter dates back to November, 1890. At that time 
I was retained by the butter dealers of Philadelphia — these gentlemen, 
my clients then as now — to enforce the law against oleomargarine in 
the State of Pennsylvania. The law then (that of May 21, 1886) was 
an absolutely prohibitory law. That law had been passed in the State 
of Penns3"lvania because although two prior laws had been passed, one 
in 1878 and an amendment in 1881, which permitted the sale of oleo- 
margarine and butterine if properly marked, they had been so utterly 
inefficient to restrain the illegal sale of oleomargarine that the legis- 
lature of Pennsylvania, in the exercise of its judgment, passed an 
absolutely prohibitory law on May 21, 1885, absolutely prohibiting 
the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine in the State of Pennsyl- 
vania. 

In 1890, when I was retained by the butter men of Philadelphia, I 
found just this — that the whole city was filled with oleomargarine. 
We organized a detective force, and sent them out, and we found that 
there was not a pound of oleomargarine, as far as the experience of the 
detectives was concerned, which was sold as oleomargarine. Every- 
thing was sold as and for pure butter, at pure-butter prices, in 
unmarked packages. 

Now, mark you, gentlemen of the committee, at that time, in 1890, 
this very law which you are trying to amend, that of August 2, 188(5, 
had been in existence for four years. The law provides, you under- 
stand, that every retail dealer in oleomargarine, when he receives his 
oleomargarine from the factory, shall sell it out of a stamped package. 
He must make up his new wooden or paper package, and mark it 
clearl}^ in letters, the size of which is defined by the act, "Oleomar- 
garine," one-half pound, or 1 pound, as the case may be. Then he 
must put his name and address thereupon, to the end that everybody 
may be advised that what he is selling is oleomargarine, and not butter. 

Now, I say that law had been in force for four years. The penal- 
ties provided for under it were drastic. For every violation of that 
act, the law provided that there should be imposed a fine not exceed- 
ing $1,000, and imprisonment for not exceeding two years. It was a 



OLEOMARGARINE. 237 

dreadfully drastic law. One would suppose that the retail dealers 
would not dare to violate a law with such penalties, a line and impris- 
onment, with no discretion at all in the courts. But they did violate 
it, and apparently with impunity, with utter defiance of the law; and 
the consequence was that when I began, as the attorney for this asso- 
ciation, to bring- the prosecutions in the State courts, I also went to 
the United States court. Now, I want to show what the operation of 
the United States law was. 

Mr. Springer. Excuse me — were those the penalties of the State 
law or of the national law ? 

Mr. Kauffman. I said both. I am going to talk about the national 
law now. 

Mr. Springer. But were the penalties to which j^ou refer those 
under the national law? 

Mr. Kauffman. I refer to violators of both. When you violate the 
State law, you also violate the United States law. 

Mr. Springer. But I refer to the severe penalties. 

Mr. Kauffman. Oh, those are the penalties of the United States 
law; yes, sir. Under the State law the penalty was fine or imprison- 
ment, at the discretion of the court; whereas the present law of August 
2, 1886, which is proposed to be amended, makes the penalty tine and 
imprisonment. I refer to section 6. 

I went to the revenue authorities in 1891, and 1 called their atten- 
tion to section 6 of that law. There never had been, in the eastern 
district of Pennsylvania, any prosecution b}" the revenue authorities 
for violation of that act, although it had been in existence for four 
years. We presented a lot of evidence of violations of that United 
States law to the revenue officers, and they absolutely refused to swear 
out the warrants. I was compelled to come over to the Secretary of 
the Treasury, at that time the Hon. Charles Foster, of Ohio; we had 
to summon the Commissioner of Internal Revenue before us ; and we 
compelled the Commissioner of Internal Revenue to issue orders to 
the revenue agents in Philadelphia that evidence should be received 
and the warrants sworn out. They did not do it until we did that very 
thing. Then, when the evidence was submitted, the officers performed 
their duty, and we convicted and sent to jail the men against whom we 
brought the evidence; and that stopped the illegal traffic in the city of 
Philadelphia. We drove the retailers out of the business. We cre- 
ated the office of dairy and food commissioner of the State of Penn- 
sylvania in 1893, and then that association, at that day, went out of 
business, because this department had been created to accomplish the 
same end. 

Now, to show you how fraudulently this traffic is carried on, not 
quite two years ago these gentlemen came to me, in February of 1899, 
and said: "'Our butter trade in the city of Philadelphia is absolutely 
paralyzed. We can not sell our butter in midwinter. It is coming 
into the market and going to the cold-storage warehouses, and we can 
not sell it. Why? Because the oleomargarine dealers have come into 
this market, and absolutely taken possession of the market, and are 
selling oleomargarine as and for butter, and pure butter can not be 
sold." Is not that true, gentlemen? 

Again we began to enforce the law ; and we put our detective force 
to work, and I am going to show 3"ou the results of it here, the cases 
that we found. 



238 OLEOMARGARINE. 

We found again, in February of 1899, with this same United States 
law still in force, not a dealer in oleomargarine in the cit}^ of Phila- 
delphia but who was selling oleomargarine as and for butter; and the 
detectives went out and paid butter prices for it, paying as high as 
40 cents a pound for oleomargarine bought as butter. 

1 have the cases here. There [exhibiting paper] is the list of cases, 
with the date of purchase and the name and address of the party. 
These are purchases made during that time by this association. There 
they are, right straight along, page after page — more than 500 cases 
of purchases of oleomargarine in the city of Philadelphia. I am going 
to give yovi a summary of them. There are in this list more than 500 
cases of purchases of oleomargarine in the city of Philadelphia. The 
detectives, in every single case, without exception, asked for butter; 
and they got oleomargarine at butter prices, without any indication 
from the seller that it was oleomargarine. There you have a fraud 
directly upon the purchaser. 

Now, let me give 3^ou a summary of these cases. How man}- were 
marked i* There are 508 cases here. I have the details there. lam 
not talking about fupposititious cases. Every case is there, with the 
name and date and the result. These detectives went into these 
places, places kept by men who were supposed to be selling oleomar- 
garine, and who had paid revenue taxes. They asked for l)utter. 
Five hundred and eight purchases were made. Of those 508 purchases, 
49 were butter and 459 were oleomargarine. 

Gentlemen, I have have heard a great many theories, but one ounce 
of fact is worth tons of theories. That is a fact. There was not a 
single case of oleomargarine sold as oleomargarine. Of this large 
number of purchases there were marked surreptitiously, marked on 
the packages inside, marked with the word ""oleomargarine" turned 
down, perhaps 50 cases. Oh, if I were to go on to tell you the 
trickeiy, the fraud, the schemes resorted to to deceive the purchasers, 
I could talk to you here for two hours. But I will not go into such 
detail. The simple statement of the matter is that every one of these 
purchases was made as butter, while out of 508 purchases only 49 were 
butter and the balance were oleomargarine. 

Now, then, is it true that if you simply have a color clause, they will 
obey the law? No. Why? Just as the Good Book says, ''The love 
of money is the root of all evil," and that applies to this oleo traffic as 
much as anything else. When a retail dealer can get oleomargarine 
at 11, 12, or 13 cents a pound, and can go out and sell it for 30 and 
35 cents a pound by lying, by deceiving the public, the temptation is 
greater than poor human nature can bear, and he does it. Why, there 
in the city of Philadelphia, Mr. Chairman, before Ave began this crusade 
a year and a half ago, there Avere hucksters with no capital whatsoever, 
having an old horse and an old Avagon, who would buy olemargarine 
from the wholesale dealers at 14 and 15 cents a pound, and go among 
our citizens, represent themselves as farmers from Bucks and Chester, 
our adjoining counties, get up a butter route, and sell this stuff as but- 
ter, as if they were from the farms. They would sell 1,000 pounds a 
week, on which they made an average of from 10 to 15 cents a pound 
profit. You can see what they did. A thousand pounds at 10 cents 
would be $100 a week, Avith a capital of $200 or $300 invested. 

How in the world can anybody compete Avith men who can buy stuff 
of that kind and sell it fraudulently ? 



OLEOMARGAKINE. 239 

Now. let us look at this thing for a moment, and see where we 
stand. I think the very statement of this fact shows the fraud in the 
retail trade. Are the wholesalers any the less to be censured? Let 
us see. 

Wo have driven lots of these poor fellows out of the business. 
When we began this crusade in 1899, 162 retail dealers in the city of 
Philadelphia had paid the special revenue tax. Now there are about 
32 for this year, and the rest are out. Some we have put in jail, 
some we have lined very heavily, and the rest are out of the business. 
I could count scores of men who have been selling oleomargarine who 
are no longer selling it. They have learned that the way of the trans- 
gressor is hard, and they do not sell it. 

Now, let us look to the wholesalers. In the first place, the whole- 
salers, to help the retailers to defraud in this matter, do what? Why, 
some of these wholesalers adopt fancy creamery names for their prod- 
uct. ""Lakeside creamery!" Where is the creamery? "Lakeside 
creamer}" ! " Oleomargarine ! But the word oleomargarine is not left on 
it. The only place where the name "oleomargarine'" appears is in the 
Government stamp. And then what? Why, these honest manufac- 
turers, desiring to spread the sale of an illegitimate article of produc- 
tion that everybody ma}' know, go to work and cover the original 
packages, when they ship them from Chicago, with brown-paper cov- 
ering. They put them in bags, in burlap, covered all over; and this 
product comes to Philadelphia so that nobody sees the Government 
stamps at all. And one manufacturer goes to work and puts up ten- 
pound packages, and puts half a dozen of them in a crate, and ships 
them in, and puts the Government stamp on the bottom of the crate, 
so that the public will never see the Government stamp. 

They put the oleomargarine in such a shape, understand, that the 
retailer can go to work immediately and sell it as butter. There is 
not a mark upon it, as far as the wholesaler is concerned, inside. 

Now, you asked me the question, Mr. Chairman, and my friend here 
has asked the question, whether or not, if we will put it in the original 
package, they can sell it in that way. Now, we say, if you manufacture 
oleomargarine in the semblance of butter, there is no legislation what- 
soever that will prevent the retailer, if disposed to be dishonest, if dis- 
posed to sell butter at butter prices, from effacing the marks, and 
selling it as butter. There is only one thing that will accomplish the 
result we are seeking, and that is to make the color of this material so 
distinctly different from that of genuine butter that the purchaser, 
when he sees it, will instanth' see that it is not pure yellow butter. 
That is the only thing. 

Now, if, according to the Wadsworth bill, oleomargarine shall be 
put up in these 1 and 2 pound prints and colored and sent on, 
what will happen ? The Wadsworth bill provides for another fatal 
thing, and that is that each one of those little packages, 1 pound 
and 2 pounds, is to be an original package. What does that mean, 
gentlemen? It means a great deal more than at first sight might 
appear. If it is an original package, then there is no let or hindrance 
to selling it anywhere in any State, because of the interstate-conmierce 
law. That is exactly the bone of contention. If we had not that 
interstate-commerce law to contend with we could prevent the sale 
and the maimfacture of oleomargarine in the State of Penns3dvania. 
But the very defect of our old prohibitory law was that the manufac- 



240 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

turers from Chicago could sell their material into the State of Penn- 
sylvania because it was an original package. Now, if you pass the 
Waclsworth bill reducing the size of the original packages to 1 and 
2 pounds, it will simply open wide the door for the sale of oleomar- 
garine in original packages of 1 or 2 pounds; and no law of any State 
could interfere with its sale under any circumstances. 

Why, this Wadsworth bill would he vastly more damaging than any 
legislation that Congress could enact in relation to this subject. It 
would thoroughly and absolutely establish the oleomargarine trade in 
this country, and no State could interfere with it i n any way whatsoever. 

Mr. Knight. Colored oleomargarine, if you please. 

Mr. Kauffman. Yes; colored oleomargarine. 

Now, gentlemen, let us look at the facts. Who are asking here for 
the passage of the Grout bill, and who are opposing it? 

The gentlemen on the other side say that we are interfering with 
their trade. Why, the shoe is just on the other foot. It is the oleo- 
margarine business that is interfering with the butter trade. The 
butter trade was here long before the oleomargarine men were here. 
The butter trade has been here since the country has been here. The 
oleomargarine interest has only sprung up within the last twenty -five 
years. It is they who are interfering with the butter trade, not the 
butter trade interfering with the oleomargarine trade by any means. 

What do we ask'^ We ask that the Congress of the United States, 
having recognized oleomargarine as a legitimate article of traffic, shall 
simply prohibit the sale of a fraudulent article in semblance of butter. 

Who asks for that? The dairymen of the United States. Who are 
they? The farmers, the creamer}^ men of the United States. What 
does that interest amount to? Why, 1 have some figures here from 
the report of the Department of Agriculture for 1899 which show that 
there were last year 11,000,000 cows in the United States in the dair}" 
industry, and that the product of these 11,000,000 cows amounted, in 
round numbers, to $500,000,000. 

In my State of Pennsylvania we have a thousand creameries. There 
are, on an average, a hundred farmers who are the patrons of those 
creameries, delivering milk to them every day; that means 100,000 
farmers are interested in the production of butter in my State of Penn- 
sylvania. These 100,000 farmers added to their fellows all through 
the United States constitute a vast army of producers asking for the 
passage of this bill to prevent a fraudulent article from interfering 
with a legitimate product. 

Now, who is on the other side? Seventeen manufacturers. 

Mr. Knight. Twenty-six now, Mr. Kauffman. 

Mr. Kauffman. Well, that is under the late law. The last report 
I had gave the number as 17. 

Mr. Jelke. Allow me to correct you, Mr. Knight. There were 27 
the 30th of last June, and there are now more — I do not know how 
many more. 

Mr. Kauffman. Well, I will take the best statement for them. 
They can make it 27, or, say, 30. Suppose there are 30 men with 
unlimited capital, largely confined, three-quarters of them, to the cat- 
tle slaughterers of the West. These few men, asagainst the great army 
of producers I have named, come to you and ask you for protection 
for a counterfeit article. That is all there is to it. We say that men 
are worth more than money. We say that this great arnw of pro- 



OLEOMARGARINE. 241 

ducers through the United States is more to be considered than accu- 
mulated capital in the hands of a few men. We say that these producers 
of the genuine article have a right to protection against a fraud which 
seeks to dig away the very foundation of legitimate traffic. 

Let us look at this thing for one moment. Counterfeit money is manu- 
factured in this country. It is a counterfeit. It employs labor; it 
employs ])aper; it employs ink; it employs presses to manufacture it; 
and as far as the money is concerned, if the man who gets it believes 
it is genuine, it is just as good as good money. If 3'ou get a counter- 
feit ten-dollar bill, and you can buy something with it or pay a debt 
with it, it is just as good as genuine money. It is good until it is 
found out that it is not genuine money; and the moment it is found 
out that it is counterfeit, then it ceases to be good. 

Suppose the counterfeiters of this country should so increase their 
business, by reason of capital, that they shoidd come to this Congress 
and say : ■" We demand protection, because we have got money invested 
in this thing and it is profitable. We are employing so many men; 
we are using so much manufactured paper; we use so much ink; we 
use so many presses, and we demand protection for counterfeit money 
because there is money in it." 

That is the only reason oleomargarine manufacturers can come here 
and demand protection for a fraud, because there is money in it. Now, 
it is not right. All the butter producers of this country want is pro- 
tection against a fraud. That is all. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, you have heard this morning about oleomarga- 
rine being healthful. We say that that question is in doubt; but we 
do say that if any man believes it to be healthful, and wants to buy 
oleomargarine and use it, believing it to be healthful, he ought to have 
a right to do it; but as to its being healthful, that is a question in doubt. 
Will you pardon me for a moment if I read to you from a Government 
authority as to that, because you nuist understand just what this prod- 
uct is. Permit me to read to 3'ou from this Government report : 

[At this point Mr. Kauffman read from a paper on '"Butter substi- 
tutes," by E. A. De Schweinitz, of the Biochemic Laboratory, Bureau 
of Animal Industry, the same being reprinted from the Yearbook of 
the United States Department of Agriculture for 1895.] 

"The point next to be considered is the possibility of the transmis- 
sion of infectious diseases by oleomargarine made from impure mate- 
rials. That such can occur is undoubtedly true. A comparison of the 
germs present in oleomargarine and butter showed three times as 
many in the one as in the other, with a difference in the character of 
the germs. The germs in the butter were the harmless ones found in 
milk and necessary for the production of a good butter. Those in the 
oleomargarine were fungi and numerous varieties of bacteria. 

""The writer has made a number of inoculation experiments upon 
guinea pigs with different samples of oleomargarine. The samples 
were purchased in open market, near the places where they were 
manufactured. Sample No. 3 (102) proved fatal, causing the death of 
the animal in the one instance in two months, in the other in two 
weeks. An examination showed the lungs congested, the liver soft 
and pale, one of the kidneys badly congested, and five distinct ulcers 
in the intestines like typhoid-fever ulcers. The bladder was distended 
and urine albuminous. At the present writing the nature of this dis- 
ease has not been determined, but the fatal effects were produced by the 

S. Kep. 2013 IG 



242 OLEOMAKGAEINE. 

oleomarg-arine. Another i^uinea pig inoculated with a sample (No. 1) 
of oleo oil, taken from a lot used in the manufacture of oleomarg-arine, 
died within three weeks, the autopsy showing badly congested lungs, 
liver dark, blood vessels congested, and the small intestines containing 
bloody mucus." 

Mr. Springer. Would not the effect have been the same if you had 
inoculated these animals with creamery butter 'i 

Mr. Kauffman. No, sir. Now, I submit, Mr. Chairman, that if 
oleomargarine bought in the open market has that effect upon guinea 
pigs it will have the same effect upon human beings. 

Mr. Miller. May I ask a question ? 

Mr. Kauffman. Certainly, sir. 

Mr. Miller. How about the 150,000 people who die every year 
from tuberculosis, and how about the large number of cases where it 
is caused from eating butter and drinking milk, and so forth? 

Mr. Kauffman. I will answer that question. How about the large 
number of people who die from diseases that come from eating oleo- 
margarine when they do not know anything about it? 

Mr. Miller. There are none. 

Mr. Kauffman. None? [Laughter.] There are lots of people who 
die every year of tapeworm and similar diseases transmitted by 
oleomargarine. 

Mr. Miller. Mr. Kauffman, do you not know that the oleo oil and 
neutral lard of which butterine is composed are heated to such a tem- 
perature that it kills the germs? Do you know that? 

Mr. Kauffman. No, sir; I do not know that, because it is a cold 
process. 

Mr. Miller. Well, Professor Wiley, of the Agricultural Depart- 
ment, says it is true. He ought to know. I think he is an authority; 
don't 3^ou ? 

Mr. Kauffman. Well, Professor Heffman, of Philadelphia, who is 
equally an authority, says just the opposite — that the process is con- 
ducted at such a comparatively low temperature that it does not kill 
the germs. And that is one of the difficulties in the manufacture. It 
is a cold process. Why, the very process you start from is a cold 
process, and jou do not heat the materials above 120^ Fahrenheit. 

Mr. Miller. Well, we have to take the opinion of the man who is 
considered the best scientist in the United States. 

Mr. Kauffman. Now, let me say another thing, Mr. Chairman. 
When the opinions of chemists are given we must remember that 
chemists are not physiologists. Chemists can tell you what the con- 
stituent parts of oleomargarine are; but not being physicians, they are 
not competent to tell what the physiological action of oleomargarine 
is. Now, then, we have in Philadelphia a chemist. Professor Heffman, 
who is both a ph3^sician and a chemist, and he says that the question 
of the healthfulness of oleomargarine is as yet undetermined. He is 
both a chemist and a physician. The fact of the matter, then, is that 
the best that can be said about the healthfulness of oleomargarine 
to-day is that it is not yet determined positively. The facts are that 
the opinions of chemists, as a rule, as presented hy oleomargarine fac- 
tories, are based upon samples of the very best oleomargarine they 
produce, and it is not the ordinary oleomargarine that is sold in the 
market. Therefore that accounts for the difference between certain 
statements. When the oleomargarine men want to have a nice state- 



OLEOMARGARINE. 243 

ment they make up the very best sample of oleomargarine they have 
got, put into it a certain percentage of butter in order to make it as 
near like butter as possible, take it to a chemist, and ask him to analj^ze 
it; and of course it is good. But go out in the open market and buy 
the oleomargarine that is sold in the open market, and the results are 
entirely different from the analysis of the chemist on a special sample — 
entirely different. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, we oppose the sale of oleomargarine when 
colored in imitation of yellow butter because the temptation is con- 
stantly to sell that article as and for butter, and the temptation is too 
great for ordinary human nature to resist, because of the money in it. 
And the better the price that butter brings, the greater the temptation. 
But now we say, "Add 10 cents a pound to the price of this product 
in the shape of a tax, and there is not so much temptation to make 
that money." Wh}' should not 10 cents a pound be added to it? Why 
do we pass our protective-tariff' bills? Wh}^ do we impose protective 
tariff's upon products brought from foreign countries except to give 
protection to our American industries ? Here is an industry which 
competes with another industry that has been established for years. 
Why ought not the farmers who have been in this industry, these 
farmers whose all depends upon the butter trade, to have that protec- 
tion? 

Now, what can our oleomargarine men complain of? They have 
their choice. We say to them, "If you want to color oleomargarine 
and compete with butter, then pay 10 cents a pound to the Govern- 
ment for that privilege. If you think that money can be made by 
selling colored oleomargarine, pay a revenue tax of 10 cents a pound 
for it, and come in on equal terms, in a fair competition in the market, 
and sell your product. But if you think that that is too big a tax, 
3^ou are not compelled to pay it. Then manufacture your uncolored 
oleomargarine and pay a quarter of a cent a pound for it. ' You pays 
your money,' as the Dutchman says, 'and j^ou takes 3'our choice;' that 
is all." 

If oleomargarine is a healthful product, if the people want it, the 
matter of color has not anything to do with it. If people want 
oleomargarine they will buy it as oleomargarine without the color. 
They are not eating color. They Avant oleomargarine, we are told, 
l)ecause it is such an absolutel}^ healthful and nutritious article. It is 
better than butter, as our friends maintain. They prefer it to butter, 
as our friends maintain. Then, for heaven's sake, let the people have 
it at this reduced price. Let them get this very superior article at a 
price that is within their reach; and let these manufacturers spend 
their millions to advertise the advantages of this delightful and supe- 
rior and healthful article, and to induce people to buy it instead of 
the vile bvitter! 

That is what they ought to do. Why, we do not interfere with their 
rights, ]Mr. Chairman. All we ask them to do is to manufacture good 
goods — to manufacture oleomargarine out of good materials. Do not 
put any color in it. Sell it for oleomargarine. Teach the people that 
oleomargarine is better than butter. Sell it as oleomargarine, and 
not as butter. But if you do not want to do that, put your coloring 
in, and pay the Government 10 cents a pound for it. Come in and 
sell it as oleomargarine, colored, and come in free competition with 
butter — a free and fair tie'lit for all. 



244 OLEOMARGAKINE. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Will the gentleman permit a question ? 

Mr. Kauffman. Certainly. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Do jou say that we could sell colored oleomar- 
garine in the State of Pennsylvania by paying- the 10 cents extra tax, 
if we so desired? 

Mr. Kauffman. Not under our present law; no, you could not. 

Mr. Drennan. You would have as much profit as the butter man 
has. 

Mr. TiLiJNGHAST. But we would have no right to sell colored oleo- 
margarine in your State, in any event. 

Mr. Kauffman. No, sir; and we do not propose that you shall have 
the right to sell it there, either, as colored oleomargarine. But that 
is not the question. There are States where you can sell it. 

Now, let me call your attention to the question of desire to obey the 
law. According to the statement made by somebody here this morn- 
ing, 107,000,000 of pounds of oleomargarine are manufactured annu- 
ally in the United States. Where is it sold? Why, it is on the stands 
everywhere. It is sold — where? Largely in the States prohibiting or 
restricting the sale of oleomargarine. How is that? Simply because 
the men who sell this stuff are law-defying and not law-obeying men; 
that is all. These manufacturers, these dealers, know that it has been 
against the law to sell oleomargarine in the State of Pennsylvania in 
years gone by, because of the prohibitory law. They know that it is 
against the law to sell oleomargarine now in the State of Pennsylvania, 
and yet they defy the law. Would law-abiding men do that ? 

Mr. Springer. Will the gentleman allow me a question right there ? 

Mr. Kauffman. Certainly. 

Mr. Springer. I think he ought to take into consideration the fact 
that in the State of Pennsylvania, up to the passage of the present law 
in Ma} , 1899, the lawyers and the courts disputed the question as to 
whether this legislation was constitutional or not, and the sellers of 
oleomargarine were advised on the one hand that it was not a valid 
law; and those who took that position were finally sustained by the 
Supreme Court of the United States, in the Shallenberger case, which 
decision declared that that law was invalid. Then the legislature passed 
another law. So that those people who you say were violators of the 
law up to the act of May, 1899, were not violating any law at all, as 
the Supreme Court has since held. 

Mr. Kauffman. Well, sir, I must correct you. You are simply 
misinformed about the decision. Let me sa}' that in the State of Penn- 
sylvania, under the law of May 21, 1885, the situation was this— and 
I had the honor to carry the fight all the way up to the higher courts: 
The supreme court of Pennsylvania and the Supreme Court of the 
United States held that the law was perfectly constitutional in so far 
as it related to the retail dealers of the State of Pennsylvania, but that it 
was only unconstitutional in so far as it related to the original packages 
manufactured in another State and coming into the State of Penns}^- 
vania. It only affected the wholesalers — not the retailers. I argued 
the question before our State courts; and our supreme court affirmed 
the constitutionality of the act also in relation to the wholesale dealers. 
But there never has been a time, since the passage of that law of 1885, 
when, so far as the retail dealers were concerned, it was legal for oleo- 
margarine to be sold. 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 245 

Mr. Grout. It was the interstate commerce point that the case was 
decided on. 

Mr. KLiUFFMAN. That is all. 

Mr. Springer. Every pound of oleomargarine that was sold from 
1885 to 1899 in the original package was legally sold. 

Mr. Kauffman. It was legally sold, yes, except that our State 
supreme court had decided otherwise. I argued the question before 
the supreme court, and they decided my way; but that decision was 
reversed in the United States Supreme Court. Still, the retail sale 
was always and has always been regarded as illegal; and even the 
Supreme Court of the United States, in that decision in the case of 
the Common-wealth v. Shallenherger^ affirmed the fact that the law was 
constitutional as far as the retail dealers were concerned. 

Mr. Knight. Will you pardon an interruption ? 

Mr. Kauffman. Certainly. 

Mr. Knight. Did you ever know of any kind of an oleomargarine 
law being passed the constitutionality of which was not questioned 
b}^ the oleomargarine dealers^ 

Mr. Kauffman. Not one. 

Mr. Springer. They have a right to question it, too. 

Mr. Knight. Well, have the}^ the right to go on and do business 
while questioning it? 

Mr. Springer. They have a right to go into the courts and ask for 
the decisions of the courts, and abide by them. 

Mr. KIauffman. Yes; but they have not any right, as it seems to 
me, when a law is enacted, to keep on defjdng the law until the law is 
passed upon. A man has not any right to carry on a manifestly illegal 
business when it is prohibited by law. It is his business to stop car- 
rying on that business until the courts decide the disputed question. 

Now, then, Mr. Chairman, this act, the Grout bill, particularly 
remedies this original-package feature. Mark A"ou, the Wadsworth 
bill distinctly makes the 1-pound and the 2-pound packages original 
packages. If that provision were to pass — and that is the viciousness of 
the Wadsworth bill — it would absolutely and positively prevent any 
State from passing any law in relation to oleomargarine, because the 
packages are cut down to 1 and 2 pound packages, and under the inter- 
state law nothing whatsoever could be done in the States to restrict 
their sale. Where would we be then ? What is the effect of oleomar- 
garine upon these butter dealers and these farmers? Let me tell you. 

As I said a little while ago, in February of 1899 the butter trade at 
Philadelphia was absolutely paralyzed. The dealers here will testify 
to that fact. We began to enforce the law which we had. Now, what 
was the result? We have advanced the price of butter in the city of 
Philadelphia, in the wholesale market, on an average of 5 cents a 
pound over what it was two years ago, before we began to enforce 
this law, simply because we have driven out the illegal sale of oleo- 
margarine. More than that, the price of cows in the State of Penn- 
sylvania, because of the driving out of this illegal competition of 
oleomargarine, has advanced from 25 to 40 per cent. If oleo had 
been permitted to remain in the market, being sold illegallj^ as and for 
butter, the price of farms would have kept on going downward, the 
price of cows would have kept on going downward, and the price of 
butter would have been going downward. Now, I am going to saj'^, 



246 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

further than this, that in the years gone by, from 1896 up to 1899, 
numbers of creamery men were driven out of business because of the 
competition of oleomargarine — driven clean out of business; and it is 
only in the past two years that the tide has changed. 

Mr. Springer. Do you think that 4 per cent of the whole product 
will materially interfere with a business that amounts to two billions 
of pounds annuall}'? 

Mr. Kauffman. Oh, I will answer that question. I was shifted off 
from what I wanted to say. Where is oleomargarine sold? There 
are 107,000,000 pounds manufactured? Where is it sold? In the 
States where the restrictive legislation has come in. In the State of 
Pennsylvania not less than from twelve to twenty millions of pounds 
are sold, in defiance of both United States and State law; and they are 
sold as butter — that is where this stuff' is sold. Why do not these 
gentlemen sell it otherwise? They come into a dairy State in defiance 
of law, and sell it there. How do I know? 

The Acting Chairman. You say 12,000,000 pounds of butter are 
manufactured in your State. Is that it? 

Mr. Kauffman. No; I say sold in our State. 

The Acting Chairman. Do you mean butter, or oleomargarine? 

Mr. Kauffman. Oleomargarine. I say there are about 12,000,000 
pounds of oleomargarine sold in our State. How do I know that? 

Mr. Drennan. Why is so much sold there, and so little sold in 
New York ? 

Mr. Kauffman. Mr. Flanders has gone, but I will tell you why. 
Because the laws in our State have not been enforced as they ought to 
have been. 

Mr. Grout. And yet you are making an appropriation of $60,000 a 
year to enforce the law? 

Mr. Knight. Two hundred and fort}^ thousand dollars a year, Mr. 
Grout. 

Mr. Grout. Not for this law alone. 

Mr. Kauffman. No. 

Mr. Grout. There are $60,000 a year, as I understand, appropriated 
and assigned to the enforcement of the oleomargarine laws in New 
York; and that has been the case for half a dozen years or more. 

Mr. Kauffman. Yes, sir; but in our State there was an appropria- 
tion of $12,500 a year, which makes all the difference in the world, 
of course. Then there were some disputes as to the construction of 
the law, etc. But the laws, for some reason or other, were not 
enforced; and because of that the oleomargarine manufacturers simply 
flooded the States with their agents, who have proceeded to induce 
small dealers to embark in this business. I have been told, over and 
over again, by retail dealers who have come to me begging for mercy, 
"We have been led into this thing. The wholesalers have come to 
us and said, 'You can go into this business; the law is no good; you 
can go into it with perfect safety and we will take care of you, and 
pay all 3^our legal costs, and your fine. Go into the business.'" And 
because of the profits, and these people not knowing any better, they 
are led into it by the wholesalers. The}" furnish them the stamps and 
tell them all the schemes. Why, I have in my ofiice an application 
given to me by a retail dealer, who brought it to me, and said that a 
wholesaler had given it to him, and said, "Now, go to work and make 
out your application for the revenue license in the name of some 



OLEOMARGARINE. 247 



.-. " 



creamery company." Oh, there are lots of "creamery companies 
not handling a pound of pure butter in Philadelphia. There are not 
so many of them as there used to be, because some of them have been 
put in jail and lined, and we have driven some of them out. But these 
wholesalers come and induce these poor fellows to go into the business, 
because they think that the law will not be enforced and they will be 
protected against prosecutions. 

Mr. Jelke. Will you permit a question? 

Mr. Kauffman. Certainly — a dozen of them, 

Mr. Jelke. What stamp is this that the manufacturers use? 

Mr, Kauffman, The manufacturers would come and give them a 
revenue stamp, and show them how to use it, and tell them how they 
might use it. 

Mr, Jelke. What was on the stamp, please? 

Mr. Kauffman. "Oleomargarine"; and then they go to work, as 
was the case with one fellow we convicted before the United States 
court only last term, and tell them how to violate the law. 

Mr. Jelke. Was the stamp made in accordance with the law — the 
proper size, and so forth ? 

Mr. Kauffman. Oh, yes, sometimes — sometimes. 

Mr. Springer. It is not the tax stamp ? 

Mr. Kauffman. Oh, no — not what is called the tax stamp. It is 
the stamp that the present United States law requires to be put right 
on the wrapper. Now, to show you one of the schemes they have got 
to deceive people, to show you just how deceptive they are, there was 
one dealer in Philadelphia who thought he was very sharp. He went 
to work, and he put the stamp right across that corner [indicating]. 
Then he folded it down in that way [indicating]. 

Mr. Grout, Oh, he folded it veiy many more times than that — he 
folded it in three or four times, 

Mr, Kauffman, Yes; he did. Our people would go in and ask for 
butter, and the}" would get "butter;" and when they would go out and 
look it over they could not find anything about oleomargarine upon it 
until they turned down the corner and looked underneath there, and then 
they found the word "oleomargarine" hidden away there. And we 
convicted that fellow because, although he supposed his little scheme 
complied with the law, the courts differed with him, 

Mr. ScHELL, Would that customer go back to that store, do vou 
think? 

Mr, Kauffman, It does not make any difference whether he would 
do that or not; he was deceived, and he was defrauded — willfully 
deceived and defrauded — because the very fact that the dealer had the 
acuteness to do that showed that he intended to do it. 

Now let me show you another trick. Oleomargarine is wrapped in 
parchment paper or thin paper. There is another dealer in the city of 
Philadelphia (he is doing it now, and we are going to convict him 
before the United States court) who goes to work and stamps on this 
thin paper "Oleomargarine," He puts that stamp right next to the 
oleomargarine, in that way [indicating]. The moisture in the oleo- 
margarine absorbs the stamp, and by the time the purchaser has it in 
his possession for a few minutes you can not see it unless you hold it 
up to the light, and then you can see very faintly "Oleomargarine," 
It is so faint as not to be discernible. 

Why, it is deception on the face of it. And that is only one of a 



248 OLEOMARGARINE. 

multitude of schemes by which these oleomargarine dealers try to com- 
pl}^ with the law, technically, and yet deceive the people. It is fraud 
from the beginning- to the end. 

Now, then, we urge. Mr. Chairman, that this Grout bill shall be 
passed, for two reasons: 

First, that it will prevent fraud — that is all. If the oleomargarine 
dealers are honest in their desire to push a legitimate product, we say 
that they can sell oleomargarine on its merits, pure and simple, and 
advertise it and create a demand for it. If they want the advantage 
of having oleomargarine colored in imitation of yellow butter, if they 
think that will make the sale better, then they ought, because their 
product costs so much less than ours, just as foreign goods are put on 
a par with ours, to pay to the Government of the United States such a 
tax as to make it an equal and fair competition. 

Mr. Springer. Pardon me. If you can sell oleomargarine on its 
merits without color just as well, why not sell butter on its merits 
without color? 

Mr. Kauffman. Well, there are a great many men who do. 

Mr. Springer. It does not come out with a much better color than 
oleomargarine, as I understand. 

Mr. Kauffman. No; and there are some men who sell purel}^ white 
butter. I think some gentleman on the committee this morning called 
attention to the fact that some of the first-class hotels are serving 
white, unsalted butter. That is simply a question of taste. But the 
whole question that is at stake in this matter is not a question of taste; 
it is a question of legitimate trade and fraud. 

Secondly, there is the question of allowing to the States that juris- 
diction, as a police measure, over the sale of oleomargarine which of 
right belongs to them. As it is now, understand, the present act of 
August 2, 1886, having recognized oleomargarine as a legitimate 
article of commerce, the States are prevented, by the interstate-com- 
merce law, from passing an}^ legislation which would interfere with 
the original packages coming in. 

All we ask is that this act shall be passed so as to prevent fraud, 
and to put the oleomargarine dealers on a parity, in competition, 
with the dair3nnen of this country. If they will come in on equal 
terms, if they will pay to the Government this revenue tax of 10 
cents a pound, then the dairymen of the country have got a fair chance 
with them. 

Now, gentlemen, I am ready to answer questions. I will stop talk- 
ing now. 

Mr. Habecker. I would like to ask you whether there is an}^ moral 
law in this matter, aside from any legal law. 

Mr. Kauffman. Moral law!' Yes; there is a moral law — that 
"Thou shalt not rob th}^ neighbor." If a man sells oleomargarine for 
butter, he is robbing his neighbor. That is immoral. 

Mr. ScHELL. Right on that line, then, let me ask 3^ou the question 
which I raised originally, and which some of your people did not an- 
swer. (Mr. Sharpless, however, wants to place himself on record on 
that subject presently.) Is 3^our attitude one of extermination 

Mr. Kauffman. No, sir. 

Mr. ScHELL (continuing). Of colored oleomargarine, or is it 
merel}' to prevent its being sold as butter? 

Mr. Kauffman. I thought I had made myself clear about that. 

Mr. SoHELL. No- you did not touch on that point. 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 249 

(Mr. Tillinghast rose.) 

Mr. Kauffman. Now, let me answer one at a time, for I can not 
answer more than one at a time. I will answer every question I am 
asked, gentlemen. Oleomargarine does not cost the manufacturer to 
exceed 8 cents a pound to produce. 

Mr. Miller. How do you know that, Mr. Kauffman ? 

Mr. Kauffman. Oh, it has come to me over and over again, from 
various sources. 

Mr. Tillinghast. Do you mean stamped and all, or without the 
stamp ? 

Mr. Kauffman. Yes ; stamped and all. 

Mr. Tillinghast. No; you are wrong. 

Mr. Kauffman. Well, tell us how much it does cost then, gentlemen. 

Mr. Brennan. That is the point. 

Mr. Kauffman. How much does it cost? 

Mr. Brennan. I will answer that question for you, Mr. Kauffman. 

Mr. KauffjVIAN. Oh, do not answer that, Mr. Brennan; let them 
answer. 

Mr. Brennan. A year ago the average make was sold in Philadel- 
phia to the wholesale dealers at 11 cents. Fanc}^ goods sold for a little 
more, of course. 

Mr. Miller. I will say to 3"ou, Mr. Kauffman, that we are making 
some goods that cost 14 cents. 

Mr. Kauffman. Yes; but the great proportion of your goods cost 
what? 

Mr. Miller. Well, I do not care to say. 

Mr. Knight. Those are the goods that have butter in them? 

Mr. Miller. We can not give away the secrets of our trade. 

Mr. Kauffman. Oh, of course not. Now, Mr. Chairman, I said it 
cost them 8 cents a pound, and they denied it; and when I asked them 
what it did cost, they would not answer. Mr. Drennan has said (and 
this I know to be so) that the goods are sold to the wholesalers in Phil- 
adelphia at prices ranging from 11 to 12 and 14 cents a pound, accord- 
ing to quality. There are grades of oleomargarine, you understand. 

Mr. Jelke. Mr. Kauffman, the better grades of oleomargarine that 
sell for 14 cents a pound, or higher, contain butter, do they not? 

Mr. Kauffman. I understand so. 

Mr. Grout. So much butter that you can hardly tell them from pure 
butter. 

Mr. Jelke. This grade of oleomargarine, which contains such a 
large percentage of butter, contains colored butter. It is colored but- 
ter which is put into the oleomargarine, is it not^ 

Mr. Kauffivian. That I do not know. 

Mr. Jelke, Well, will this law permit us to make the best grades 
of oleomargarine, and use colored butter? 

Mr. Kauffman. Unquestionably, if you pay the 10 cents a pound. 
That is what I say. 

Mr. Tillinghast. But you would not permit the sale of colored 
oleomargarine in Pennsylvania? 

IVIr. Kauffman. Oh, we are not talking about the Pennsylvania 
law, but about the United States law, 

Mr. Tillinghast. But 1 say that the law of the State of Pennsyl- 
vania to-day does not permit the sale of colored oleomargarine. Does 
it^ 



25G OLEOMARGAEINE. 

Mr. Kauff3Ian. No, .sir. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. And that is so with 32 States, as I understand. 

Mr. Kauffman. Yes, sir. I do not know 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. So that no matter if we pay 10 cents a pound 
tax, we have no more right to sell colored oleomargarine in Pennsyl- 
vania than we had before. 

Mr. Kauffman. No ; but we are not talking about the Pennsylvania 
law, but the United States law. 

Mr. Knight. Do you not believe that if this Grout bill were to 
become a law, and colored oleomargarine should be taxed 10 cents a 
pound, there would be no difficulty in repealing* our present law in 
regard to oleomargarine in the State of Pennsylvania ? 

Mr. Kauffman. I can only speak as an individual. I think if this 
Grout bill is passed, the legislation of the States will conform to the 
United States law. That is only a matter of personal opinion, however. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. I do not know that I understood yovi in reference 
to the original-package question. Do I understand you to say that if 
the Wadsworth bill were adopted, and if there were no sales of oleo- 
margarine except in the original package, the police laws of the State 
would not apply to that original package ? 

Mr. Kauffman. Not a bit. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Do I SO understand you ? 

Mr. Kauffman. Yes, sir. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. That would be exactly contrary to the case of 
Plumley vs. The State of Massachusetts ? 

Mr. Kauffman. Yes. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Docs not the police regulation already extend to 
oleomargarine shipped in from another State? 

Mr. Kauffman. Yes; when colored. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Now, would not that same decision, if it is law 
to-day, be law after the Wadsworth bill were passed? 

Mr. Kauffman. My impression is that if this Wadsworth bill were 
passed, Congress having acted upon it, the decision of the United 
States Supreme Court would be changed to conform to that legisla- 
tion. Congress would then have passed upon the matter, and that 
would have been the law. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. I think your opinion is contrary to the opinion 
of lawyers generally. 

Mr. Kauffman. Now, the United States Supreme Court was almost 
equally divided on this question; it was three against four. There 
was only a diiference of one. It was a very narrow question; and if 
the Wadsworth bill were passed, I would not be a bit surprised if 
that decision should be changed. 

Ask your questions, gentlemen; I shall be glad to answer them. 

Mr. Springer. Before 3^ou conclude 1 want to correct one misap- 
prehension under which I think you are laboring. That is, you claim 
that the friends of this bill comprise all of the farmers of the country. 
I want to enter the appearance of the farmers who are engaged in the 
raising of cotton, hogs, and cows in the South as opposed to this bill, 
who outnumber the farmers engaged in raising butter three to one. 
(Laughter.) 

Mr. Kauffman. Oh, I must differ with you as to that. Why, just 
of it! Just think of it! Here are 11,000,000 cows that are interested 
in dairying. We have 100,000 men in that line of business in the 



OLEOMARGARINE. 251 

State of Pennsylvania. I think I can safclv sav that there are at least 
from 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 of independent farmers in the United 
States interested in the passage of this Grout bill. I do not think 
there are that many engaged in the business — in the cotton business — in 
the South. 

Mr. Springer. The cotton business of the South produces an enor- 
moute yield, amounting to several hundred millions of dollars a year. 

Mr, Kauffman. Yes. 

Mr. Springer. And the people engaged in raising live stock — hogs 
and cattle — I can not tell how many they are, but they represent a cap- 
ital in that business of over $600,000,000. They are all on record in 
opposition to this legislation; and j^ou will find it is a great mistake 
and misleading the public to say that the farmers are all supporting 
this measure. 

Mr. Massey. Is it not true that in the West the raisers of hogs are 
largel}^ dairymen ? The daii\ymen all raise hogs, do they not ? 

Mr. Springer. Oh, yes; they raise some of the hogs that go to the 
local market. But the National Livestock Association represents all 
those associations for the meat market. They are all arrayed against 
this proposition. 

Mr. Knight. Mr. Springer, may 1 ask you a question ? 

Mr. Springer. Certainly. 

Mr. Knight. Have the live stock association ever had the dairy- 
men's side of the question before them? Has this bill ever been 
explained from the dairymen's standpoint to the live stock asso- 
ciation? 

Mr. Springer. They are all reading men, and they all understand 
this legislation, and they have been following it for years; and now 
they have become aware of the fact that this legislation is inimical to 
their institutions, to their business. They want to enter their appear- 
ance before this committee; and throughout the country, from this 
time forward, they propose to give you gentlemen ""a Roland for your 
Oliver." They are going to contest this legislation in Congress and 
in the States, because it does depreciate the value of the live stock of 
the countr}^, in which they are interested. And it is so with the cotton 
men of the South. You will find them as a unit upon this subject. 

Mr. Kauffman. Now, Mr. Chairman, permit me to say this : My 
friend Mr. Springer has called attention to the great amount of money 
invested in the cattle interest. That is not the question. The ques- 
tion is one of righteousness, of judgment, of equity. Is it right for 
the United States Government to sanction a fraud ? 

Mr. Springer. That point 3'ou make now. You made the other 
before — that the people who are interested in this matter were numer- 
ous, and they were farmers, and good people ; and upon that argu- 
ment I want to put these other men on the other side. You have no 
right to claim that the farmers of this countiy are supporting this 
legislation. 

Mr. Edson. Mr. Springer, is it not a matter of record that the vol- 
ume of business done in butter in the United States every year is 
heavier than that done in wheat? I have heard that it was. 

Mr. Springer. Yes; and it is getting heavier every year, too, and 
prices are getting better every year. In the face of all this clamor 
about injur}' to your institutions, you are getting better prices for 
3'our butter now than you ever did, and making more out of it. 



252 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. Kauffman. I want to answer Judge Springer's question. We 
misapprehended eacti other a little, I think. My friend Springer says 
that we are getting better prices for butter every year. Now, I will 
say that we are getting better prices in the Philadelphia produce mar- 
ket to-day than we did two years ago. But prior to those two years, 
for three years before, the trend of the butter market was downward, 
because of competition from the illegal sales of oleo. The reason we 
are getting better prices to-day is because of the work of this associa- 
tion in enforcing the law. 

Mr. Springer. We want to help you enforce the law. 

Mr. Miller. Mr. Kauffman, I would like to say just one thing. I 
can say this: 1 will give my oath to-day. that the cheapest grade of 
butterine we manufacture costs a great deal over 8 cents. 

Mr, Kauffman. It will not cost you 10 cents. 

Mr. Miller. 1 am not saying what it costs. I say it costs a good 
deal over 8 cents. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Edson. Mr. Kauffman, there is one thing I would like to cor- 
rect before you sit down. 

Mr. Kauffman. What is that? 

Mr. Edson. You stated that the price of butter was so much better 
than it was two years ago. Now, 1 will tell you, from a business 
man's standpoint, and from the standpoint of one who does a pretty 
good business in Philadelphia in the butter line, that the butter busi- 
ness in Philadelphia or in Pennsylvania shows its sensitiveness to the 
oleomargarine law, inasmuch as that the moment we began to prose- 
cute the law and punish the offenders the volume of our business 
increased. During the last year, with these prosecutions under way, 
there is not a butter man in Philadelphia whose volume of business 
has not very largely increased, so that that will account for a much 
larger output of butter in the State of Pennsylvania. 

Now, answering the Judge's question in regard to the increase of 
the butter business in the United States yearly, 1 would state for his 
information that we are exporting large amounts of butter out of this 
country every year, and our export trade is growing at the expense 
of a good deal of our consumptive trade right here in this country, 
owing to the competition of oleomargarine. 

Mr. ScHELL. Now, Mr. Chairman, if I have the floor, Mr. Kauffman 
has answered my question at length, and I want to see if I received 
the right impression. You and your clients are not opposed to a law 
which would so regulate the sale of colored oleomargarine that con- 
viction would practically be certain? 

Mr. Kauffman. No. 

Mr. ScHELL (continuing). If a man sold oleomargarine for l)utter? 

Mr. Kauffman. No. 

Mr. ScHELL. You are willing that colored oleomargarine should 
be sold ? 

Mr. Kauffman. Provided 

Mr. ScHELL. But it must be sold for oleomargarine? 

Mr. Kauffman. Oh, yes. 

Mr. ScHELL. And not for butter? 

Mr. Kauffman. Provided — we insist that a part of that regulation 
shall be the imposition of this 10-cent tax, because oleomargarine can 
be produced at so much less that it can absolutely undersell and drive 
out of the market the production of butter. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 253 

Mr. ScHELL. Then you do not agree that it shall be sold on its mer- 
its, without a 10-cent tax ? 

Mr, Kauffman. No, sir; not colored. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Davis. It will not be sold on its merits. 

Mr. ScHELL. We want to get these gentlemen on record either as 
saying that if such a law can be enforced 

Mr. Kauffman. Now, I say 

The Acting Chairman. One at a time, gentlemen. 

Mr. ScHELL. 1 have the floor now, and I think the chairman will 
bear me out in saying that I have observed the courtesy of debate 
right along. 

The Acting Chairman. Yes, that is true. Mr. Schell has the floor, 
and should not be interrupted. 

Mr. Schell. We want you gentlemen on record either as being in 
favor of an absolute extermination of colored oleomargarine, except 
under heavy penalties, or we want you on record as being in favor of 
having colored oleomargarine sold on its merits for what it is. We 
want you on one side of the fence or the other. 

Mr. Kauffman. Now, I am going to answer that question. 

Mr. Schell. That is what we want. 

Mr. Kauffman. We simph'^ say that no possible law or regulation 
can be made to prevent the sale of colored oleomai'garine as butter. 

Mr. Schell. But if it can? 

Mr. Kauffman. Let me answer. I say it is impossible to pass any 
law 

Mr. Drennan. We have been trying for twenty j^ears to do that, 
Mr. Schell. 

Mr. Kauffman. Let me answer the question. He simply asked 
whether, if a regulation could be made to prevent the sale of colored 
oleomargarine except under restrictions, we would object to it. I say 
that that "if" is an impossible thing. No law or regulation can be 
made to prevent the sale of colored oleomargarine as and for butter. 
I do not care what your penalties are. Therefore, because of the 
impossibility of selling colored oleomargarine under restrictions, we 
ask that if colored oleomargarine shall be sold at all, the manufacturer 
shall pay 10 cents a pound tax upon it, so as to make the expense of 
the article so much more. 

Mr. Schell. You are not willing, then, that it shall be sold on its 
merits alone, unencumbered by this tax of 10 cents a pound? 

Mr. Kauffman. We say that colored oleomargarine is an imitation 
and a fraud, and therefore we — — 

Mr. Grout. You are willing that it should be sold, though, if its sale 
could be so regulated as to prevent its being sold for butter? 

Mr. Kauffman. If it could, yes; but that is impossible. 

Mr. Grout. That is it exactly. As long as there is a temptation of 
150 per cent profit on the cost of production, it will be impossible. 

Mr. Schell. Well, General Grout, we know 

Mr. Grout. That is wh}^ you want your tax? 

Mr. Kauffman. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Grout. You want to take away the temptation? 

Mr. Kauffjian. That is it, exactly! 

Mr. Grout. If you do not, you can not do it. 

Mr. Schell. There is just one other question I want to ask here, 
and that is this: Would j'ou and your clients be willing that this pres- 



254 OLEOMARrrARTNE. 

ent law should be amended, if it could, so that the man who wants col- 
ored oleomargarine can order it made and have it made to his order, 
and supplied to him by the manufacturer without this man, the con- 
sumer, having to pay this additional tax? 

Mr. Kauffman. It can not be done. 

Mr. ScHELL. But if it could? 

Mr. Kauffman. But you are supposing that which is absolutely 
impossible. 

Mr. ScHELL. No, no. We want to get you where you are, but 
when we think we have you, you are not there. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Kauffman. No; I will explain. Since 1886 you have had a 
law upon the statute books — your present law — which provides as a 
penalty for its violation a fine not exceeding $1,000 and an imprison- 
ment not exceeding two years. You have that law, which was enacted 
expressly to prevent the sale of oleomargarine, colored or uncolored, 
as butter; and yet it is inefi;ective. 

Mr. Davis. You have been operating under those conditions for 
years. 

Mr. Drennan. You are stating an impossibility, sir. It is hardly 
fair. 

The Acting Chairman. One at a time, gentlemen. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. A qucstion I would like to ask, but which I think 
you have substantially answered, is this : I understood you to say in 
your remarks that with reference to the State of New York 

Mr. Kauffman. The State of Penns3dvania. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. (Continuing:) And with reference to the State 
of Pennsylvania also, that they have substantially produced a compli- 
ance with their anticolor law, and that in consequence of that there 
has been an increase in the price of butter ? 

Mr. Kauffman. In the city of Philadelphia — not in the whole State 
of Pennsylvania. 

Mr. Edson. I corrected that statement. 

Mr. Drennan. Yes ; and it is not fair to state that if we had enforced 
a compliance with the law, such and such a result would follow. We 
are not the parties to do it at all. 

The Acting Chairman. Have you finished, Mr. Kauffman ? 

Mr. Kauffman. Oh, I have finished; but I am always perfectly 
willing to answer questions. 

The Acting Chairman. Then I declare the committee to stand 
adjourned until 10.30 o'clock on Monday morning. 

Washington, D. C, Monday, January 7, 1901. 

The committee met at 10,30 a. m. 

Present: Senators Hansbrough (acting chairman), Foster, Bate, 
Money, Dolliver, and Heitfekl. 

Also, Hon. W. D. Hoard, ex-governor of Wisconsin and president of 
the National Dairy Union ; C. Y. Knight, secretary of the National 
Dairy Union; Hon. William M. Springer, of Springfield, 111., repre- 
senting the National Live Stock Association; Charles E. Selicll, repre- 
senting the Ohio Butterine Company, of Cinciimati, Ohio; W. E. Miller, 
representing the Armour Packing Company, Kansas City, Mo. ; John F. 
Jelke, representing Messrs. Braun and Fitts, Chicago, 111., and others. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 255 



ARGUMENT OF ATTORNEY CHARLES E. SCHELL, REPRESENTING 
THE OHIO BUTTERINE COMPANY, OF CINCINNATI, OHIO; THE 
DOLD BUTTERINE COMPANY, OF KANSAS CITY, MO.; THE UNION 
DAIRY COMPANY, OF CLEVELAND, OHIO, AND OTHERS. 

Mr. ScHELL. Mr. Chairman, I was sent here by the Ohio Butterine 
Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio. 

The Acting Chairman. Is that institution being operated now? 

Mr. SCHELL. The institution is being operated now. 

The Acting Chairman. Has it ever been closed ? 

Mr. ScHELL. It has never been closed. It only came into existence 
a short time since. The charter was issued, I think, the same day that 
the Grout bill passed the House. 

The Acting Chairman. It is very new, then? 

Mr. Springer. An infant industry. 

The Acting Chairman. Yes ; an infant industry. 

Mr. ScHELL. I am also attorney for the Jacob Dold Packing Com- 
pany, of Kansas City, Mo., and I want to state that although originally 
manufacturiug oleomargarine under the name of the Jacob Dold Pack- 
ing Company, yet in order to more closely associate what has been 
called the "legislative name" of the product with the product, they 
have incorporated their oleomargarine department under the name of 
"The Dold Butterine Company," and were, as I am told, the first com- 
pany to adopt a name identical with the product. I am duly author- 
ized to speak for them. 

I am also attorney for the Union Dairy Company, of Cleveland, Ohio, 
and have been for years; but Mr. Seither, the president and general 
manager of that company, will be here to speak for it, and I will only 
quote him as favoring any law which will distinctly and without dis- 
crimination place butter and butterine distinctly on their separate and 
individual merits, but as being against the Grout bill as being class leg- 
islation of the most vicious kind. 

I am also attorney for wholesale and retail dealers in oleomargarine j 
for commission men, whose main business is butter and eggs; for dairy- 
men; for farmers; for consumers, who have within two weeks person- 
ally expressed to me their condemnation of this bill. 

In the years I have been fighting the State color laws, 1 have 
discussed the question of color discrimination in dairy laws on all i)os- 
sible occasions, opportune and otherwise; and I have hundreds of 
expressions from all classes and conditions of mankind uniformly con- 
demning the discrimination between the two products — allowing the 
farmers to color their butter and not allowing the oleomargarine manu- 
facturers to color their product. 

Eeference has been made from time to time to people appearing here 
as "paid attorneys;" and intimations have been made that the same 
degree of consideration should not be given to what they have to say 
as to what might be said by somebody directly interested. 

I must resent that. So will any fair minded attorney. So will every 
man who has had dealings with the legal profession. Attorneys do not, 
as is sometimes supposed, accept employment for the purpose of win- 
ning by fair means or foul; but merely to see that their clients receive 
every benefit to which the law and the facts entitle them. 

JSTow, since this hearing is what it is called, " a hearing," and not a 
trial, as I argue for my clients, I want to go beyond the bounds with 
which custom has hedged an attorney, and within which I generally 
try to confine myself, and mingle some testimony with my talk and 



256 OLEOMARGARINE. 

appear as a witness on behalf of all these people who have exi)ress('(l 
themselves against this species of legislation and as a witness on behalf 
of every loyal, liberty-loving citizen of this great United States. What- 
ever may be the situation of paid attorneys in some cases, in this my 
duties to my client and my country are the same. 

Gentlemen, I believe that the mind of every member of this commit- 
tee is made up, to an extent, on this subject, but 1 believe that every 
one is oyen to conviction on either side. That is evidenced by the 
patience and consideration with which every one has been received. 
This has been a very liberal hearing. From my point of view I would 
have preferred that it be more in the nature of a trial; that the friends 
of the bill should have presented their case; that they should have 
presented their witnesses, not statements, not allegations, not bunches 
of testimony which appeared before the House, and \vhi(;h, of course, is 
admissible as evidence in this case; not that they should come in and 
read at random statements from books or j^amphlets issued from some 
source, we know not what, but that their evidence should have been 
submitted to a rigid, searching cross examination, and that then we 
should have come in with our side of it and been subjected to the same 
cross-examination. Then they could have closed their case. As it is, 
we have appeared at a disadvantage. We are under arraignment. The 
specific counts of the indictment are not named. We do not really 
know as yet what it is we have to face excepr that it is a threatened 
destruction of our industries. 

The burden of proof, you will remember, is on the friends of the bill 
in this case. As yet they have failed. As yet they have not tried to 
make a case. As yet they have not stated their case. And before I go 
any further, let me say this: I see Mr. Knight is present. I would like 
to liave on record Mr. Knight, who seems to be the main spoke in the 
wheel; Mr. Hoard, who is his first assistant; General Grout, who seems 
to be second assistant in the case; Mr. Adams, Mr. Flanders, and others 
who have ai)peared here. I would like to have these gentlemen on 
record, so that we may know just exactly where they stand. And I am 
going to ask Mr. Knight this morning — and I think I am entitled to 
ask the question — that he place himself on record; that he tell us 
whether the object of this agitation, the object of this bill, is to abso- 
lutely prohibit the manufacture and sale of colored oleomargarine, or 
whether he is willing that the manufacture and sale of this product 
shall be so hedged about with law, with regulations, with provisions, 
that it will be compelled to be sold on its merits, and not to encroach 
(if it ever has encroached) upon the particular province of dairy or 
creamery butter. Will you kindly advise me, Mr. Knight? 

Mr. Knight. I will sny to Mr. Schell that if he will present a measure 
which the i)eople who have had experience in enforcing the dairy laws 
believe will hedge it about with such safeguards as that colored oleo- 
margarine can be put to the consumer without deceit and fraud, I am 
sure we will all accept it. That is my answer. And I want to say 
further that if it had been i)ossible in the twenty years we have been 
en<leavoring to have framed such laws, we never would have been 
before Congress to-day asking for a lO-cent tax on colored oleomar- 
garine. [Laughter.] I will prove my case, gentlemen. You need not 
smile so audibly. 

Mr. ScHELL. That is the point, gentlemen. I am glad to hear Mr. 
Knight speak as he does. His statement is the most neaily direct 
explanation of their desires that we have as yet had. But does he 
mean it! We will see. I wish he had made his case in the beginning 



OLEOMARGARINE. 257 

and given as a cliance at it. And I will ask, gentlemen, that if in the 
course of the presentation of their case (which seems to be coming later) 
the gentlemen on the other side of this question should adduce any new 
arguments, any new theories, any new facts or alleged facts which they 
have not yet placed before your committee, our side may be given the 
right — and we claim it as a right, not a privilege — to reply to anything 
we deem worthy of notice. 

The Acting Chairman. I think the committee has been very liberal 
in that respect thus far. We have allowed the interruptions and cross- 
questioning all along the line by both sides. 

Mr. ScHELL. Yes; we concede that the committee has been very lib- 
eral, and we have no fault to find with the committee. 

The Acting Chairman. This has been purely a Congressional 
hearing. It is exactly what it is represented to be. It is not colored 
at all. 

Mr. ScHELL. It is sailing under the proper colors. I conceded that 
in the start. 

Now, the attitude of the friends of this bill, gentlemen, can perhaps 
be defined as a good old Methodist minister (I forget his name now — 
you will probably all recall the story) defined Presbyterianism. Now, 
with Presbyterianism or Methodism 1 have no fault to find, and I do 
not relate this story with the idea of any reflection on either denomina- 
tion. But, in speaking of the Presbyterian doctrine, you will recall 
that he defined it as "I can and I can't; I will and I won't; I'll be 
damned if I do, and damned if I don't." | Laughter.] 

Kow, I am going to do what has not been done by our side as yet. 
I am going to dignify with a rtply some of the things which have been 
said by the other side, and which liave been presented to yoar commit- 
tee in a bunch, perhaps with the idea of their receiving attention and 
perhaps to confuse the record. 

My colleagues have, each in his own way, stated their views. Not 
one has claimed to be the favored of the Lord, entitled to protection. 
Not one has asked a favor. They have only asked their rights, equal 
rights with all men, as guaranteed by the Constitution. 

I shall give some attention to the other side and, since we shall 
follow largely what has heretofore been said, I can not be as logical as 
I would like. But I will aim to treat the subject under three general 
heads. These heads are: 

First. The bill. 

Second. The friends and foes of the bill. 

Third. The alleged rival products. (We do not concede that they are 
rival products, but they are claimed to be.) 

A great and good man once said: "By their fruits ye shall know 
them." And it would appear from that and other reasons that an 
examination of the bill would be sufficient; but sometimes it is well to 
examine the tree, especially when the fruit is such a Dead Sea apple as 
the Grout bill. But the Good Book also says : "The last shall be first." 
So we will take up first the alleged rival products, or the subiect-matter 
of the bill. 

Butter and butterine are almost identical in every respect. As to 
their ingredients, they are identical, except that butter contains just a 
little more butyric acid. You gentlemen will recall, from your studies 
of chemistry and physiology, that there are only four kinds of fat — 
olein, stearin, palinitin, and butyrin. In butter there is just a little 
more butyrin ; and the presence of this butyrin is the only means by 
S. Rep. 2043 17 



258 OLEOMARGAKINE. 

wliich the chemist can distinguish deliaitely between butter and but- 
teriiief. 

Mr. Hoard. Will the gentleman allow me to ask him a question? 
What becomes of the other fatty acids that are in butter, and that are 
not in butterine — capriu, and the other acids"? 

Mr. SCHELL. Why, Governor Hoard, I want to say in reply to that 
that when I have finished — my time is not limited, 1 am glad to say, 
but at the end, if the Committee wants that I should say something 
more — I will be glad to answer any questions that may be asked. But 
since you are here 

Senator Dolliver. If there are any other differences, perhaps you 
had better go into that matter now. You have spoken of one element 
of difterence. I would like to know if there are other differences besides 
this butyric acid of which you speak. 

Mr. SCHELL. That is absolutely the only difference, as I am advised 
by chemists whom I have had examine this product, and by the testi- 
mony of the chemists who appeared before the House Committee. In 
the revised regulations sent out by the revenue department it is stated 
that it was conclusively shown to some investigating committee, whose 
authority seemed to have the sanction of that department, that it was 
the only difference. 1 have cross examined State chemists time and 
again, and have always dwelt upon that one subject; and I have been 
advised by them, by their sworn statements, the statements of wit- 
nesses for the other side, that it was by an estimate of the amount of 
butyric acid contained in the samples that they were able to distinguish 
between butter and butterine, and to tell what per cent of butter fats 
ap])eared. 

Senator Dolliver. Is there any butyric acid in oleomargarine? 

Mr. ScHELL. Yes; there is some, but it is not present in as large 
a quantity as in butter. 

Senator DolLiyer. Well, would it be possible to add enough of that 
product to make the articles absolutely identical? 

Mr. ScHELL. It would ; and I have also asked the State chemists 
that question. 

Mr. Hoard. What chemists, please? What chemists do you refer 
to? 

Mr. SCHELL. Governor, I want to state to you now that if j^ou will 
kindly w^ait I have promised the chairman to aid him in getting through 
as soon as possible; and I recall so well your questions to my prede- 
cessors on this side that I see the time would be fully taken by you if 
I should answer all your questions. 

Mr. Hoard. I beg your pardon, sir, for asking the questions, if it 
interferes with your remarks. 

The Acting Chairman. Governor, you will be given an opportunity 
to question him at the close of his remarks. 

Mr. Hoard. Thank you. 

Mr. ScHELL. One of the chemists I have in mind now (to go right 
on, and perhaps answer the question at the same time) was Professor 
Louis Schmidt, chief chemist of the pure food department of the 
State of Ohio. 1 asked him this question directly: "Professor, would 
it not be possible, by the use of free butyrin by the manufacturers of 
oleomargarine, to make an article which chemically could not be dis- 
tinguished from butter?" And he replied in the affirmative. Now, 
while I have not questioned all the manufacturers, yet I have been 
advised by those engaged in the business that it would be possible to 
do this, but they say, "We do not want it. A very little of the free 



OLEOMARGARINE. 259 

butyrin would be sufficient to flavor, to give that particular property 
to the entire daily output of the factory, and it would render the 
product less desirable, because it would then become rancid, the same 
as butter does." 

Now, as far as the various chemists are coucerned, I shall not go 
into the chemistry of this subject. The testimony before the House 
committee covers that subject; and as far as 1 am advised — and, 
remember, the burden of proof is on the other side — they have not 
introduced any evidence, they have not shown by a single chemist, 
that there is anything in butterine not contained in butter, nor in but- 
ter which is not contained in butterine, except this butyric acid. And 
this acid, this butyrin, adds nothing to and takes nothing from the 
value of the product. 

The Acting Chairman. It has to do with the taste, as I under- 
stand ? 

Mr. ScHELL. It has to do with the taste and the keeping qualities 
of the article. Our friend, Mr. Flanders, from Kew York, kindly 
refers to the chemists who have testified a*? "third-rate chemists." 
Mr. Hamilton, of Pennsylvania, pronounces them eminent chemists. 
Mr. Knight, in his statement before the House committee, I think, 
waived the subject of an investigation by chemists, saying that it 
would simply result in conflicting opinions of paid experts, and with 
that remark dismissed that phase of it. 

These two articles are also similar irt purpose. They are used for 
identically the same thing. They are also similar in natural apjtear- 
ance and in artificial appearance. They both need the same artificial 
coloring. 

Senator Uolliver. Now, I would like to have you go into that 
question a little. What is the natural color of oleomargarine! 

Mr. ScHELL. The leaf lard, which is one of the ingredients of oleo- 
margarine, is, as I understand, pure white. 

Senator Dolliver. Does that dominate the color of the product? 

Mr. ScHELL (continuing). And the other ingredients are not exactly 
white. So that the natural color of oleomargarine is a very slight 
tinge toward yellow, or perhaps gray, from the pure white, which color 
we would be compelled to give to the article if this law were to go into 
efiect. 

Senator Heitfeld. Has it not a sort of muddy color? 

Mr. SCHELL. No; not exactly a muddy color, I think. 

Senator Foster. It has been described as a dirty gray. 

Senator Dolliver. Do you understand that to be the natural color 
of butter? 

Mr. ScHELL. Why, if the committee please, I have in almost every 
year of my life spent a part of each year in the country, in the moun- 
tains, in the farming districts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and in the 
mountains of Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland; and I have seen 
more white or dirty gray butter on the tables of the farmers than I ever 
saw any other kind. From mj^ own exi)erience and from what I have 
heard and read, it is the greater part of the year more nearly the dirty 
gray than it is the rich golden color we see in the butter which we get 
at first-class hotels. 

Senator Heitfeld. I think you are mistaken, though, as to the 
dirty gray being the natural color. I have been in the butter busi- 
ness myself; that is, I have had it made on my farm. I think if the 
milkers have their hands cleaned, and do not get the bucket kicked 



260 OLEOMARGARINE. 

over, and handle it carefully, the tiut is a purer tiut. It is not a dirty 
gray. 

Mr. SCHELL. It! 

Senator Heitfeld. Of course tlie "if" is there. 

Mr. ScHELL. I am going to come to that later on. 

Senator Heitfeld. I have done a great deal of churning in my time, 
and seen a good deal of it done, and been in the business of making 
butter. I supposed that it approached a yellow color, from long and 
careful observation. 

Mr. ScHELL. I have no doubt, gentlemen, that the butter which 
either one of you gentlemen would make would be a yellow butter. 

Senator Dollivee. The poets have always described butter as 
yellow. 

Mr. Schell. Yes, the highest class of butter, perhaps, and even then 
were exercising a poetic license. 

Senator Heitfeld. I am afraid the rural districts you got into were 
not of the best. 

Mr. Schell. All kinds, gentlemen ; but, I will treat that subject later 
on, in speaking of the different kinds of butter. 

Senator Heitfeld. I think we are satisfied as regards that part of it. 

Mr. Schell I am afraid you are satisfied the wrong way. [Laughter.] 
I want to convince. 

As to the nutritive qualities of butterine, I think there can be no 
question. The chemists agree on that subject. The other side very 
faintly claim that the nutritive qualities are not the same as those of 
butter; but tiiey have not made their case or even introduced any 
testimony. Until they do, we do not have to go into that. We do not 
think it necessary. It would be presuming on the intelligence of the 
committee to do it. 

As to the melting point, there are various claims made by the other 
side. In the testimony of Mr. Miller, in the hearing before the House 
committee, at page 1*00, this matter is gone into; and Professor Wiley, 
I think, makes the claim (at least it is a fact) that the mere melting 
point does not make any particular difference; because the melting 
points of apples, meat, etc., if they have any melting point, are con- 
siderably higher than that of butter; and their nutritive qualities are 
not questioned. 

There has been no serious question or claim on the subject of nutrition 
and the perfect healthfulness of the article, except by Mr. Flanders 
and Attorney Kauffman. Mr. Hamilton thought the matter not de- 
cided ; and Governor Hoard and Mr. Knight merely raised the question, 
but brought in no evidence. 

Mr. Hoard. You say I did not bring in any evidence! Turn, if you 
please, to my statement before the agricultural committee, and you 
will find the evidence there stated specifically. 

Mr. Schell. I will state from recollection that Governor Hoard, in 
that statement, after touching on the subject, passed on and spoke of 
the condition of certain alms houses in England. 

Mr. Hoard. I gave the evidence there 

Mr. Schell. But there is nothing there that will be considered as 
evidence before any court, or before a committee, in passing upon a 
matter according to the rights. W^e are charged in this case with being- 
guilty of something. It must be proven, and it must not be proven on 
hearsay, loose, random statements of some partisan in a partisan paper 
in regard to the condition of almshouses over in England. But be that 
as it may, no question can honestly 



OLEOMAKGARINE. 261 

The Acting Chairman. Just a moment, Mr. Scbell. The charge, 
as 1 understand it, is that you sell oleomargarine for butter. Is not 
that the specific charge that is made? 

Mr. ScHELL. That is the specific charge; and j^et the plaintifts, as I 
term them, in this case, have gone beyond the lines of legitimate in(iuiry 
in making the case upon that question, and we feel entitled to make 
some reference to the claims which they have adduced. 

On the question of the alleged injurious effects of this product, oleo- 
margarine is, as I am advised, used in the majority of the National 
Soldiers" Homes all over the country. There have been no complaints 
from them. Gentlemen, the intelligence of the members of the Giand 
Army of the Eepublic is such that if there were any question about it, 
it would have been raised. These gentlemen come in here and with 
their other accusations accuse the nation of feeding its old soldiers on 
something that is absolutely injurious to health, if they seriously make 
that claim, which 1 do not think they do. 

.Mr. Hoard. Its use is forbidden in the old Soldiers' Home in Wis- 
consin. 

Mr, Miller. He refers to National Soldiers' Homes, Governor Hoard. 

Mr. Hoard. And protests have been raised there repeatedly. 

!Mr. ScHELL. Now, Governor, I have said that you would have your 
turn after a while. 

Gentlemen, these products are both butter, and nothing else; many 
of us have had experience on the farm ; and in the country we have 
heard the dairy product distinguished from the other butter used oil 
the table of the farmer by designating it ''cow butter." We have eaten 
on those same tables ai)ple butter, peach butter, quince butter, and 
pumpkin butter; and yet nobody disputes that they are butter. Oleo- 
margarine — butterine — is butter. As a gentleman stated the other 
day, it has been given the name of butterine legislatively. The pro- 
ducers, the manufacturers of the product, have accepted that name. 
We do not object. We are willing to be distinguished. As Commis- 
sioner Wilson stated in his report, if the name could be branded on the 
article it would be one of the best recommendations to the consumer 
the article could have. The only difference is the way in which this 
finished product is proUu-ed. Is Hour any the less tlour because, 
instead of being turned into fiour as it used to be by the different proc- 
esses through which it used to have to go, it now goes through ditlereut 
and improved processes'? Formerly the grain was cut with the sickle, 
thrashed out with flails on the barn floor (or by the stock, as the case 
maj' be), put in a sack, thrown over a barebacked mule, and carried to 
the mill by the farmer's boy, barefooted, and witii the hair sticking 
through the top of his straw hat, and then turned to flour by the old 
process. Is it any the less flour because- now the grain is reaped in the 
most improved fashion, thrashed in a way that will save uU the product, 
and put through the latest imi)roved i)r()cesses, su«-h as are used by 
Pillsbury and others? None the less. And yet they are making this 
distinction between butter and butterine. It is an unfair distinction; 
and yet we accept it. \A'e take the name ''butterine," and ask 

Senator Dolliver. But the laws of the United States have distin- 
guished between flour and mixed flour — that is, flour whose clu-mical 
properties are reenforced from the outside with cornstarch, and sand, 
and things like that. 

Mr. Schell. That is an adulteration; and, gentlemen. 1 want to go 
on record here, in the interests of all the i)eople I repiesent, that any 
law passed by the United States or by any State for the purpose of 



262 OLEOMARGAETNE. 

preventing adulteration will have our hearty support. There is too 
little attention given to legislating- against adulterations; and had half 
the energy which has been expended in getting an unfair discrimina- 
tion between these two products been expended in the interest ot the 
suppression of adulteration of every product that goes on tbe table, 
the country would have been beneiited to a much larger extent. 

TsTow, as to the difference in these two products. The material differ- 
ence is in the manufacture and price only. 

As to the manufacture of oleomargarine, I will simply refer the 
committee to the testimony of ^Ir. Hobbs, on page 138, I think, of his 
testimony before the House committee, in which he followed it througli 
from the beginning to end, and commended it. He said in his testi- 
timony, at some point, that since he has fully investigated it he uses 
the product on Ins own table in preference to butter. I also refer you, 
gentlemen, to the testimony of Commissioner Wilson, at the bottom of 
pages 170, 171, and 1S4 of the House hearings. I do not turn to these 
places and read tliem, because I do not want to encroach upon the 
time of the committee; but I want the places distinctly noted, so that 
the committee may fully investigate if they wish. 

And I want to add a statement here from the rigid regulations of the 
Ohio Butterine Company. Everything there is conducted on the same 
scrupulously clean plan referred to by iMr. Hobbs. But another detail 
might be mentioned. The entire force — they employ none but men in 
the factory — have their bathrooms and dressing rooms, and before 
they go into the factory proper they are compelled to don white duck 
suits and wooden shoes and pass before an inspector; and cleanliness 
is considered the very first law of the factory. 

Again, the factories must be ready at all times for Government 
inspection. The local people, it will perhaps be claimed, could be pro- 
vided against. They would know them, and i)erhaps would know of 
their coming. Fellow-citizens of the same town are not apt to take 
undue advantages, possiby; but the Government, the revenue officers, 
have their secret agents who go about from time to time, and the manu- 
facturers know not the day nor the hour when they are going to appear. 
They must be ready at all times. And so far as I am acquainted with 
any factories, they are ready at all times; and on behalf of our Cincin- 
nati factory, and on behalf of the Jacob Dold Packing Company, and 
on behalf of the Union Dairy Company, I extend to any and every 
member of the conmiittee, or anyone, an invitation to come at anytime, 
and they will be shown through the factory, and shown that every- 
thing which has been said in favor of the cleanliness and godliness of 
the factories is observed. 

Now, as to color, there really is a difference. Both of these products 
are colored. They have to be colored in order to be marketable com- 
modities to day. There is, however, a diff'erence in the coloring matter 
used. The large creameries and prominent dairymen, of course, use a 
harmless color. The oleomargarine factories are compelled to do so. 
Not only is it their desire, but if the}^ were to use anything else it would 
subject them to heavy penalties under the United States laws. I think 
that in a case of using any substance deleterious to health there is pro- 
vided a confiscation as well as a fine. 

Senator Foster. Do they color creamery butter at all times of the 
year? 

Mr. ScHELL. I will not say, absolutely, at all times; but my 

Senator Foster. When they are making the most of the butter, 
along in the summer time. May, tlune, and July, do they color it? 



OLEOMAKGARINE. 263 

Mr. ScHELL. My impression is that it is all colored, at all times; but 
ill the summer time less coloring is required; and I am advised that 
the creameries use exactly the same coloring matter that is used by the 
oleomargarine factories. 

But there is not the same restriction iu regard to the coloring matters 
used by the dairy farmers, the small farmers. Iu Cincinnati years ago 
we have had i)rosecutions of farmers under our Ohio laws for using 
poisonous color iu their butter. The farmers have improved their 
methods since; and perhaps iu justice to them it might be well to say 
that there is very little, if au}^, poisonous coloring matter used now. 
Yet the easiest coloring matter is the coal-tar i)roduct. 

Mr. Knight. I beg pardon, but is that the coloring matter that you 
refer to, Mr. Schell — the coal-tar product? 

Mr. Schell. JSTow, Mr. Knight, I must remind you people again 

The Acting Chairman. Do not interrupt the speaker. 

Mr. Schell. In view of i)ast experience, the experience of my pred- 
ecessors, I find that it will not do to give you any leeway at all. 

Now, the paraftin subject was treated by Mr. Hobbs 

The Acting Chairman. Before you leave that question of color, 
Mr. Schell, allow me to introduce a brief letter here which has been 
handed to me. It is from Mr. O. Sands, of Chicago, 111., and is ad- 
dressed to Mr. Knight. The heading on the letter is " Elgin Creamery 
Company," and it says: 

Replying to yours, at liaud, have to say that I have gone over our books, and 
find that we use about 70 gallons of oil butter color, running through the entire 
twelve mouths of the calendar year, to each 1,000,000 pounds of butter we make. 
For about six weeks or two months from the time the cows are first turned on grass 
in the spring, until the tirst or middle of .July, we use no butter color, it being high 
enough in color witbout using any. 

That is the substance of the letter. 

Mr. Schell. That in substance, I think, Mr. Chairman, is what I 
have stated as my opinion. 

The Acting Chairman. I thought I would make the record com- 
plete. 

Mr. Schell. I believe I stated (hat if any was used in the summer 
time, the quantity was small compared with what was used during the 
rest of the year. 

Mr. Jelke. If Mr. Schell will allow me to make a statement, I will 
say that there are certain markets in the United States where the 
natural color of the butter is not high enough at any season of the year 
to suit the demand; and if Mr. Sands supplies those markets, he uses 
artificial butter color iu his butter at all times. I speak specially of St. 
Louis and of Washington. 

Mr. Knight. They have changed their standard on butter in St. Louis. 

Mr. Jelke. I am thoroughly acquainted with the standard of butter 
in both markets. 

Mr. Knight. So am I. 

The Acting Chairman. The speaker will proceed. 

Mr. Schell. Now, gentlemen, to turn from the manufacture of oleo- 
margarine to the manufacture of batter, we can divide butter into three 
main classes. The creamery butter, the good couutrj^ butter, and the 
packing stock. 

As to creamery butter, we may say that it is the very highest class 
that is made, except perhaps that made by some farmer, some dairy- 
man like Mr. Shari)less, who was here the other day, and who has the 
art down to such a fine point that the creameries can not interfere to 



264 OLEOMARGARINE. 

any appreciable extent with tlie market for his product, or improve 
upon it. 

This butter is made from the milk and cream of herds of cows prop- 
erly bred, properly fed, and properly milked, or from milk purchased 
from the farmers. In making those purchases of milk, the creameries 
have been going about over the territory, inspecting the cows, instruct- 
ing farmers as to how they should be bred, kept, fed, milked, etc. 
This product is bought by the percentage of butter fats contained in 
the milk as it is delivered in the creamery. They have what is known 
as the Babcock tester, a machine which makes about 1,200 revolutions 
per minute, I think. In it are placed test tubes containing milk, 
together with some other ingredients, which are shaken up thoroughly, 
and the exact amount of butter fat can be determined; and in order to 
do justice to the creameries and the farmers, they make what they call 
a composite test, running over quite a period of time, so as to get the 
average of the butter fat in the milk. Then, from time to time, from 
then on, they test to see whether or not it is being kept up to the 
standard, or whether it is exceeding the standard originally shown. 

1 was talking with different members of the firm, of French Brothers' 
Dairy Company, at Cincinnati, before I came here. 1 might say that 
Mr. Tilden E. French, one of the present brothers, has been our county 
treasurer. He stands high politically, socially, and financially. The 
family have been in the dairy business from a ^'time whence the mind 
of man runneth not to the contrary." J)r. Findley was telling me the 
other day that his mother had bought both cream and milk from French 
Brothers, the gentlemen now in the business, and their ancestors for 
more than thirty years. And I was talking with a Cincinnati man on 
Friday, and he said that ever since he could remember the French 
Brothers were in the dairy business in Cincinnati. They have cream- 
eries in Hamilton County and creameries in the other southern counties 
of the State. Mr. Albert French told me very recently that they had 
over $100,000 invested in creameries in Warren County, one of our 
adjoining counties. 

These gentlemen, the French Brothers, tell me that according to their 
estimate the farmer who brings his milk to their creamery and sells the 
butter fat, and gets his milk back, realizes — because of the perfection 
of their process of making butter and the prices they can get thereby, 
and the fact that thej^ can separate and use all of the butter fats, and 
he can not— about three times as much for his product as he would if he 
made it up according to the old farm methods and sold it ; besides he has 
his milk back for any purpose for which he wishes to use it. They did 
not state any specific i)rice that they ])aid, but said the price was based 
on the i)rice sent out from Elgin every Monday. 

The general manager for the Dohl Butterine Company, Mr. Clark, 
who was here the other day, but who had nothing to say because the 
time was occupied, advised me that the Dold Butterine Company pays 
an average of 29 cents a pound for the butter fats used in their oleo- 
margine factory, and find difficulty in g(^tting a sufficient amount at 
that. 

I want to add here the statements of Tilden Iv. French and Mr. 
Albert French, of French Brothers — to the effect that they do not recog- 
nize oleomargarine as a competitor in their business at all. On the 
contrary, they commend the manufacture and sale of oleomargai'ine, 
in that it supplies ])eople who are not able to buy their product. 

Our next class is good country butter; that is the kind perhaps 
which you gentlemen were talking about — that which is worked out by 



OLEOMARGARINE. 265 

baud with proper care and with a regard for cleanliness. But some- 
times, as was suggested, the cow will ])ut her foot in the pail; and iu 
that case cleanliness, of course, is not guaranteed. 

Senator Heitfeld. But they are not compelled to use that milk. 

Mr. SCHELL. They are not compelled to use it, but how many i^ros- 
perous, enterprising farmers are going to throw away that pail of milk, 
especially if they are supplying the market? They will i^robably see 
that it does not go on their own table. 

Now, we also know, everyone of us, that good butter makers in the 
country have a market for their product. They have contracts, the 
same as Mr. Sharpless, to supply their neighbors, even neighboring 
farmers. They have their contracts to supply the residents of little 
villages; and they get the same price the year round, whether butter 
is more or less than the price they are getting. In some of tiie cases 
about which I know, the farmers' wives who have these contracts sup- 
ply batter the year around at 25 cents a pound. Sometimes their neigh- 
bors are getting 10 cents and sometimes they are getting the full 25 
cents. That is another class of butter. 

Now, gentlemen, I am going into details, partly on the suggestion of 
the two gentlemen present and partly because, while every i)olitician 
is not a statesman, every statesman must necessarily be or has been a 
politician, and as such he must have gone through the various districts, 
good, bad, and indifferent. 

Senator Money. A statesman is a dead i)oliticiau. 

Mr. ScHELL. Yes; that is very true. Then, perhaps we can confine 
ourselves to politicians, if you insist upon it. 

Now, we are not going to take you through the green fields, and bab- 
bling brooks, and sh ady lanes, and watch the pretty milkmaid who " pails " 
the cow. We are going to get down to actual facts. We are going to 
go through the stubble fields, grown up with ragweed. We are going 
to recall the taste of that butter which comes on the table made from 
the milk of cows fed on this ragweed. We are going to call attention 
to the barnyard iu winter, often fenced in with a rail fence, which also 
serves as a pigpen, and the cows and the pigs sleep together, with 
mud knee deep. Sometimes they hunt for a high and a dry place, and 
sometimes they do not even take that trouble, they are so accustomed 
to the mud. We are going to call attention to the hired man, when he 
goes out to milk the cows — to the condition of his hands, to the cold in 
his head, etc. Sometimes he takes water from the ])ump and washes 
off just a little bit of mud from the teats, so that it will not be quite so 
nasty for his fingers; but as he milks, we watch the melted proceeds of 
the night's repose drij) down from his hands and go into the milk pail. 
We also notice the general condition of many of those cows. Some 
novelist, writing a few years ago, spoke of the general condition of the 
cows in New York; and the active interest the hero took, lor the love 
of humanity and the little ones, to get better sanitary conditions, etc. 
His experience is not a circumstance compared witli some barnyards 
we have all seen. Take the case of cows with the hollow horn, in the 
winter time 

Mr. Hoard. Cows with what? 

Mr. SCHELL. Hollow horn. 

Mr. Hoard. I will give you "^100 for a case of hollow horn. 

Senator Money. Well, I will give you $500 to demonstrate that it 
don't exist. I have bored the horns for it many times. 

Mr. Hoard, xis a disease? 

Senator Money. They will die if you do not bore them, too. 



266 OLEOMARGAKINE. 

Mr. SCHELL. That is right. We will call attention to the cows you 
have all seen. 

Senator Money. Tiiey have the hollow tail, too. They are both 
recognized diseases. 

Mr. Jelke. Dickens speaks of the cow with the iron tail. [Laughter.] 

Senator Money. Then we have some with the hollow belly. That is 
what is the matter with most of them. 

Mr. ScHELL. That is what is the matter with most of the cows with 
the hollow horn, too, and the cows with the running sores on them — 
the cows, as described by the novelist, with the ends of their tails rot- 
ting off, switching during the milking process. God only knows what 
we are getting from that pail of milk. 

We will also refer to the churn — the children who work the churn 
dasher, the cats and chickens and toads and roaches about the milk 
house or spring house. A gentleman was telling me the other day 
what he claimed to be a true instance about a poor family of tenants, 
in which the supply of wooden ware was limited, and they used the 
churn between churning days for the purpose of soaking tlie baby's 
clothes, and theu on churning days they scoured it out and got the 
butter ready for the market. 

Senator Uolliveb. Did you believe that story? 

Mr. ScHELL. 1 can readily believe it. 

Mr. Knight. And you want to imitate that butter? 

Mr. SoHELL. iSTo; we do not want to imitate that butter. We do not 
want to imitate any butter. 

Kow, we will follow this product. We will go with the farmer's wife 
to the country stores, or we will be there when she arrives. We will 
see her trading it in for what she can get — 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 cents a pound. 
We will see the grocer's clerk, before he puts it away, perhaps, run a 
case knife through it to see how many hairs it contains, and see the 
case knife come out with the hair adhering to it. And in order to get 
a better price by preventing the same discovery, when he sends it to 
his market— the merchant at the railroad town — we will see him have 
that butter worked over and some of those hairs taken out. But of 
course he can not remove the filth, about which our Philadelphia friend 
was speaking the other day, unless he has a renovating factory, which 
he usually does not possess. 

We will see what she gets for it. Usually the trade is divided up 
into tobacco and snuft", New Orleans molasses, brown sugar, a little 
calico, etc. Speaking of snufil', we will go back and see this same 
woman at the churn, driving the children away to see why the butter 
does not come, with a snuff brush in her mouth. We will see her pour 
in a little hot water around the churn dasher, and a little cold water, 
and sometimes we will see her take off the lid, to the destruction of 
the flies hanging about there, and then, as she is working the butter, 
we will see her picking out the mangled remains of the tlies. 

Now that, gentlemen, is another kind of butter. That is the kind of 
butter which we do not recognize as a competitor of oleomargarine any 
more than French Brothers, or any up to-date dairymen, recognize 
oleomargarine as a competitor of their goods. 

That butter goes through various hands, until it finally reaches the 
renovated butter man, where it is made into process butter — resurrec- 
tion butter. Most of it goes to the creamery district of Illinois. I 
think I can follow the same roll of butter, from personal knowledge of ^ 
the people, from the mountain districts of West Virginia, from the small ;i 
farmer to the country store, to the store at the railroad town, to the ; 



u 



OLEOMARGARINE. 267 

commission men in Cincinnati, and from there to Chicago, where it is 
sold to the process butter factories. 

ISTow, as to the method of renovating butter 

Senator Dolliveb. One moment. You have just spoken of having 
butter in oleomargarine. What class of butter do they purchase to 
mix with the oils that go to make oleomargarine? 

Mr. SciiELL. I can only state for certain factories. There are other 
gentlemen here who can speak for their own. In the factories of which 
I know, so far as butter has been used, it has been the very best — not 
fancy butter, perhaps, but the best creamery butter. They insist 
that they must have the best butter, as well as the best of the other 
products, or the result is a failure. But the factories I represent 
are now using, not butter, but milk and cream. And after a while I 
will submit to you one of the stamps required by the Government, 
which contains approximately the materials which enter into the 
product. 

Senator Foster. Do all of these first-class oleomargarine niauu- 
facturers use the same formula? 

Mr. Sohell. Not exactly. 1 think I am safe in saying that. If they 
did, they would have the same class of product, while it is a well recog- 
nized fact that some of them can sell a great deal more goods than the 
others. And they sell them on their merits, and in competition, not 
with butter of any class or description, but in competition with the 
product of other factories. 

Coming back to the point I was about to make as regards the man- 
ufacture of process butter, the question has been raised here, and it was 
stated by someone that it was not necessary to use sulphuric acid in 
clarifying and washing this packing stock during the process of making 
it u[) into resurrection butter. I want to say that sulphuric acid is 
used. I want to corroborate the statement which was made at that 
time and contradicted, and I know it. I am not betraying any profes- 
sional secrets (if 1 do not go too much into details), but I was and am 
attorney for people who were in that business and they did use sul- 
phuric acid to help in washing and clarifying and deodorizing packing 
stock that went into process butter. 

Senator Money. That is injurious to health, is it not*? 

Mr. ScHELL. It is, indeed; any particle of it. 

Mr. Adams. May I ask the gentleman a (question? 

Mr. ScHELL. Yes; all right. 

Mr. Adams. It is sim[>ly this: Are you willing to have questions 
asked ? 

Mr. ScHELL. When I finish, if the committee say that there is time 
for it, I am willing. I would like to ask Mr. Adams a question, though, 
and I am willing to answer a question for him in turn. 

Mr. Adams, i do not wish to insist upon it. I just wish the gentle- 
man would exercise his own will in the matter. 1 don't wish to urge it. 

Mr. ScHELL. Well, it is the time of the committee that is being used, 
not my own. I am willing to stay here for a month, as far as I am 
concerned; bat if Mr. Adams wishes, 1 will be glad if he will place him- 
self on record now, that I may know how to nse him later on, as to 
whether or not he would consent to a bill as a substitute for the Grout 
bill which would so hedge oleomargarine around with penalties and 
conditions that it would be prac-tically impossible to pass it off for 
butter. 

Mr. Adams. I am very glad the gentleman has reiterated by asking 
me a question; and I am i)erfectly willing to answer it. I would like 
to say that I would be in favor of a law that 



268 OLEOMAKGARINE. 

Senator Bate, Is that the question here? Why not have the speaker 
go ahead? 

Senator DoLLiVEii. I presume the committee would prefer to have 
Mr. Schell proceed. 

Mr. Schell. Why, Senator, the only question is this— you were not 
in when 1 began. I find, on examination of the record, the evidence 
presented, that the friends of this measure are not on record as to 
exactly what they want — whether they want to absolutely prohibit the 
manufacture of colored oleomargarine, or whether they simply want it, 
as it is claimed by some, so hedged about that it would be ira]iossible 
for it to encroach upon the territory of pure butter. That is all. 

Senator Bate. I was not referring to that so much as to the irregu- 
larity of a colloquy between the witness and an outsider. I do not 
think they should both go on and jn^oceed to occupy the time of the 
committee in that way. I thought that was exactly the thing we were 
not to do. 

Mr. Schell. Being auxious iu every way to co;nply with any rule or 
regulation, we will drop that. 

Senator Bate. I have no objection to it, sir, if the committee desires 
to have the hearing proceed in this way. I was simply calling atten- 
tion to it. 

Senator Dolliver. In view of the circumstances, I see no objection 
to what has occurred. 

Mr. Adams. Well, gentlemen of the committee, I did not ask the 
question for the purpose of getting an oi)portunity to answer another 
one. I imagined that the gentlemen perhaps might prefer, as many 
men do in appearing before a committee upon a subject of this kind, 
to have the subject opened up with the greatest latitude possible, iu 
order to get all the information which we can. But, waiving my own 
question, and re])lying to the question of the gentleman, 1 wish to say 
that I would be heartily in favor of a law which would make all men 
weigh Kio pounds. I do not think that such a law is i)ossible. I do 
not think that you could execute it. I believe that such a law as the 
gentleman names is an impossible proposition. I do not believe that 
you can draw any law which will absolutely prevent the fraudulent 
sale of oleomargarine colored in imitation of yellow butter. If the 
impossible were possible, I should be in favor of it. 

Senator Money. That can be said of any law which ever has been 
or ever will be passed. Theie never was a law passed anywhere which 
could not be evaded iu some way. 

Mr. Schell, I am obliged to Mr. Adams. 

Now, I come to the question, "Are these various products competi- 
tive ?" We insist that they are not. Every article sold in the United 
States, not governed by a trust, is sold on its merits, 1 take that to 
be a conceded fact. There is an immense market for the creamery 
product at prices according to the grade of goods. Even the different 
grades of creamery butter must sell on their own merits, and not in 
competition with the higher grades, 

Mr, Hamilton, of Pennsylvania, as I understood him, said that the 
production of creamery butter in his State could be doubled and still 
find a home market. There is no question "of any competition with 
creamery butter, I take it. Now, good butter makers, as I have stated, 
have a market the year around from 25 cents a pound u]) for tlieir 
product. As an evidence, Mr, Sharpless gets 35 cents a i)onnd. His 
only objection seems to be that he wants to get that to 50. There he is 
in competition with the creameries, and the creameries are in c<)nii)eti- 



OLEOMAKGAKINE. 269 

tiou with Mr. Sharpless; oleomargariue does uot enter iuto the matter 
at all. 

As to packing- stock, as to the final -end of the butter about which we 
have talked, and iuto the details of which we have gone pretty closely, 
it is regulated by the supply and demand. It is not used in its raw 
state on the table of anybody who purchases something to spread on 
his bread, unless in some rare instances. The price of packing stock 
now is, I think, about Hi cents in Chicago. I only estimate that, but 
I am in a position to know it, because the first thing I will do when I 
get away from Washington will be to go to Chicago to straighten out a 
tangle in regard to a carload of this stuff which has been tied up there 
in litigation. 

As to the price of the renovated butter, I can only say that it depends 
upon whether it is fresh when it gets to the consumer or whether it is 
a few days old. l>y the most improved methods they have only suc- 
ceeded in getting it to keep, I think, six or eight days. 

The oleomargarine factory and the creamery are only competitors in 
any sense in the attitude of purchasers; not of sellers. They compete 
for the milk of the farmers; and in that way their competition is a 
benefit to the farmer and the dairyman, rather than otherwise. 

I was advised by Mr. Babbitt, one of our men who was in Detroit 
recently, that there was a conference of butter men there during the 
holidays. 

Mr. Lestrade did not say the other day whether that was one of the 
meetings to which he was invited or not. But I was advised by Mr. 
Babbitt (who usually knows what he is talking about) that the object 
and attempt of that meeting was the forming of a butter trust; that 
they met prematurely, expecting this bill to pass before the holiday 
recess, and that they adjourned to meet again, after the bill passed, so 
that they could perfect their organization. 

Senator Money. That has been denied, though, has it uotf 

Mr. SCHELL. The Detroit meeting has not been mentioned as yet, 
but the fact that they are contemplating a butter trust has been denied. 

Now, on the subject of prices, 1 want to refer to an advertisement in 
the Cincinnati Times-Star, the 5th edition of December 28; this also 
shows that oleomargariue is being sold in Cincinnati for what it is and 
that it is a very willing victim who is victimized in that city by buying 
it for butter. 

The advertisement to which I call attention is that of B. H. Kroger, 
who advertises " forty tea and grocery stores." 

Now, I do not know Mr. Kroger. He is not a client of mine. I have 
represented at dift'erent times a great many of the dealers there, but 
never Mr. Kroger. He advertises butter at 25 cents per pound, cream- 
ery butter. He does not advertise country butter at all. He adver- 
tises two grades of oleomargarine — one at 12 cents per pound, the other 
at 15 cents per pound. 

Senator Foster. What is it that makes that difference? 

Mr. Schell. The difference in the materials used. For example, 
the more of a higher priced material is used, the higher must be the 
price of the oleomargarine; and the higher priced materials used in this 
case, I take it, consist of butter fat. 

Senator Foster. Is it the butter that they use? 

Mr. Schell. The butter fats, milk and cream, that enter into its 
composition. 

Senator Money. What do you mean by "butter fatsf " 

Mr. Schell. The butter fat is the fat 



270 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Senator Money. The grease that is in tbe butter? 

Mr. ScHELL. It is tbe fat that is extracted from the milk and cream, 
aud by improved processes the creamery man can extract more of this 
butter fat than the dairy man. That is where they have such an 
immense advantage. 

Senator Money. By this centrifugal force? 

Mr. ScHELL. By centrifugal force. jS^ow, while I am on this subject, 
there has been a great deal of talk (not testimony, but talk) here as to 
the selling of oleomargarine for butter, and how a man goes in a store 
and calls for butter and gets oleomargarine. But the statements have 
been a unit, with the exception of the Philadelphia men, as to the fact 
that the stamp always appeared on the wrapper, and the customer found 
it when he got home, and then he knew that he had gotten oleo. 

Now, if B. H. Kroger were to sell one of his customers oleomar- 
garine for butter, according to the testimony, or the talk of our oppo- 
nents, he wraps it in one of these wrappers containing the stamp. The 
customer goes home. He finds out that he has been swindled. Well, 
B. H. Kroger is not going to victimize that man, if he is an intelligent 
man, more than once. So he not only loses his butter trade, but he 
loses his trade in coffee, in canned pumpkins, canned string beans, aud 
all canned goods here advertised, corn, starch, tomatoes, peaches, 
asparagus, Hour, sugar, and everything else that is handled at that 
store. He loses his entire custom, all for the difference between tbe 
price of a pound of oleo and a pound of butter. Gentlemen, it stands 
to reason that that is not done to any great extent. 

Gentlemen, in regard to this subject generally, I want to say that 
industries, like individuals, have their periods of growth, of maturity, 
and of decay. In the butter industry the churn is rapidly following 
the sickle, which was used in the age when Dutch churns were invented. 
The sickle was displaced by the cradle, that by the reaper, that by the 
binder; and they tell me that in the wild and woolly but proi^ressive 
West a machine thrashes the grain as it goes along. And the Dutch 
churn must follow the example of the crooked stick attached to the 
horns of an ox with a hickory withe, which the Dutch-churn farmer 
used to cultivate the soil, but which lias been displaced, step by step, 
by a wooden plow, a single shovel, a double shovel, and so forth and 
so on, until we have the labor-saving cultivator and riding-car of the 
East and the immense steam plows of the mighty West. Kecall your 
last visit to the National Museum, and compare the wooden- wheeled 
wagon of the same generation as the Dutch churn of theunprogressive 
farmer's wife with the wagon of to-day with which the progressive 
farmer hauls his milk to the nearest creamery and the carriage in 
which he drives his family to church on Sunday. Examine every- 
thing, gentlemen, that has ever been produced by the ingenuity of man 
to aid in the process of extracting wealth from the soil, or from the 
animals over which God gav^e man dominion, and you will find immense 
improvements in all, except that in the old Dutch churn the limit did 
not seem to have been reached until science took a hand and creameries 
were established to supply the wealthy, and the manufacturer of oleo- 
margarine came into the held in the interest of the workingman. 

Senator Foster. Did not this gentleman from New York the other 
day say that the old Danish way of making butter was the best? 

Mr. ScHELL. It is the slowest. 

Senator Foster. Did he not say it made the best butter? 

Mr. Schell. It makes the best butter under the proper conditions; 
but he also said that the ordinary butter makers do not understand 



OLEOMARGARINE. 271 

any more about that process tliaii a pig does- about side pockets, or 
sometbiug to that effect. 

Now, gentlemen, we are coming to the opponents of the bill. 

They have assembled here from day to day almost as patientl}^ as 
this committee. They are law-abidiug. God-fearing citizens. They 
have appeared iiersonally and by counsel. They have testified when 
they could aud listened to the other side when they could not. They 
have done nothing to detract from the dignity of debate, have spoken 
when invited, and with confidence in God, the Constitution, and the 
Congress of the United States. They have presented, when allowed, 
the reasons why they are entitled to enjoy the inalienable rights of 
life, liberty, and the jjursuit of happiness, including, as has been said, 
the right to hold their property secure from molestation and coufisca- 
'tion. They have made less noise, but really outnumber aud are 
infinitely better behaved than the friends of the other side. 

Among the opponents of this bill we find the oleomargarine manu- 
facturers, who .are here resisting practical confiscation of their property. 

Some years ago, before my general practice became as extensive as it 
is now, I did a great deal of loaning of money for certain wealthy 
clients. Among other things I was called upon to investigate was the 
subject of making loans on factory property. And those who have had 
experience will bear me out in stating that a factory property is not 
considered a proper subject for a purchase for any business other than 
that for which it was erected; and even when in active operation is 
good for a loan of but a small per cent of its actual cost. 

We have our machinery, which could not be used for anything else. 
We have our signs — and I want to say right here that the oleomar- 
garine manufacturers have spent thousands and thousands of dollars 
in sending signs broadcast over the country, not for the purpose of 
aiding in any deception, but for the purpose of advertising their prod- 
uct. These necessarily are a complete loss. There is the good will 
which has been built up, the money which has been spent in advertising 
and sending men over the country and talking up their product. On 
all of this expenditure returns are not yet in. It is an investment for 
the future. 

Now, as to the plants of the other people, I do not know; but I do 
know this — that our little factory in Cincinnati paid, not for the build- 
ing site, etc., but for the plant proper, situated on a leasehold, 818,000; 
and that property would be practically valueless if this bill were to 
become a law. And, gentlemen, are we not entitled to have our prop- 
erty taken from us, if it must be taken from us, only by due pr(?Gess of 
law? Are we not entitled to be paid for it if it is taken? And yet 
there is no provision in this bill to take care of any questions of this 
kind. 

The Acting Chairman. Do you think it would entirely destroy the 
value of these properties? 

Mr. ScHELL. I think so; and I make that statement from experience 
in estimating the values of factory i)lants. Even when a plant is in 
operation, it is not considered a good subject for a loan, because if the 
business should fail, the factory is considered a dead loss. 

The Acting Chairman. That statement admits, it seems to me, 
that the only chance to sell this product is by giving it this yellow 
color. You have said that color does not affect the healthfulness of 
it — it is simply a concession to the custom and taste of people, and is a 
mere matter of appearance. Have you considered the question whether 
it would be possible to cultivate a taste for an article not colored in 



272 OLEOMARGARINE. 

that way. I am eiuleavoriDg to get at the question of how far this 
bill wouhl totally wreck the business. 

Mr. ScHELL. We have considered that. 

The Acting Chairman. You say you have a business which depends 
for its life solely upon its ability to produce an article of a certain 
color, whereas these other people are complaining that it is their color 
you are imitating. 

Senator Money. It is not the other people's color; it is their own 
color. It was introduced by the oleomargarine people, and the butter 
men adopted it. 

The Acting Chairman. I guess God established it originally, sir. 

Senator Money. The oleomargarine manufacturers discovered it, and 
the other people united in imitating it. 

The Acting Chairman. I have an idea, from what you have said 
about the character of these goods, that this color is an incidental 
matter which would soon be overcome by the ordinary process of adver- 
tisement and the ordinary good sense of the community. 

Mr. ScHELL. I think it lias been stated here by one side, and con- 
ceded by the other, that taste constituted a large per cent of the 
attractiveness of a food product, and color the balance. Professor 
Wiley, an expert on the subject, I think, stated that the eye aided the 
palate; and that no matter if an article was just as good as any of its 
class, if it did not look as you exj)ected it to look, you were not going to 
have nearly the appetite for it that you otherwise would. And I think 
that statement will be borne out by your everyday experience. You 
go to different hotels, to a certain hotel, by choice, in preference to 
another, not because they give you anything better to eat, but because 
they get it up better, in better style. They please the palate and they 
please the eye. The eye aids the palate; and you enjoy the food better 
even if the cooking is not any better, and they have not really as much 
to eat. 

Now, in addition to the oleomargarine manufacturers, there are 
interested in this bill the cattle growers, the sheep growers, who have 
been represented; the cotton growers and cotton-seed oil mills, who 
will be represented; and I might say, in addition to the interests of 
the cattle and hog growers, the people interested in the raising of every 
competitive animal — shee]), poultry, or whatever comes into competition 
with the product of the cattle or the hog — are interested in this bill, 
because the prices are correspondingly advanced as the prices of cattle 
and of hogs are advanced. 

The Acting Chairman. How much longer do you intend to proceed ? 
We must adjourn the session for at least half an hour, I suppose. 

Mr. SCHELL. I can go on this afternoon ; I do not know how much 
time I will want, Mr. Chairman. 

The Acting Chairman. What is the custom about meeting in the 
afternoon ? 

Senator Foster. Half past 2 has been the usual hour for reassem- 
bling. 

The Acting Chairman. Then you will be prepared to resume at half 
past 2. 

Senator Foster. You have the floor, Mr. Scliell. 

The Acting Chairman. You will be conceded the floor at half past 2. 

Mr. Springer. Mr. Chairman, the cotton-seed oil men are here, and 
may be here this afternoon when Mr. Schell gets through. 

The Acting Chairman. All right; we will be ready to hear them at 
that time. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 273 

(Thereupon, at 12 o'clock m., the committee took a recess nutil 2.30 
o'clock p. m.) 

At tlie expiration of the recess the committee resumed its session. 

Present: Senator Dolliver (acting chairman); C. Y. Knight, secre- 
tary of the National Dairy Union; Hon. William M. Springer, of 
Sringtield, 111., representing the National Live Stock Association; 
Frank VV^. Tillinghast, representing the Vermont Manufacturing Com- 
pany, of Providence, K. I.; Charles B. Schell, representing the Ohio 
Butterine Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio; Patrick Dolan, president of 
the United Mine Workers' Association; John Pierce, representing the 
Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers; W. E. Miller, 
representing the Armour Packing Company, Kansas City, Mo.; 
John F. Jelke, representing Brauu & Fitts, Chicago, 111., and others. 

Mr. Schell at this point permitted an interruption to hear from Mr. 
Patrick Dolan and Mr. John Pierce, whose statements against the bill 
appear later. 

CONTINUATION OF STATEMENT OF CHARLES E. SCHELL. 

Mr. Schell. Before I go ahead I want to say that what these gen- 
tlemen have said has cut down my remarks somewhat. But I want to 
add to what they have both said, and in reply to your questions, before 
going on with my argument, that the poor man has his pride just the 
same as the rich man; and, as the first gentleman put it, they do not 
want their poverty legislated on their table three times a day, as would 
be the case if they were compelled to use white oleomargarine or go 
without anything to spread on their bread at all. 

On the subject of frauds that are perpetrated I will speak later on, 
and will invite any questions which the Chair or the committee may 
deem proper to ask as to what I know about it. 

This morning I was enumerating the various people who were before 
the committee, by their duly authorized representatives, asking that 
this bill should not become a law. Not that that should have any 
effect; it is not the people who count; it is a question whether or not 
it is a just and proper measure. Of course, they all want to be heard. 
Every man who is interested is entitled to be heard and entitled to be 
considered. But the main question still remains, "Is it a proper sub- 
ject for legislation, and does the bill properly legislate on this subject?" 

In addition to the people I named this morning, we have on our side 
every intelligent farmer — not the farmers who are dictated to by the 
dairy-paper publishers or the representatives of the would-be butter 
trust, but the farmer who thinks for himself, because he knows that 
everything that is on his farm is enhanced in value by reason of the 
increased market for a part of what he raises. Every time that his 
beef is increased in value its competitor, the sheep, goes up just that 
much; poultry will bring a great deal better price, and so on through 
every product that he raises that goes into the markets for people to 
eat. 

Now, these two gentlemen who have just spoken are here directly 
representing G~),Q()0 of another class, a very small portion of another 
class, who must eat either white oleo or gravy, as the case may be, in 
case this bill becomes a law. The ordinary "sop" which you as politi- 
cians have probably found on the tables of a great many of your con- 
stituents, the same which I have found on the tables ot many people 
with whom I have stopped when out bicycling, riding, hunting, or 
fishing, does not parade the poverty of the man who has it on his table 
S. Rep. 2043 18 



274 OLEOMARGARINE. 

as much as the white oleomargarine would. Somebody has said that 
we make a greater effort to appear happy than to really be so; and 
that is the fact. That, perhaps, prevails more in the wealthier class 
than it does in the poor class ; but it prevails in every class of humanity. 

On this subject I might also (piote the remark that " a hole may be 
the accident of a day, but a patch is premeditated poverty." The gravy 
might be the accident of a day, but white oleo would be premeditated 
poverty; and the man must so advertise to his children and the visitor 
who sits at his board. 

In addition to these classes, every man who is willing that others 
should have the same right which he claims for himself is on our side 
of the fence; and the man who denies to me any right which he claims 
for himself is a robber and a thief jnst as much as if he should rob me 
of my mone3\ 

Now, gentlemen, I had intended going into an analysis as to what 
was presented by our side before the House committee; but I will have 
to cut that out, and will merely refer to some testimony which I want 
to use in argument. I quote Commissioner Wilson, at page 168 of the 
House report, where he says : 

"I should regard the tax of 10 cents a pound on colored oleomargarine 
as ])rohibitive. 1 do not think the manufacturers can do much with it 
with a tax of that amount. I think the bill would defeat the end of 
deriving any revenue from the sale of co'ored oleomargarine. I think 
that would be largely the result of its passage." 

Then he goes on to recommend a change in the existing law. He says : 

"I would recommend a change which would require the manufacturer 
to put up statutory packages in subpackages to meet the lowest demand 
of the retail trade and the highest demand of the wholesale trade, upon 
each of which subpackages should be impressed, in such a way that it 
could not be obscured or obliterated without manifest effort and inten- 
tion, the word 'Oleomargarine;'" and that, Mr. Chairman and gentle- 
men of the committee, would so hedge about the sale of colored 
oleomargarine that the only place in which it could be palmed oft" on an 
unsuspecting consumer would be at the hotels. It would practically 
be driven to a corner. And then these food commissioners, who come 
here in the interests of their jobs, or perhaps in the interest of their 
constituents who furnished them jobs, would only have to go to the 
hotels; and how many hotels could stand an expose of that kind more 
than once! Why, they could not stand it at all. 

Let them attach penalties. Let them fix it so that every conviction 
will add to the revenues. It is charged by the friends of the bill that 
the internal-revenue people will not enforce this act because it does not 
aftect their revenues. Let them attach such fines, such i^enalties, as 
will enable them to get wealthy, so that every other revenue can be 
abolished, if need be. We do not care. We want it sold on its merits. 
Hedge it about as you will, but do not say to the poor people, ''You 
can not have colored butter" — for it is butter— "on your table," and to 
the rich people, " You can have yours colored." 

It is just as bad to legislate that the man with a limited income 
should wear a certain colored suit of clothes, while the rich man could 
wear anything he pleased. It is identically the same proposition. 

Commissioner Wilson goes on to say — and he ought to know — this: 

My judgment is that the amount of this material that is sold as butter is not nearly 
so large as some people believe; and my jiidgmeut is that there is not nearly so 
much viciousness as is commonly supposed in the sale of that which is not marked. 
I make a distinction, in other words, between that which is sold ns butter and that 



OLEOMAKGARINE. 275 

wbicli is handed out in a passive way without its heing indicated whether it ishnt- 
ter or oleoiuargnrine. I do not think there is as much of that which is actuated hy 
gain as has been represented (p. 169). 

I will add my personal testimony to that later on. He also said 

(p. 170): 

There has never been any evasion of the law with respect to paying the tax on 
oleomargarine, except in a very incidental and limited way. Neither the special 
tax (although it is hi<ih), nor the 2-ceut pound tax have ever been evaded. We 
have no trouble in collecting them. 

And before leaving Cincinnati I asked the Hon. Bernard Bettman, 
collector of internal revenue there, if he cared to be quoted, or would 
allow liimself to be quoted, on that subject; and if so, what he had to 
say. He said: "They give me no trouble at all." 

Then Commissioner Wilson goes on to speak as to the necessary 
absolute purity of the article, because the materials must be used at 
once, and he quotes from some one whom he considers good authority. 

Then Kepresentative Allen asked him (p. 171): "Kow, sir, have any 
complaints been made to your Department of any deleterious or injuri- 
ous effects caused by the consumption of this article'?" To that ques- 
tion Commissioner Wilson answered: "No, sir; no, sir. The only 
complaint that has ever reached the oflice was a letter thatMr.Tawney 
published here, in the Star, I think — at least, it was the same letter 
that he read to me. I took a copy of it and sent it to the agent in 
charge of the territory where most of these oils are produced, and had 
a very complete and thorough investigation made, and have here a copy 
of his report. 

Eepresentative Allen. That is a copy of the report? 

Commissioner Wilson. A copy of the report of the agent; yes, sir. He does 
not find any ground whatever for the charge made in that letter. He says it is false 
and utterly unworthy of belief; and he shows pretty conclusively, I think, that his 
statements are true. Aud without his knowing anything about the doctrine laid 
down here, in this investigation to which I have referred, he brings out in this same 
report the fact that the same condition of things exists. 

There is an extensive report. I wish you would read it. 

Senator Dolliver. Is that the report of the House committee"? 

Mr. ScHELL. Yes; it is in the report of the House committee. 

Senator Heitfeld. Just give us a reference to the page. 

Mr. ScHELL. It is on page 171. I am not going to read the report, 
but I am going to call attention to one part of it, to use later on. This 
man was unable to locate the writer of the letter. It seems that they, 
like some of the food commissioners, pay attention to every letter that 
they receive, anonymous or otherwise, and they act upon them. But 
the report further says (p. 175) : 

However, it is the general impression among nearly all of the packers, as well as 
the oleomargarine manufacturers, that the author of the published letter is Charles Y. 
Knight, manager Chicago Dairy Produce, a publication published in the interest of 
dairy products, 188 South Water street, Chicago. 

(Mr. Knight arose.) 

Mr. SCHELL. You will have your turn later on. 

Mr. Knight. I insist, Mr. Chairman 

Mr. ScHELL. 1 am keeping within the record. 

Mr. Knight. I insist that if my name is mentioned I should have a 
right here to enter the record and make a protest. 

Mr. ScHELL. No; your side has reserved the right to close. 

The Acting Chairman. Are you the man referred to? 

Mr. Knight. I am the man whom he accuses. 1 can bring a man 
within fifteen minutes who knows the writer of that letter personally, 



276 OLEOMARGAKINE. 

and will substantiate wbat be says. I will bring- bim from tbe Public 
Printing OfiBce. He is a man of wbom I never beard. 

Tbe Acting Chairman. We will bave no controversy; but Mr. 
Knigbt disclaims tbe responsibility for tbe letter. 

Mr. Knight. He will be voucbed for by Representative Cooper, of 
Wisconsin, wbo got bim tbe position there, and wbo vouches for this 
man Loebbler, and can tell Mr. Cowan or Inspector McGinnis where be 
will find him and wbat his position is. And be will also give this com- 
mittee, if it desires it, some information which will substantiate wbat 
tbis man wrote. 

Senator Heitfeld. Where do you And that letter here? 

Mr. ScHBLL. The letter is not shown here. The report on tbe letter 
is given at page 171. 

Mr. Knight. I will further give the name of tbe man that I will 
bring. His name is Reed. He is foreman of a department at tbe Pub- 
lic Printing Office. 

Mr. ScHELL. On that subject I want, before J go any further, to say 
that I am going to stick to tbe record; I am not going outside of tbe 
record. 

Mr. Knight. All right, sir. 

Mr. ScHELL. And, as I understand, these gentlemen claim the right 
to close. 

The Acting Chairman. Yes. 

Mr. SCHELL. Tliey bave not presented their case, but they want to 
close. 

The Acting Chairman. The chairman permitted Mr. Knight to 
speak simply because I understood he had been charged with the 
authorship of a letter which be denied writing. 

Mr. ScHELL. I am willing that be should go on record now as deny- 
ing it. 

The Acting Chairman. Now, the gentleman will proceed without 
interruption. 

Mr. ScHELL. That is all right. Commissioner Wilson goes on further 
and says, on page 177 : " I think everybody buys it. I think it is clean 
and reputable" — referring to oleomargarine. Representative Allen 
asked: "Do you regard its manufacture as a fixed industry in tbe coun- 
try, which ought not to be abolished ? 

"Commissioner Wilson. Yes, sir; I certainly do; and, if I may ven. 
ture this statement (you will pardon me if I go beyond what I should 
say), I will say to you, gentlemen, that any legislation which you may 
enact here with respect to stamping or identifying as an entity the 
quantity of eleomargarine that goes into tbe hands of A, B, or C to be 
used on their tables will give it a badge of credibility that it would not 
get anywhere else." 

That is his opinion. Speaking of tbe factories, he says: "They are 
wonderfully cleanly conducted affairs." Then he touches on the ques- 
tion of revenue — showing an income of a million and a half per year. 
On that point, I believe, there is no doubt. 

Then I want to call attention to just one statement of Professor 
Wiley; and as to the other testimony, I will simply refer to it for proof, 
if wanted, that the millions of individuals and investments are actually 
opposed to the passage of tbis bill. 

Professor Wiley condemns anything being sold for otherwise than 
what it is, and he wants it so that tbe purchaser may know wbat it is. 
That is right. Then he says (p. 196) : 

And that is the attitude that I hold toward pure-food legislation — that it should 
be general and not special in its character. I believe that the dairy interests would 



OLEOMARGARINE. 277 

be far better protected under the Brosius bill, which is pending before Congress, 
than under a special bill, because all the interests would be placed on the same foot- 
ing. The Brosius bill absolutely prohibits the sale of any product as an imitation 
or under the name of another, and ])rovides penalties for that specific purpose; so 
that it would be absolutely impossible under the law, if that bill were passed, to sell 
oleomargarine for butter anywhere in this country. 

JSow, I have not seen that bill, but I have heard of it from time to 
time. It is backed by all the pure-food congresses and commissioners 
and everybody else, 1 think, in any way interested in the absolute 
purity of all that goes on our tables. I do not know what the bill is; 
but if such a bill could be conceived it would have the support ot every 
oleomargarine manufacturer in the country, and, I think, of every labor 
organization, of every farmer, and of everybody who eats. And most 
of us subsist largely on what we eat. 

Mr. Adams. If the gentleman permit me to correct a statement, which 
he undoubtedly made in good faith, I will say that he is mistaken in 
saying that that bill is supported by all the dairy commissioners in the 
States. While they concede certain merits in the bill, the dairy com- 
missioners of this country, as a rule, are not in favor of that law, as at 
present informed, so far as my knowledge extends. 
. Senator Heitfeld, To what do you refer? 

Mr. Adams. The Brosius bill, the national pure-food law. 

Senator Heitfeld. You say the dairy commissioners are not in favor 
of it? 

Mr. Adams. They are not in favor of the bill in its present form. 
They are in favor of some of the essential principles of the bill, but not 
as worked out in that particular act. 

Senator Heitfeld. I have read that bill, and I have heard of it. It 
is universal, of course, is it not? 

Mr. Adams. Yes. 

Senator Heitfeld. It would also compel dairy products to be labeled 
as to coloring matter and everything else? 

Mr. Adams. Well, that depends upon the interpretion of the general 
principles laid down in the law. They do not object to that part of it 
at all. 

Mr. ScHELL. Whatever it is, such a law should be enacted and 
should be enforced. We have a splendid law in the State of Ohio 
which would be well to incorporate into some national law. 

The Acting Chairman. I think the main difficulty in that matter 
is to frame a law which would be within the jurisdiction of Congress on 
the subject. 

Mr. ScHELL. Exactly, Mr. Chairman. I was going to touch on that 
later on, when I came to discuss the bill. Then I want to call special 
attention to the statement of Professor Wiley at page 228 of his testi- 
mony, in which he distinguished between the chances of contagion or 
chances of danger in the two rival products, if they are rival products — 
oleomargarine and butter. He discriminates in favor of oleomargarine 
as containing the least danger to the public health. 

So much, gentlemen, in a general way, for the enemies of the bill, for 
those who are opposing this legislation. 

Now as to the friends of the bill. I can not give them the attention 
I would like. I will try to be very brief and I will try to keep within 
the record. 

They rest on alleged numbers. They say, " We, the people — we, 
the dairymen, want it as a remedy for (imaginary) injuries." They 
have neither proven their numbers or their injuries. 

Their argument is to abuse oleomargarine, every one connected with 
its manufacture or sale, and branch out to judges, juries, revenue oih- 



278 OLEOMARGARINE. 

cers, pure-food commissiouers, chemists, and so forth ad infinitum. 
They remind me of tbe story of the old Scotch woman, who was dwell- 
ing on the wickedness of the world. Her minister said: "Well, if what 
you say is correct, nobody is sure of heaven but you and John." "Oh, 
well," said she, " I am uae so sure about John." ( Laughter.) 

They submitted their pretended case briefly and announced that they 
were through. The record shows it. But they have taken most of the 
time allotted to us and half the time of our speakers, either in actual 
talking or in diverting the speaker from his course of thought, as a 
result of which he has necessarily to repeat himself — except Mr. Gard- 
ner, who spoke before they recovered from their surprise that we were 
to be allowed to be heard at all; and Mr. Pirruiig, who would not per- 
mit of interruption. And later, after their case had been submitted, 
as we supposed, they claimed the right to close. 

We do not object to that. But we do not want to impose on the 
committee. jSTor do we want to help the other side. Tliey are certainly 
entitled to rebut — not to make their case later on, but to rebut any 
testimony which we have offered. And we claim the right then to 
rebut any new testimony which they offer. And I know, from the 
fairness heretofore displayed by this committee, that we will have it. 

Mr. Adams. Has the gentleman any record of any claim made by the 
friends of this bill that they should close the thing? 

Mr. ScHELL. Oh, yes; it is in the record. Then again, they are 
really entitled to close, but not to make their case in the closing 
presentation. 

Mr. Adams. I have not heard of it. 

The Acting Chairman. There comes a moment, of course, when 
this recii^rocity of winding things up must cease. 

Mr. ScHELL. Certainly, certainly. The late lamented Edgar W. 
Nye once said: "Some people want the earth. Others are content 
with the fullness thereof." These gentlemen seem to want both the earth 
and the fullness thereof. I want to briefly mention the prominent 
friends of the bill, beginning with Governor Hoard. I would rather 
that the gentlemen would be present 

Senator Heitfeld. Had you not better confine yourself to the sub- 
ject itself? We will hear from these men after a while. I think you 
are mistaken about their reserving the right of closing. They may have 
said that they reserved it and it may have been granted. Of course 
we have changed chairman quite often and the members of the com- 
mittee, as they have attended, have varied from two to four and six. 
We have not had time to be present continuously and we may be mixed 
on this subject. You say that this is in the record. I do not know, 
but I think you had better confine yourself to the subject itself, so that 
we will get through sometime. 

Mr. ScHELL. That is right. I want to confine myself to the subject 
itself, and if it please the committee, I will aim to keep strictly within 
the record. But we have been attacked. There have been claims 
made. We will not say that we will analyze Governor Hoard. That 
is not the intention, but we will analyze his statements. 

Senator Heitfeld, The committee is able to judge of these matters. 

Mr. ScHELL. But it is for the purpose of pointing out the weak 
points in his claim, which is submitted here as a part of the introduc- 
tion of the case — the statements that were made by him and others 
before the House Committee. I will be very brief. 

The Acting Chairman. The gentleman will proceed, abstaining as 
far as possible from any controversial personalities. 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 279 

Mr. SCHELL. Oh, yes — certainly, certainly. I want to say that I 
will sit quietly through anything which may be said in reply to what- 
ever I may say, and I will try not to transcend the bounds 

Mr. Adams. I wish to say, Mr. Chairman, in behalf of these gentle- 
men who are to be subjected to analysis, that we have not the slightest 
objection to it and are quite curious to hear it. 

Mr. Knight. Only, Mr. Chairman, I want to say that I have been 
accused of forgery in this committee and 

Mr. ScHELL. I have not accused you of it. 

Mr. Adams. You certainly did. You certainly said that it was the 
general opinion that I wrote the letter to which the name of a man 
named Loebbler was signed. 

Mr. ScHELL. No ; 1 simply quoted from the record, and never heard 
the name Loebbler till you just now used it. I do not vouch for any 
statemcMt that appears in this record produced by one side or the 
other ; but it is before the committee, was introduced by your side, and 
we want to talk about it. 

Mr. Knight. Was that in the record of the House that I was accused 
of that? 

Mr. ScHELL. It was in tbe record of the House. You will find it on 
the page I mentioned. Now, I hope my time will not be too limited, 
but I want to get ahead. 

The Acting Chairman. You can see the necessity of not accusing 
people of this, that, or the other. 

Mr. ScHELL. I can, but a greater necessity exists for going fully into 
what appears in the record. 

The Acting Chairman. Otherwise we will have that much more to 
go into. 

Mr. SCHELL. That is right. 

Now, Governor Hoard, as appears by the record (Senate Committee 
Hearing, p. 34), was artificially coloring cheese forty-five years ago in 
New York. 

He is president of tbe National Dairy Union, serving without money 
and without price. He does not say that he is serving here for noth- 
ing, but leaves that impression. He is not so adroit with the ."),{)00,000 
farmers whom he claims to represent as his colaborer, Mr. Knight. If 
he could only get of) cents apiece for the same proportion and $1,000 
apiece for the balance, he would not need to longer deny tlie farmers of 
his district an interest in his ten creameries, as suggested last Friday 
by Mr. Lestrade. 

But to turn to the testimony, he begins: 

"Whom do we represent ? The united dairy sentiment of the nation. 
That means over 5,000,000 farmers, and an annual cash value in their 
product of over $000,000,000." 

That is produced as an argument. I would not produce such an 
argument before this committee. It is not an argument. It is simply 
a statement to the effect, "Here we are, with these numbers back of us; 
and you must do as we say." 

By what authority does he represent these people? He has not 
shown it. He has not proven it. 

Then he goes on to say, also : 

A vast army of cousiimers of dairy products who are constantly duped and swin- 
dled by a counterfeit substitute for butter. 

He has not proven that. These gentlemen wlio are here to day as 
consumers deny it. One factory [ represent sells direct to more than 
one thousand consumers. One of the Providence manufacturers told 



280 OLEOMARGARINE. 

your committee that tliree-fourtbs of his product went direct to the 
consumer. 

The coDSiimer is defraiirted of his money aud the dairy farmer of his rightful mar- 
ket, the first being compelled to pay a butter price for that -which is not bntter. 

The testimony is to the effect that the farmer still has his market for 
butter; it is everywhere increasing in j)rice, and milk has gone up in 
price. That all appears in the record. And as to the consumer being 
defrauded, we have some testimony on that subject, but the reverse of 
the claim; and I want to add my individual testimony very shortly. 
He goes on — 

The oleomargarine combine consists of less than 20 manufacturers, who have 
entered into a conspiracy to break down these State laws. 

I will say that there are not any more bitter competitors in any busi- 
ness in the world than the oleomargarine manufacturers of this coun- 
try. I represent part of them, and I know how they are fighting 
among themselves, and how they are doing business at a bare living 
profit. 

He says, " Who have entered into a conspiracy to break down these 
State laws, and, by bribing merchants" — they have not shown it — "by 
deception of all kinds" — they have not shown it — "by subsidizing city- 
newspapers " — they have not proven it — " by employing leading politi- 
cians" — we do not know of one. We have not shipped any masters of 
State granges here. We have not sent any telegrams, to my knowl- 
edge, except one that came to Senator Foraker asking that he delay 
the hearing until I could get here — "to so neutralize the effect and 
administration of those laws that they may force their counterfeit upon 
the public." We have shown that we are not forcing a counterfeit 
upon the public. 

These manufacturers are assuming to override all law. They stand behind all 
infractions of State and national laws, and furnish money for the defense of their 
agents when arrested. 

That has not been shown. 

The Acting Chairman. Is it so? 

Mr. ScHELL. It is not so. I can answer for three factories. It is 
not the fact. 

Mr. Knight. May I ask a question right here? 

Mr. ScHELL. No; because my time is limited. You can answer this 
argument. That right has been reserved. 

Mr. Knight. I wanted to ask what your business was. 

Mr. ScHELL. I know ; but you break up the continuity of my state- 
ment. He continues: 

" On one side stands one of the greatest of our agricultural interests, 
together with the millions of consumers" — millions again; numbers, 
not arguments — " who are tired of being swindled." They have not so 
testified. I have not heard the testimony of one. 1 do not think it 
appears in the record. 

"On the otlier side stands the oleomargarine trust"— there is do 
trust. If there is, we are not in it — " engaged in manufacturing a coun- 
terfeit," — we are manufacturing butter by a different process — "depend- 
ing on lawbreaking, falsehood, and deception for its success, backed 
up with millions of capital." 

They have not shown where the millions of capital come in. On the 
contrary, later on they speak of the combined rating of the two firms 



OLEOMARGARINE, 281 

who put out fullv one-third of the product, beiug, according to Dun, only 
$400,000. Then they go on : 

The dairy sentiment of the county would be willing that the uncolored compound 
should be relieved of all taxation. The tax as provided in the bill, however, is 
trifling aud nominal. This is done in the spirit of fairness. 

It is done as the grossest kind of unfairness. He then goes on : 

To give added force to the first section of this bill, it is also provided in the second 
section that a tax of 10 cents a pound shall be imposed on all oleomargarine in the 
color or semblance of butter. In plain words, this is repressive taxation. 

That is the nearest we have been able to get them on record. 1 want 
it remembered, and want to comment on it later on ; but I must pass 
the larger part of this. He goes on to say: 

It has been found, through the inefiBcient administration of State laws and the 
powerful influence of this oleomargarine combination, that this protection is insuf- 
ficient. 

The only testimony we have here is from the States of New York, 
Pennsylvania, and Ohio. The New York laws are in force. The Ohio 
laws regarding fraudulent sales are enforced. The Pennsylvania laws 
were allowed to run riot, but now they have them in hand. As soon 
as they took charge they enacted a law, a necessarily unpopular law, 
and put in a commissioner, and expected him to enforce that law over 
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for .*12,o00 a year! Mr. Sharpless 
does not think that Mr. Hamilton tries. I do not know Mr. Hamilton, 
but I have no doubt he does the best he can with the amount of money 
at his disposal. But when they get together and contribute, aud pay 
an attorney, and go after the frauds, the laws are capable of enforce- 
ment. According to the testimony, they have reduced the licenses 
from some 500 down to 32, I think, in the city of Philadelphia. This 
shows that they are capable of enforcement. 

The hoped-for eflect of the legislation asked of Congress is not to destroy the 
oleomargarine industry, but to force it over onto its own ground; to compel it to 
be made in its own guise and color. Is there anything unjust or unreasonable about 
this? 

There is nothing unreasonable about a law to force it onto its own 
ground. The factories to a unit will help to enforce any such law. I 
want to speak of the attitude of the factories on that point later on. 
But to try and get one of the main advocates of this bill where the 
committee will know where he stands, and so we may know where he 
stands and what he wants — whether to tax us out of existence or 
merely to confine us within our proper limits — is a thing that I have 
not been able to do. He goes on : 

We are met by certain alistraetionists with the question, "Would you tax one 
legitimate industry out of existence for the benefit of another?'' To this I would 
answer "No." The oleomargarine business is not conducted legitimately. It is 
based, from manufacture to sale, on wrong and illegitimate methods. 

They have not proven it. They concede that the manufacturer com- 
plies with the law now. It is only the retailer; and the manufacturer 
will help to compel the retailer to sell his product for what it is. 

Mr. Hoard refers to the unhealthful part. That is a matter too plain 
for discussion. He then says (p. 4) : 

The whole proposition is in a nut shell. Force out the color or semblance to but- 
ter and you put a stop to its being imposed on the consumer for butter. 

He evidently means to force out the manufacture of colored oleo, no 
matter how badly the jteople want it. 



282 ' OLEOMAKGARINE. 

Right there I woukl suggest that if no other privilege is granted us, 
we would like to have the ability to make colored goods to the order 
of the consumer. He does not grant that. 

Now, we quote from his statements before the Senate committee. 
He says: 

I will only add that the bill is fof the purpose of preventing the counterfeiting of 
food, 80 far as the constitutional power of the Federal Government can go. 

Now, the main point. He says to you, gentlemen : 

The Federal Government is limited in its constitutional power. It has no right 
to enact prohibition. 

If this is prohibition, and is so shown to the committee. Governor 
Hoard says you have no right to enact it. "It has no police power." 
If it is police power, you have no right to enact this law. 

Those things you are as well aware of as I am, but it has taken ground upon cer- 
tain lines, like the taxation of State banks in the interest of a sound currency, etc. 

And he brings in his " great army" again. He alleges that the color- 
ing of butter is not a vehicle of deception. And Senator Allen, at 
page 12, asks him the question : 

Why does the prudent farmer ordinarily in June endeavor to put down enough 
butter to carry him through the winter for his own usef 

Mr. Hoard. Senator, that is not done at the present time to any appreciable 
extent. 

Senator Allen. It has been done ever since I was a boy. 

Mr. Hoard. It may have been done when you were a boy and when I was a boy. 
As to that you are right, but at the present time the whole system of butter making 
is changed. 

That is what we claim. 

Not one man puts down butter in .Tune for the next winter where 10,000 did it 
forty years ago. This wonderful change has come through the organization of 
creameries, where now a very large proportion of the best butter is made. 

We also claim it comes through the organization of creameries, as 
we aimed to show, and not through any competitive work of the oleo- 
margarine interests. 

The next witness is Mr. Charles Y. Knight, who was the main wit- 
ness before the House. And I want to disclaim in the start any per- 
sonal attack on Mr. Knight. I am only attacking his argument. An 
argument can not be proven bad by proving the man who made it is 
bad, and the man is not necessarily bad because it is a bad argument. 
But we must look at motives and the inducements to get on the wrong 
side. I tliink Mr. Knight is honest, but mistaken. 

Mr. Knight. Thank you. 

Mr. ScHELL. He began, according to the record before the House, 
fourteen years ago; according to his statement this morning, twenty 
years ago. It seems he can not quit. He can not realize the changed 
conditions. We might say it is due to his phrenological construction. 
We admire a man who sticks to a proposition. He starts after a thing 
and can not stop until he gets it, even if it is no longer desirable. And 
this is not desirable now, as we will show later on. But then, he repre- 
sents the farmers; and he is better off, a better manager, than Governor 
Hoard, because from 24,(300 farmers he has been able to collect 50 cents 
apiece, and from some of the balance of his 30,000, as he states in his 
testimony (p. 62, House Com.), some of whom might have contributed 
as high as $1,000. He was probably paid in advance, and he must 
earn his money. The only trouble is that he is working them — no, 
working for them — too much for that amount. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 283 

Now, to take his statement, he begins : 

My business is that of editor of the Chicago Dairy Produce, a publication devoted 
to the dairy and butter business. I have for the past three years been secretary of 
the National Dairy Union, an organization of farmers who keep cows, and others 
engaged in pursuits allied therewith. This organization at present comprises about 
30,000 members who are farmers, and they are scattered all over the United States. 

Now, I do not know whether he is representing the same farmers 
Governor Hoard represents or not; they are oflBcers of the same organ- 
ization; but if he is, they have dimiaished on the same scale as did the 
subject matter of the story of the boy who came in at night frightened 
and told his father that there were 100 cats fighting under the barn. 
That number was questioned, reduced to "50, anyway;" then to 25; 
then to 10; and it kept on until they got down to "our old tomcat and 
another one." And these five millions of people who are represented 
by Governor Hoard, according to his statement, appear to have dwin- 
dled at about the same ratio. 

Mr. Knight. That was almost a year ago, Mr. Schell. 

Mr. Schell. March 7, 1900, is the only date we have here. And 
when you call for another contribution you will find the rest have faded 
away. 

Then on the next page he states : 

I have had chai"ge of the work of organization and the collection of facts regard- 
ing the oleomargarine traffic of this country, and it is the enormous illegal and 
fraudulent growth of the business during the past few years, in face of the best 
restrictive laws the States have been able to devise, that has brought us to Congress 
as a last resort to ask for relief. 

It was two years in that case; immediately after, fourteen. He 
says: 

For the information of the committee, all of the members of which may not be 
familiar with the history of national legislation along this line, I will state that 
fourteen years ago, finding the powers of the State helpless to cope against the 
peculiar character of this fraud, the dairymen of this country arose en masse and 
came to Congress for relief, feeling that nothing but Congressional action would 
save their business from absolute ruin. 

And yet, in spite of all, and in spite of fate, the dairy interests have 
been increasing in value all over the country, and the extent of it 
appears somewhere in the record. I will not attempt to quote it, as I 
want to be absolutely accurate. 

Mr. Knight. Tbey got what they called for then? 

Mr. Schell. No; they called for a 10-cent per pound tax then, and 
they did not get it. 

Mr. Knight. We got part of it. 

Mr. Schell. Now, to quote Mr. Knight again, I want particular 
attention paid to this (p. 0, House Com.): 

The matter of legislating against a counterfeit article, however, was found to be 
a complex proposition for Congress, because of the constitutional restrictions which 
prevent the Congress of the United States exercising police powers exrept for the 
protection of its revenue receipts, interstate commerce, and other matters abso- 
lutely within the limits of the Constitution; and after months of tedious investiga- 
tion and eft'ort what is known as the Hatch bill was finally originated by the 
Committee on Agriculture and brought into the House. 

They concede the limitation of the police regulations. 

To pass on rapidly : At page 10 he quotes the Shollenberger case as 
sustaining the Plumley case. 

In the Senate hearing, at page 4, he advises General Grout that the 
cases conflict. 

Mr. Knight. Do you mean that I advised General Grout that the 
Shollenberger and Plumley cases conflicted? 



284 OLEOMAEGAEINE. 

Mr. ScHELL. Someone will kindly look at page 4 of the hearing 
here before the committee. 
Now, he says further (p. 10) : 

All that we ask is that the people be protected in the right to choose between 
the two articles. 

We agree to that, to a man. We want the same thing. We want 
to have the right to choose between the two articles. But does he 
mean it? The evidence is conflicting on that point. 

He goes on to say : 

We have not appealed to Congress for aid along the line of discouraging the sale 
of oleomargarine made in semblance of butter, until the matter of accomplishing 
the same result through State legislation has been thoroughly tested and proven a 
failure. 

The evidence is not to the efi'ect that it has proven a failure where it 
has been tested. 

Mr. Knight. Mr. Schell, will you permit me to make an interruption? 

Mr. Schell. In just a moment. 

Mr. Knight. I wish to make a correction in the record. I want to 
call your attention to the fact that the stenographer made a mistake in 
attributing this remark to me. It is evidently something which Mr. 
Flanders said. I did not make the statement. It was the stenographer's 
error, and that should be corrected in the record. 

Mr. Schell. We are willing that that should be done. We do not 
want to misquote anybody. 

The Acting Chairman. While you are right there, this thought 
occurs to me : Of course, I think, nobody wants to destroy this industry. 

Mr. Schell. I think Congress does not. 

The Acting Chairman. If it can be preserved in some way which 
will do justice to other industries. Is there not some point where you 
could select an oleomargarine color which would be agreeable to the 
taste and attractive to the eye, and which would not collide with this 
ancient butter color? 

Mr. SCHELi-. Why, if you please; we will select and will adhere to 
the same color which we have used since our beginning. 

The Acting Chairman. I know, but that happens to correspond 
with the color of butter. It is identical with it. 

Mr. Schell. It happened to correspond, according to the evidence 
and the facts, with the color ot butter adopted by the creameries, which 
came into existence after we began to color oleomargarine, and has 
since been adopted by the dairies and the farmers. We are the first 
in the field with a uniform color; and if they will stick to their natural 
color, there will be no danger of any conflict. 

The Acting Chairman. But in that case this question of family 
pride, which was referred to in connection with these families in Penn- 
sylvania, would still arise. 

Mr. Schell. It is custom; it is pride. Pride never gets too hot or 
too cold; and pride affects the appetite and everything else. 

The Acting Chairman. Butif butter makers should uniformly adopt 
the artificial color of white, these gentlemen who spoke a whileago would 
still be left in the shabby situation of buying an article which was in 
some disrepute in the neighborhood if they took oleomargarine. 

Mr. Schell. I think that is a little far reaching; but if they should 
complain, in that event they would be complaining without just cause. 
And unless a complaint is made with c luse, it ought not to receive 
much consideration. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 285 

Now, Mr. Knight says (p. 11) : 

We have not appealed to Congress for aid along the line of discouraging the sale 
of oleomargarine made in semblance of butter until the matter of accomplishing the 
same result through State legislation has been thoroughly tested and proven a fail- 
ure. And this fact we believe to be our strongest argument in favor of Congressional 
action. 

If that is the strongest argumeut they have, it is entitled to a little 
attention. They began fourteen years ago. According to the synopsis 
of the State laws, the majority, almost all, of the color laws have been 
in existence only since 1896. Some of them date back to as early as 
1888 and 1889, but the majority of them were passed about live years 
ago. I would like to comment further on this point, but the mere men- 
tion of the facts is sufficient. 

Mr. Knight further states: "As far back as 1886, when this matter 
first came before Congress, the States had learned of the impossibility 
ot controlling this traflic through State laws." Fifteen years' experi- 
ence, and the testimony here, prove that the traffic can be controlled by 
State laws; and I will further testify on tbat subject myself, from my 
personal experience. 

Mr. Knight says (p. 18): 

For a few years these laws forbidding the coloring of oleomargarine in semblance 
of butter were effective. 

I do not know just what he refers to, but if they can be enforced part 
of the time, they can be enforced all the time. I do not suppose, how- 
ever, that he meant the present laws, because they could not be referred 
to in those terms. They are too recent. 

The Acting Chairman. Let me ask you about these State laws. 
Is there a State law in Ohio against coloring oleomargarine to corre- 
spond with the color of butter ? 

Mr. SCHELL. Yes, Mr. Chairman; and if you will permit me, I want 
to take up that matter presently in detail. I am trying to pass these 
matters as rapidly as possible. I have a copy of the laws here, and I 
want to submit them. They are model laws, except that they are par- 
tial to the farmer, and except the color part. Of course we object to 
the color clause. 

The Acting Chairman. Is the sale of colored oleomargarine pro- 
hibited in the State of Ohio? 

Mr. ScHELL. It is prohibited in the State of Ohio, absolutely. Both 
manufacture and sale. 

The Acting Chairman. What effect on the traffic in the local 
market has that had, as far as your Cincinnati factories are concerned? 

Mr. ScHELL. The effect has been 

The Acting Chairman. I want to ascertain how far this abolition 
of the yellow-oleomargarine color would tend to wipe out the industry. 

Mr. SCHELL. I do not know that I can give you the statistics on that 
point; but I will tell you presently just the effect it has had in Cincin- 
nati, the fights that have been made, and the effects or results. 

Mr. Knight then goes on (p. 19) : 

The ordinary State's attorney can not cope with these experienced practitioners 
upon this subject, as a rule; and never is money spared to make the prosecution as 
expensive to the State and as disagreeable to those connected therewith as possible. 
* * * Upon the other hand, every time an arrest is made, the fight is taken up by 
the entire oleomargarine industry, with its millions of money and enormous influ- 
ence among a certain class of politicians, who at times manage to reach the sacred 
ear of the judge who presides in the case. 



286 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Ko practitioner wLo liad any conscience, any self-respect, any pride 
in his profession, would attempt to reach the sacred ear of the judge, 
as is intimated in this statement. And I want to say for our Cin- 
cinnati judges and juries and justices, so far as I know, that while I 
have had cases decided against me, I have always felt that whether I 
won or otherwise, the case was decided by the judge according to his 
very best efforts, and that he was entirely honest in every particular. 
And that has been my experience in the various State and Federal 
courts in which I have practiced law. As to our using every honest 
effort, we have a right to do it. We would not be true to our clients, 
we would not be true to our profession, if we did not do our best within 
legitimate bounds. 

Mr. Knight goes on: 

The prosecution of sucli offenders requires the very highest grade of taleut; aud 
their conviction, experience and a statute which will stand the onslaught of the 
most resourceful lawyers. A law may have answered for years in regulating other 
evils, but, when contested by such ability as is employed by the oleomargarine mil- 
lions, might be picked to pieces and rendered absolutely worthless through the 
manipulations and researches of the experienced tricksters. 

The experience of every member of the committee and every other 
intelligent man has gone to show that a trickster never gets very high 
in his profession ; and a trickster is not a man who is competent to work 
havoc with all these statutes, which are so carefully prepared. 

No technicality is too small for them to take advantage of and make the prosecu- 
tion the expense of a test case in the Supreme Court. 

That is all right. We are entitled to that. 

I will omit quite a good deal which 1 had intended to quote. But he 
says further on (p. 45) : 

In this matter the people of the States have expressed themselves by a four-fifths 
majority as being opposed to the existence or commerce in the article we seek, if 
you please, to discourage by taxation. The legislatures of thirty-two leading States 
have declared traffic in oleomargarine colored to resemble butter to be a menace to 
the individual rights and welfare of their people. 

Any horse can win a race when there is only one entry; and, so far 
as I know, there has been no effort on the part of anyone to prevent 
the passage of these State laws. 

The Acting Chairman. Now, why has the trade in oleomargarine 
quietly acquiesced in criminal and other statutes in thirty-two States, 
the effect of which would be to totally wipe out their business, if in 
point of fact such statutes would have that effect? 

Mr. SCHELL. Mr, Chairman, I was coming to that matter later, but I 
will answer you now. Contrary to the evident belief of these gentlemen, 
every man is presumed to be innocent until he is proven guilty; and in 
deciding that question he is entitled to have the judgment of twelve of 
his fellow-men. And the sentiment against this class of legislation, 
"their millions of people" to the contrary notwithstanding, is so strong 
that a jury will not convict unless a very clear case is made. 

The Acting Chairman. Now, do you mean to vsay, Mr. Schell, that 
the oleomargarine trade has relied on its ability, by litigation, to defeat 
these State statutes, and for that reason has regarded the legislation 
of the States as unimportant? 

Mr. Schell. No; 1 do not mean to say that; and in speaking as I 
do in this case, 1 do not want to appear as outlining the policy of any 
factory, either my own clients or others. But my experience has been 
that good people make good laws. Good laws, however, do not make 
good people; and when bad people pass bad laws, the fair-minded 



OLEOMARGARINE. 287 

American juror rises up in his might and says, "Gentlemen, that law 
will not be enforced." And the testimony of the Ohio commissioner here 
the other day (you did not hear it, Mr. Chairman) was to the effect that 
he had practically no trouble in enforcing" the law which provides that 
oleomargarine must be sold lor what it is, and not for butter, but that 
he did have trouble in convicting on his color laws. 

Xow, another reason is that if the oleomargarine people were to 
attempt to combine to fight these laws which are brought up from time 
to time in different States, they would have to increase the profits of 
their business to such an extent that the price of oleomargarine would 
be raised to the extent that it would no longer be a boon to the labor- 
ing man. They also would be compelled to array class against class to 
an extent that would disturb the harmony of the nation. 

The Acting Chairman. Have these State laws, as a rule, been 
declared constitutional by the supreme courts of the States which have 
enacted them ? 

Mr. ScHELL. The decisions are conflicting. I have not the statistics 
before me, but I know in a general way 

Mr. Adams. Will the gentleman permit me to ask him a question? 

The Acting Chairman. I would like to have this question answered 
first, if you please. 

Mr. ScHELL. My recollection is, in a general way, that some of them 
have been declared constitutional, and some unconstitutional. Take 
the State of Michigan, for instance. There the law has been declared 
invalid. The Supreme Court of the United States held in the Collins 
case in Vermont that the pink law was unconstitutional; but I want to 
make just a brief reference to that later on. 

Here is another question which Mr. Knight asked in the House 
hearing, referring to our general scoundrelism, etc. He does not put 
it in just those words; but he says (p. 46) : 

Can a niembei" of Congress atFord to be influenced by a citizen who has no respect 
for the laws of his State? 

Gentlemen, we do not ask you to be influenced by a citizen. This is 
not a question of numbers; it is not a question of the moral standing 
of our citizens, or what we want. It is a question of what is right. If 
I can produce an argument that is good, no matter how bad I am, that 
argument ought to have its efltect. 

But, to pass on rapidly : 

Both Mr. Knight and Governor Hoard have placed themselves on 
record as serving in their respective offices without compensation. 
They do not say what they are getting for appearing here; but it is 
presumed they are merely acting in their usual capacity. Mr. Knight 
speaks of having collected 50 cents apiece from 24,600 farmers 

Mr. Knight. Is not that a pretty good indication of the interest the 
farmer takes in this matter? 

Mr. SCHELL. Yes; but it does not establish Governor Hoard's state- 
ment that he represents 5,000,000 farmers, and it is not an illustration 
of the interest of the farmer, either. 

The Acting Chairman. I do not regard it as material to go into 
that matter, Mr. Schell. 

Mr. Schell. I think not. Yet it is their main reliance. The rest of 
them do not say anything. We will concede that 24,600 of them are 
actually represented by Mr. Knight. That is all right. 

Senator Dolliver, We can save you the trouble of going into that 
question. The various members of the Senate have facilities for know- 
ing the feelings of the farmers, outside of Mr. Knight. 



288 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. SCHELL. Have they exercised them, though'? That is a ques- 
tion I want to know about. 

Senator Heitfeld. Oh, yes. 1 think I can illustrate that by show- 
ing you some of the petitions we have received. 

Mr. SCHELL. Petitions! Gentlemen, I could have brought you 
here 

Senator Heitfeld. Oh, well; we understand all about that. 

Mr. Schell. Since I was here before, I could have had thousands 
of letters and telegrams. I could have had Senator Foraker's time, 
when he was in Cincinnati, completely taken; I could have had the 
hallway leading to his office, and his oflice, crowded with people pro- 
testing against the enactment of this bill, I could have blocked the 
elevator and had a waiting line three blocks long on the pavement. 

Senator Dolliver. The point I am making is that if it is important 
to know the condition of public opinion as to this measure, the com- 
mittee will neither rely upon your statement nor those of Mr. Knight. 

Mr. Schell. Or statements that emanate from either one of us, 
through whatever source they may come? 

Senator Dolliver. The committee will have a thousand ways of 
finding out what the public wants. 

Mr. Schell. But, gentlemen, that does not enter into this contro- 
versy, or ought not to do so. 

The Acting Chairman. I think not. 

Mr. Schell. We now take up something that is material; and that 
is, how well these laws have been enforced and how largely they have 
been violated. Mr. Knight accounts before the House committee 
(p. 61) for $1,(370.13 of this fund which was contributed, which was 
used for the purpose of prosecuting the Chicago dealers. He also 
says at page 40, regarding why he ceased eftbrts, that the funds were 
exhausted. Do 1 quote correctly? 

Mr. Knight, I do not think so. That is an entirely separate thing, 
Mr. Schell — a separate organization. 

Mr. Schell. The record speaks for itself, pages 40 and 61. 

I read from page 40 : 

These cases were dismissed by the justice of tlie peace iipou grounds that a subse- 
quent statute had repealed the law under which the warrants were drawn, but not 
until after $1,600 had beeu spent by the parties interested in an etfort to stop this 
gigantic fraud in the city of Chicajio. The decision admitted of no appeal. The 
Dairy Union's funds were exhausted. 

Now, I want to call attention to the fact that in all of these cases, in 
every instance, except in the case of one Broadwell, the stamp was 
always found on the wrapper. And as Mr. Bailey said : 

There could be no question about a man's finding the mark on any package you 
have shown to me this morning; and with the publicity you have given it, I should 
think that they would not find it profitable :ind people would not buy it. 

Then Mr. Knight goes on to say that the farmers are losing confi- 
dence and losing heart. Mr. Bailey says (p. 64) : "Is not that contrary 
to the evidence that Governor Hoard gave here the other day to the 
eifect that this industry has increased more than any other in the coun- 
try to day?" 

Then the chairman asked the question : " Do you think Congress has 
a right to legislate so as to make one article higher and another lower, 
or to drive it out of the market? '' 

Mr. Knight. I do not think Congress has any business to look into that phase of 
the matter at all. I think Congress should look out for protecting the consumer 
and the health of the consumer. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 289 

We agree about that. 

(At this poiut an informal recess was taken for a few moments in 
order to allow members of the committee to return to the Senate Cham- 
ber, After the recess had expired the following" occurred:) 

Mr. Adams. Mr. Chairman, the statement was made Saturday, I 
think by the chairman of the committee or by the acting chairman, that 
these hearings would probably be concluded to-morrow or Wednesday. 
However explicit or binding that was 1 do not know. 

The Acting Chairman. If that is true the present speaker ought to 
be admonished as to the consumption of time. 

Mr. ScHELL. The speaker, Mr. Chairman, has been admonishing 
himself, and has cut out quite a good deal of what he intended to say, 
because he feared to trespass too much on the patience of the committee. 

Mr. Adams. Mr. Chairman, if I may be permitted at this time, and if 
the gentleman will suspend tor a moment — and it is only with your 
consent that I will continue 

Mr. ScHELL. 1 would rather, since my time is limited- 



Mr. Adams. What I am about to say does not relate to any questions 
you are discussing, Mr. Schell, but simply to the order of the discus- 
sion and the extent of it. 

Some of us are here representing the other side. We have had only 
about 20 per cent of the time, perhaps, but we are not complaining. 
We feel, however, that we can properly be heard by this committee, and 
we would like to have a time designated, either tomorrow or Wednes- 
day, when we can be heard. 

The rei)resentatives of the oleomargarine interests have oeen heard 
here during the entire day — a day which it was arranged last week 
should be taken up by the representatives of the cotton-seed oil people. 
Those representatives, as 1 understand, are here. They will undoubt- 
edly want to be heard to-morrow. Now, as representing the friends of 
the Grout bill, 1 would like to request of the committee that either 
to-morrow or the day following be assigned for a hearing on our side of 
the question. That is all I wish to say, simply to make everything 
explicit and regular. 

The Acting Chairman. The present chairman would not feel at 
liberty to make any designation of that sort, but I think I can assure 
the gentlemen that that will be done at the first of the session to-morrow 
morning. That is to say, some orderly arrangement will be designated 
by which these hearings can be wound up. 

Mr. Adams. That is all I ask. 

Mr. ScHELL. Mr. Chairman, T desire to call attention to a statement 
of Congressman Grout before this committee. I mention this only to 
get as nearly as i^ossible on the record to what features of their claims 
I am referring, and how nearly they are a unit on what they claim, 
and to enable us to get an understanding of the case, so that we may 
know what they expect to realize from this bill, and their views of its 
constitutionality. 

General Grout says, on page 0: 

The power to tax, aud tax out of existence, is unquestioned, as I believe, 
gentlemen. 

Senator Allen says : 

Suppose it is apparent on the lace of this bill tbat the motive for imposing the 
tax is to destroy the tiling taxed? 

Mr. Grout says: 

We deny this. We say that is not the motive. 

S. Rep. 2043 19 



290 OLEOMARUARINE. 

Then, if they do not waut it, aud there is no reason for it ontside of 
their wishes, the committee certainly will not do something which will 
tax it out of existence. 

General Grout says further: 

All that it seeks to destroy is the fiaiul that is perpetrated when it is colored like 
butter. 

At page 9 he says : 

But if you will put this 10-cent tax on it, and stop coloring it like butter, the 
game will then be up. 

On page 11 (sustaining my statement as to the friends of the bill 
having closed their case) he says: 

The friends of the bill submit their case, and give the Held to those who are 
opposed to the measure. 

I wanted to mention, at some length, Mr. Hamilton's argument; but 
1 will only refer to the fact that in Pennsylvania now, according to his 
testimony, as I interpreted it, and according to the statement for the 
commission men who were here, the 8tate law is practically enforced — 
at least, in Philadelphia. 

The Acting Chairman. Is that a law which forbids tlie sale of 
colored oleomargarine? 

Mr. JSCHELL. It forbids the sale of colored oleomargarine. They 
have reduced the licenses in Philadelphia Irom over ~A){) to some 'Ml. I 
will say from my knowledge, which is hearsay, but accurate, that in 
western Pennsylvania they have not been as successful in enforcing 
the color law as they have been in the eastern part of the State, 
because there is such a sentiment against it that the people rise up tn 
masse and say, " We won't have it." 

I now want to refer to the statements of the Ohio commissioner, who 
believed in the national law. He says he can enforce the oleo-for-butter 
clau(>e in the Ohio law, but can not entbrce the color law. He says 
that 1~) ])er cent of the oleomargarine sold in his State was sold for 
butter. He is wrong there, I think. He is basing his statement on 
the percentage of oleo-for butter cases that he wins rather than upon 
actual knowledge. I think he stated that he had no actual knowledge 
of the case. 

Mr. Flanders, of New York, was so violent and so evidently preju- 
diced, that while there were a great many things 1 wanted to say about 
his argument, I think it will probably speak for itself on our side. He 
claimed general rottenness, scoundrelism, and so forth, and then owned 
up voluntarily that abuse was no argument. 

Mr. Flanders claimed that the Government did not enforce these 
laws, and the States could not. Yet he has shown that the laws of his 
own State (and it is a fact) are very rigidly and successfully enforced, 
and that his department had time and money to make a "gum-shoe" 
expedition to Chicago. 

The Pennsylvania crowd which appeared yesterday was rather amus- 
ing. They were here for the same purpose that farmers are sent to camp 
in the yards of State legislatures when their dairy laws are to be con- 
sderecl; and for the same cause that members receive telegrams and 
letters; but they were all evidently actually interested, since they 
handled process butter, with one exception. That exception was Mr. 
Sharpless, who wants 50 cents per pound for his butter. 

Mr. Knight. Mr. Sharpless was not a dealer. 

Mr. SCHELL. No; I say, except him. One objected to the filth of 
country butter. They were all kept pretty well in hand until about 



OLEOMARGARUSTE, 291 

the time of the coniinittee adjoiininieiit, when some were thinking for 
themselves. Despite the efforts of their overseer (who was liimself 
coached by General Grout), and although they did not get on record, 
about half of them expressed themselves in favor of a law that would 
hedge about colored oleo, keep it on its own merits, but not drive it out 
of the market. I think tliat is the expression of the majority of the 
people who are interested in the dairy product. 

Mr. Kauffman 1 wanted to treat at length: but his argument is 
reduced to the statement that the color laws are enforced in l*hiladel- 
phia; that they always have been whenever they have made the effort; 
and I think in his argument soniewhere will be found the fact that only 
$11^,500 a year is appropriated for the purpose of enforcing the law of 
tlie State, and that thai is not enough. The farmers who expect these 
laws to be su[)ported and enforced should furnisii the i)eoi)le who are 
charged with that duty with enough money to ])roperly enforce the 
law. 

jSTow, our side, Mr. Chairman, does not attempt to convince by an 
array — although on analysis we would outnumber in actual represen- 
tation — that is, authorized representation before the committee; and if 
the sentiments of the other side, the friends of the bill, were actually 
made known, we would infinitely outnumber as to the sentiment. But 
that does not control. 

From the tirst hearing until now 1 could have had our Ohio Senators 
and the members of the committee deluged with thousands of letters 
and telegrams, the same as you have had from the otiier side, by using 
my ottice force, the Cincinnati wholesalers, 300 retailers to whom we 
sell in Cincinnati; by the same process in Cleveland; and an equal 
number from Columbus and Toledo combined, to say nothing of the 
Kansas City house with its numerous ramifications — the retail dealers, 
their em])loyees. '-their sisters and cousins and aunts." But we have 
not resorted to such measures; and we condemn, just as i)ositively as 
did Senator Allen the other day, that method, and hope that none of 
that has been found in presenting our side. 

i^ow, ^[r. Chairman, to come to the consideration of the bill — the 
fruit by which you can recognize the tree. 

We have examined the tree. It has been said, "A good tree brings 
forth good fruit, and an evil tree evil fruit," This bill, we insist. Is dis- 
honest in every particular. It is the illegitimate child of avarice and 
ignorance— the avarice of the people who pander to the prejudices of 
the poorer class of farmers, and the ignorance of some of the people 
they represent. The purpose of the bill, on its face, is revenue. It 
comes before you painted, colored. Its avowed purpose is the regula- 
tion of fraud. Its actual purpose, as creeps out, evidenced by the other 
side and apparent to all, is to destroy an industry — to destroy the 
product of colored oleomargarine. 

As to the avowed purpose, the regulation of fraud, is it necessary? 
We claim not. Are the present laws sufficient, if enforced? ^Ve claim 
they are. And if it is for this i)urpose, why not accept the substitute 
bill, to which I will refer presently. 

Have they really proven that there is any considerable amount of 
fraud! The most direct testimony on that point, and, in fact, the only 
testimony, is that of the Philadelphia attorney. That was direct and 
to the point, and should be considered. One of the gentlemen, perhaps 
two of the gentlemen here to-day, in answer to the questions of the 
chairman, testified that butter was called for and oleomargarine was 
given; but they said that the dealer knew that when the child, or the 



292 oleomargartisp:. 

servant, or the housewife called for batter she meant oleomargarine, 
and the deaU^r, by long experience, knew what she wanted, what she 
used. 

I know that to be the fact, I know it is tlie case. I have watched 
when dealers were selling it, and I have seen customers come in and 
say, "Give me a pound of butter," or "two pounds of butter." The 
dealer would wrap up oleomargarine. I have said: " VVliy did you do 
that? Those are against your instructions." "Why, I know what she 
wants. She comes in here and buys it every day. She understands 
it." And 1 have tollowed the purchaser out and said: "Do you know 
you are getting oleomargarine?" "Yes; what business is it of yours," 
or words to that effect. 1 know it to be the case, and I will tell you why 
and how. 

Some years ago 1 was employed by the Union Dairy Company to 
defend their retail customers in southern Ohio who were i)rosecuted 
under the Ohio color laws. These retailers would appeal to me for 
my services in cases where they were charged with selling oleomarga- 
rine for butter. Mr. Frank vSeitlier, the president and manager of the 
company, said to me, " Under no circumstances defend for us a man 
who is selling oleomargarine for butter. 1 don't want it; I won't have 
it. I will contribute to a fund to prosecute them if they do it. I am 
making a product that I want to go on the market for what it is." And 
that has been my experience with all the factories. 

However, I have been employed by retailers to defend oleo for butter 
cases, among them one of the big Cincinnati firms who have some twenty- 
five or thirty stores over the city. TJiey handle all kinds of groceries. 
They advertise oleomargarine. They have been accused of violating 
the laws. The same question was brought to my attention, "What 
will we do? Somebody comes in and wants oleomargarine, but he does 
not want to parade the fact on account of the sentiment which has been 
created against it. He does not want to parade the fact before the public, 
before people who are standing by. 1 know that is my customer. I know 
that is what he or she wants. VVhat am I to do ?" I made it a rule that 
in every case the clerk was to ask something to the effect, "Do you want 
oleo?" "It is oleo you want?" "Itisbutterineyou want?" 1 instructed 
them to say it so that there could be no question about it. And my 
experience was that ordinarily the reply was "Yes." And my experi- 
ence was also to the effect that when the question was asked and no 
reply given by a customer, who proved to be a detective, that the jury 
found my client guilty — so strong is the feeling that oleo should be sold 
for what it is. It is even harder to defend under oleo for butter laws 
than it is to prosecute under the color laws. 

(Thereupon, at 5 o'clock p. m., the committee adjourned until Tuesday 
January 8, 1901, at 10.30 o'clock a. m.) 



Washington, D. C, Tuesday^ January 8, 1001. 

The committee met at 10.30 a. m. 

Present: Senators Proctor, Hansbrough (acting chairman), Heitfeld, 
Foster, and Money; also Charles Y. Knight, secretary of the National 
Dairy L'nion; Frank W. Tillinghast, representing the Vermont Manu- 
facturing Company, of Providence, R. I.; Charles E. Schell, represent- 
ing the Ohio Butterine Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio; W. E. Miller, 
representing the Armour Packing Company of Kansas City, Mo. : John 
F. Jelke, representing Messrs. Braun & Fitts, Chicago, 111. ; Henry B. 
Davis, representing the National Butterine Company, Washington, 
D. C, and others. 



<)LP:OMARGARrNE. 293 



CONTINUATION OF STATEMENT OF CHARLES E. SCHELL. 

Mr. ScHELL, Mr. Chairman, it is my purpose to treat to day the 
avowed puri)ose of this bill — the regulatioD of fraud — and our claim 
that the bill is not necessary for that purT)ose, since a proper enforce- 
ment of the present State and national laws (and it has been shown 
that they are capable of enforcement, and are enforced) will be suffi- 
cient to rectify all the evils of which complaint is made, without any 
additional legislation. 

In support of the claim that if the avowed purpose of this bill is its 
real purpose it is not necessary, since the existing laws are sufficient, I 
want to introduce some of the present laws on the point directly in 
controversy. 

First, the revenue law. We will take a very small part of this; and 
let me state generally that the law relating to manufacturers is that if 
any manufacturer attempts to defraud the Government on any part of 
this revenue, the manufacturer forfeits his factory, the completed prod- 
uct therein contained, all raw materials, the machinery, and every- 
thing connected with it, and is subjected to a tine of from $500 to 
$.5,000, and (not "or," but " and ") an imprisonment from six months 
to three years. That question was raised here two or three days ago 
between Mr. Pirrung and Mr. Knight. Mr. Pirrung claimed a for- 
feiture; but he was advised he did not know the law. That is the law. 

There are other penalties for other offenses, and then there is a 
sweeping penalty of $1,000 for all offenses not specifically provided 
for. But I believe it is admitted that the factories practically do com- 
ply with the law. It is claimed, however, that the retailers do not, and 
that it is with the idea of hedging in and about the retailers that this 
bill is proposed. 

The first part of the law relating to retailers, to which I wish to call 
your attention, is as follows — and here I quote from the revenue laws: 

Retail dealers iu oleomargarine mnst sell only from original stamyied ])acka.oes, 
in (inantities not excoeding ten pounds, and shall pack the oleomargarine sold by 
them in suitable wooden or paper packages, which shall be marked and branded as 
the commissioner of internal revenue, with the ap]»ro\ al of the Secretary of the 
Treasury, shall prescribe. Every person who knowingly sells or offers for sale, or 
deliA'ers or offers to deliver, any oleomargarine in any other form than in new wooden 
or paper packages as above described, or who packs in any package any oleomarga- 
rine in any manner contrary to law, or who falsely brands any package or afdxes a 
stamp on any package denoting a less amount of tax than that required by law, 
shall be fined foreacdi oHense not more than one thousand dollars and be imprisoned 
not more than two years. 

They are subject to the regulations prescribed by the Secretary of 
the Treasury, and a part of those regulations are: 

As the retail dealer is required to sell from original stamped packages, and can 
not, as a retail dealer, sell in such packages, he is compelled to make up his own 
packages. * " ' New wooden or paper packages siuiilar to those usually 
employed iu selling butter and lard at retail may be used by the retail dealer in 
oleomargarine. 

Each retailer's wooden or paper package must have the name and address of the 
dealer printed or branded thereon, liki^wise the words "pound " and "oleomarga- 
rine, 'in letters not less than one-quarter of an inchscpiare. and the (|uantity written, 
printed, or branded thereon in figures of the same size (one-quarter of an inch 
square), substantially as follows: 

Then a form is prescribed. That is the form we use — " Blanks for 
name and address, ^ Pound Oleomargarine." 

The words "Oleomargarine" and "Pound," which are required to be ]irintcd or 
branded on retailers' wooden or pajier ]iackages, iu letters not less than one-quarter 



294 OLEOMARGARINE. 

of an inch square, and tlie quantity which is required to he written, printed, or 
branded thei'eon in tignres of like size, must be so placed as to be plainly visible to 
the purchaser at the time of delivery to him, etc. 

It provides that the color of the iuk in which the words are printed 
must be in the strongest contrast to the color of the package. 

Now, 1 have here, Mr. Chairniaii, the stamp which we used in com- 
X)liance with that law. Since coining here I wrote to one of our men to 
send me a sample copy of it. 

The ACTING Chairman. Mr. Schell, let me ask you how long you 
expect to occupy the attention of the committee f 

Mr. Schell. 1 think I can conclude in fifteen minutes more. 

The Acting Chairman. 1 would like to ask, then, if the represent- 
atives of the cotton-seed industry are here? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Schell. They are, I think. 

'I he Acting Chairman. How many of them are there, Mr. Miller ? 

Mr. Miller. Four. 

The Acting Chairman. Have they arranged so that one or two 
will present their views; or do they all want to be heard? 

Mr. MiLLEK. They all want to be heard. One party will present the 
main argument; but they all want to be heard. 

The Acting Chairman. You will recall that the committee arranged 
for these hearings to continue until this afternoon on the part of the 
oleomargarine people, and that the butter interests were to be allowed 
to-morrow to close. I do not feel like changing that arrangement. It 
was made by the chairman of the committee, and 1 think we should 
conform to it. So the representatives of the cotton-seed industry ought 
to be able to put in their testimony this afternoon and get through 
with it, and allow the butter people to go on to-morrow and close the 
hearings. 

Mr. Miller. Mr. Chairman, there is one member of the committee 
from Texas who was not able to get his statistics together yesterday. 
He intended to be here this morning, and ask for a hearing to-morrow 
morning. 

The Acting Chairman. I do not feel like changing the arrange- 
ment made by the chairman of the committee, and really do not feel 
at liberty to (lo so. This hearing has been open and very liberal. We 
have sat here a long, long time; and we ought to begin to see the end 
somewhere, it seems to me. I shall expect the representatives of the 
cotton seed industry to go on this nfternoon, and to allow the butter 
men to go on to-morrow, unless the chairman or the committee arrange 
otherwise. 

Mr. Schell. Now, Mr. Chairman, I want to call your attention 
briefly to the Ohio State pure-food law. I understand that the laws of 
other States do not differ materially from it; and if they do, and these 
laws are proven sufficient, and others are not, it will be a very easy 
matter, from the past experience of butter people with legislatures, to 
change the laws so that they are sufficient. 

We have a general food law to provide against the adulteration of 
foods and drugs. Section 3 of the act begins: "An article shall be 
deemed to be adulterated within the meaning of this act: {a) In the case 
of drugs: (l),"and so forth. The third provision of that section is: 
"If its strength, quality, or purity falls below the professed standard 
under which it is sold.'' That has, I think, been held constitutional 
and found sufficient in every case as to drugs. 



(►LEOMARGARINE 295 

Now, iu the case of food : 

(I) If any substance or substances have been mixed with it, so as to lower or 
depreciate, or injuriously affect its quality, streiiorth, or purity; (2) if any inferior 
or clitaper substance or substances have been substituted wholly or iu part for it; 
(3) if any valuable or necessary constituent or ingredient has been wholly or in part 
abstracted from it: (4) ii' it is an imitation of or is sold under the name of another 
article; (5) if it consists wholly, or in part, of a diseased, decomposed, putrid, 
infected, tainted, or rotten animal or vegetable substance or article, whether manu- 
factured .or not; or, iu the case of milk, if it is the produce of a diseased animal; 
(6) if it is colored, coated, polished, or powdered, whereby damage or inferiority is 
concealed, or if by any means it is made to appear better or of greater value than it 
really is; (7) if it contains any added substance or ingredient which is poisonous or 
injurious to health. 

This, gentlemen, I claim would cover and is sufficient to cover any 
possible adulteration. Among some of the prosecutions which have been 
brought under this section are prosecutions for adulteration of milk. 
The guileless farmer brijigs to town and sells us milk which we find is 
preserved sometimes with borax, sometimes with salicylic acid, some- 
times with formaldehyde; but they seem to know how to preserve their 
milk, if they do not know how to make butter. 

We have another act to prevent adulteration and deception in the 
sale of dairy products, ])assed later on. Part of one of the provisions 
of that act is: 

And the words " butter," "creamery," or "dairy," or any word or combination of 
words embracing the same, shall not be placed on any vessel, package, roll, or parcel 
containing any imitation dairy product or substance not wholly made ironi pure 
milk, or cream, salt, and harmless coloring matter. 

And another provision: 

No person shall sell any oleomargarine, suine, imitation cheese, or other imitation 
dairy product, at retail or iu any quantity less than the original package, tub, or 
tirkin, unless he shall tirst inform the purchaser that the substance is not butter or 
cheese, but an imitation of the same. 

Still another act — the act under which most of the prosecutions now 
are brought — a first-class act, excepting the color clause and the pro- 
vision about advising the purchaser. This act was passed May IG, 
1804: 

Section 1. He it enacted hti the (/eneral asucmbly of tint State of Ohio, That no person 
shall manufacture, offer or expose for sale — 

And I want the committee to remember the "shall manufacture" 
clause — 

sell or deliver, or have in his possession with intent to sell or deliver, any oleomar- 
garine which contains any methyl orange, butter yellow, annotto, aniline dye, or 
any other coloring matter. 

That prevents the factory from manufacturing, even for exporting 
purposes, colored oleomargarine. It can not make it at all. 

Si:c. 2. Every person who shall offer or expose for sale, sell or deliver, or have in 
his possession with intent to sell or deliver, any oleomargarine, shall keep a white 
placard, not less in size than 10 by 14 inches, in a conspicuous place where the same 
may be easily seen and read, in the store, room, stand, booth, vehicle, or place where 
such substance is offered or exposed for sale, on which placard shall be printed in 
black letters, not less iu size than one and one-half inches square, the words. 
" Oleomargarine sold here," and said ]>lacard shall not contain any other words than 
the ones described; and no person shall sell or deliver any oleomargarine unless it 
be done under its true name, and each package has on the upper side thereof a label 
on which is printed, in letters not less than five-eighths of an inch square, the word 
" Oleomargarine," and in letters not less than one-eighth of an inch sciuarethe name 
and per cent of each ingredient therein. 



296 OLEOMARGARINE. 

And section 3 provides, in regard to iiotel proprietors, restaurants, 
and boardiug-house keepers having a sign on the wall, " Oleomargarine 
sold and used here," and that in no instance shall they serve oleomar- 
garine, even if that sign is up, when butter is called for. 

Sec. 4. The word " Oleomargarine," as used iu this act. shall be construed to mean 
any substance not pure butter of not less than eij!;hty per cent of butter fats, which 
substance is made as substitute for, in imitation of, or to be used as butter. 

This act provides a penalty for manufacturers of not less than $100 
nor more than $50U, and for each subsequent offense, in addition to the 
above fine, the oftender may be imprisoned in the county jail not more 
than ninety days. 

Any otlier person violating any of the provisions of this act shall, upon conviction 
thereof, be lined not less than fifty dollars nor more than one hundred dollars. 

Gentlemen, with these laws in force, and with the intention of com- 
plying therewitli, I advised my clients that the retailer must stamp or 
label the parchment in which the butterine was wrapped, the wooden 
dish in which it was placed, and the wrapper which was placed over 
all, and that he must also at the time of the purchase in some way 
(unostentatiously, of course) advise the customer what he was buying. 
For instance, it butter was called for, even if it was known that the 
prospective i)nrchaser wanted oleomargarine, the (tlerk should say, 
"You want oleo?"' " You want butterine^" or something of that kind, 
so that the name should always be mentioned between the parties, so 
that there could be no mistake. 

In addition to that, in the season when it is not necessary to keep 
the butter and the oleomargarine down in a refrigerator the retail deal- 
ers whom I represented had racks arranged upon whiih they placed 
their oleomargarine and their butter tubs, something on the order that 
I have outlined here [exhibiting diagram]. There would be, say, the 
two tubs of butter. Two tubs of oleomargarine, I think, came on top, 
one at 13 and one at 15 cents, and over that was a placard, "Oleo, 13 
cents," "Oleo. 15 cents." The other tubs were marked "Dairy butter, 
18 cents," and "Creamery butter, 1*5 cents," as the case might be. 
Then over all would be the label required by the State laws, "Oleo- 
margarine sold here" — so plain, gentlemen, that the wayfaring man, 
though a fool, need not have erred therein. 

The Acting Chairman. That was simply a request on your part 
that the dealers do this? 

Mr. ScHELL. Yes; that was simply a request. 

Senator Foster. Did that comply with the law of the State of Ohio? 

Mr. ScHELL. That complied with the oleo for-butter law of the State 
of Ohio, and went further, in order to fully advise the customer. 

Senator Foster. How many dealers are there in the State? 

Mr. ScHELL. One firm, whom I represented and who to my certain 
knowledge complied with my instructions in this case, operated 25 
stores in difi^erent parts of the city. 

The Acting Chairman. But how many were there in the city who 
did not comply with this system ? 

Mr. SCHELL. So far as I know, not a single individual. 

Senator Foster. Have there been any prosecutions iu the last year 
there in Ohio? 

Mr. S(!HELL. Yes; there have been. And, as the food commissioner 
stated here the other day. in the majority of cases of selHug oleomarga- 
rine for butter there have been convictions. 

The Acting Chairman (referring to a book handed him by Mr. 
Knight). There seem to be 1,439 retail dealers in the State of Ohio. 



OLEOMARGARIiNfp:. 297 

Mr. ScHELL. Now, if I knew what sort of statistics the gentlemen 
weie haudiiij!: in, as courtesj- entitles us to know in cases at law before 
anything goes to tlie judge or the Jury 

The Acting Chairman. I have here the report of the Commissioner 
of Internal Revenue. 

Mr. SdiELL. Now, gentlemen, I personally watched the carrying 
out of these rules, and it was aaiusing to see the resentment on a 
woman's face when she would point to the oleomargarine tubs, so pla- 
carded and i)riced, and say, ''Give me some of that 15-cent butter," 
and be met with the remark, "You want oleomargarine! " or "You 
want butterine?" It was not a pleasant task for the sales girl. But 
I think the rule was largely carried out, except in cases of regular cus- 
tomers, regarding whom mention has been made; and in those cases 
there was not even a technical violation, since they had most of them 
been theretofore informed orally and by a multitude of stamped 
wrappers. 

Senator Proctor. Allow me to ask how it is Avith the people who 
eat it? Are they notified at hotels and restaurants and boarding 
houses? Do tliej' eat it as oleomargarine or as butter"? 

Mr. SCHELL. As was said yesterday, I think that the law as it stands 
at jjresent, especially if modified in accordance with the recommenda- 
tion of Commissioner Wilson, confines the question of fraud to the 
hotels and boarding houses. And as was, 1 think, fairly stated, the 
hotels could not stand the prosecutions that would follow and the 
advertisement that would be given. As to boarding houses, they wouhl 
come under the same ruling, except that they could better stand the 
prosecutions. But they could better afford to display the required 
sign, as most of them do. As to the people who live largely in board- 
ing houses, I think they are principally limited to old bachelors. We 
have too many boarding houses and not enough homes; and if some- 
thing could be done to drive those bachelors away from boarding 
houses and get them to establish homes of their own, I think it would 
be a good act rather than otherwise. [Laughter.] 

Senator Hansbrougii. And until they get married you think bache- 
lor butter is good enough for them ? [Laughter.] 

Mr. ScHELL. The bachelor who can not look out for his interests and 
find what he wants to eat, by changing boarding houses or otherwise, 
had better get married and get a wife to take caie of him. I am speak- 
ing from the standpoint of the bachelor. 

To continue. 1 have seen the ])ackage, branded according to instruc- 
tions, handed back by the customer for rewrapping on account of the 
stamp showing on top of the wrapped package. 

Some time ago one of the Clevehuid (Ohio) justices of the peace 
de(;ided that this i)rovision that each i)ackage should have on its upper 
side a label on wliicli the word "oleomargarine" was printed did not 
merely mean that the paper, the wra])])er. should be stamped, Itut that 
it must have a sei)arate, distinct label — a label printed and stuck on 
the top of the ])ai;kage. Tliat ruling was attempted to be comi>licd 
with, with the lesult that the keeper of the market raised quite an 
objection in regard to these labels being so used, because the customer, 
in the furtherance of that false ])ride, perha])s — that i)ride which exists 
in the ])oor and the rich alike, as a result of which they do not want to 
be advertised as buying anything but the highest priced in the market, 
even if they are getting better goods for less money — would tear that 
label olf and throw it down in the market house; so that it was (|uite 
a great deal of extra trouble for the market-house keeper while this 
system was enforced. 



298 OLP:()MARGARrNE. 

I want to say further in regard to these stamps, and the fact that the 
law regarding- the sale of oleomargarine for butter is complied with in 
the State of Ohio, that in all the trials with which I have ever had any- 
thing to do there has never been a package of oleomargarine produced 
in the justice's court that did not have the three stamps — the stamp on 
the wooden package, the stamp on the parchment, and the stami^ on the 
outside wrapper. It was always there. 

The Acting Chairman. Mr. Schell, I have to go to another com- 
mittee; but before I go I will state that in a consultation with the 
chairman of the committee it has been deemed advisable to extend the 
hearing until and including Thursday, and that that will be tinal. 

Senator Money. Has there been any vote of the committee on that 
arrangement? 

The Acting Chairman. There has been no vote of the committee. 

Senator Money. There will have to be before there is any determina- 
tion of it. 

The Acting Chairman. Then we will be obliged to get the full 
committee here. 

Senator Money. That is all right; but we can not cut these hearings 
short when a lot of men have come here to be heard, and have not yet 
had an opportunity to be heard. 

The Acting Chairman. I will state. Senator, that last week the 
chairman, who was presiding during the morning hearings, thought 
that arrangements should be made so as to close the hearings on 
to-morrow. That is the 10th, I believe. 

Senator Money. I understood what the chairman thought; but the 
committee have taken no action. 

The Acting Chairman. But he made a statement here to the effect 
that that would be the situation here, and we have been proceeding 
upon that hypothesis. 

Senator Money. I have not proceeded upon that hypothesis at all. 

The Ac'J'iNG Chairman. -lust a moment. Others have come since 
then to be heard; and Senator Proctor, who has just left the room, 
stated to me that he thought we had better extend the hearings until 
Thursday, including Thursday, allowing the butter people to close on 
that day. Of course the committee can do as it i)leases. 

Senator Money. I want to say, as one member of the committee, that 
I object to any closing of the debate at present; and I do not see any 
particular reason why the butter people, having had all the time they 
wanted here, should close the debate, either. So far as 1 can under- 
stand, there is nothing to entitle them to the last day in court. lu my 
opinion they have not shown any case at all; and I shall insist that 
the men who oppose this bill shall have an equal hearing to the very 
last moment of the argument. 

The Acting Chairman. Senator, you will pardon me if I make the 
objection that I have been here at all the hearings, except i)art of the 
time yesterday, and that I am quite safe in saying that the opponents 
of this bill have occupied fully three-fourths of the time. 

Senator Money. That may be. Now, I will tell jon what we will do. 
We will hear the butter men first and let the other people close. 

The Acting Chairman. But the butter men, I think, opened the 
case here by making some statements ; and it was generally understood, 
and has been understood all the way through, that they should close 
the case. 

Senator Money. I have not had any such understanding as a member 
of the committee. My understanding was that they were to have equal 



OLEOMARGAKINE. 299 

rifili ts before the committee, which they are entitled to have. Both sides 
are entitled to that. But it seems to me that it is askiuo' a little too 
much for them to want both the opening' and the closing of the case. 

The Acting Chairman. The gentleman who has tlie floor at the 
present time had all day yesterday, part of the day before, and is going 
on this morning enlightening us with the facts on his side. 

Senator Money. Yes; and he is making a very good speech, too. 

Mr. Miller. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Schell did not occupy all day yes- 
terday. When you were absent yesterday afternoon some labor people 
from Pennsylvania spoke for part of the afternoon. 

Senator Foster. But we must draw these hearings to a close some 
time. It seems to me we are getting about all the information there is 
on this subject. I do not know that we have had very much repetition, 
but we have had some. 

Senator Money. As far as that is concerned, I have made the sug- 
gestion to the cotton-seed oil people, who are particularly my constit- 
uents, that they might present their case 

The Acting Chairman. They are here now and are ready to go on 
as soon as this gentleman closes. There are four of them who desire 
to be heard. We wanted to give them the balance of to-day and all of 
to morrow, and then to allow the butter people to close on their side. 
That was the suggestion of the chairman of the committee as he went 
out. 

Soiator Money. Do the butter people think it is any particular 
advantage to have the closing? If so, it ought not to be allowed them. 

The Acting Chairman. It has been generally conceded to them, I 
think, by the oi)ponents of the bill. These hearings, as I will state to 
the Senator, have been rather irregular. 

Senator Money. I know they have; and I have been rather irregular 
myself, because during the afternoon sessions I have been compelled to 
be up in the Senate Chamber most of the time. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. If the gentlemen of the committee will permit 
me, I will call attention to the statement of Mr. Grout, made at the 
opening of the hearings, in which he says this: 

I simply want to say, jjentleineii, that with this testimony the friends of the bill 
snhmit their case and give the field to those who are opposed to the measnre. 

Senator Hansbrough replied: 

It is understood that Governor Hoard is present and desirea to be heard. 

Whereupon Mr. Hoard spoke. And until the hearings had progressed 
for several days there was no intimation that the butter men desired 
to be heard any further. 

The Acting Chairman. Do you object to their closing the case? 

Mr. Tii>LiNGHAST. Not in the least. 

Senator Money. I have only been contending for what I consider 
to be fair play. 

Senator Heitpeld. Before Mr. Schell proceeds, I would like to ask 
the chairman a question. Are the cotton-seed oil people here, the par- 
ties Mr. Culberson spoke of yesterday ? Did he not see you about them ? 

The Acting Chairman. Yes; he said he had some constituents here. 
I do not know whether they are from his State or not. 

Mr. Jelke. Will you permit me just one momenf? Mr. Peters is 
here from Texas, representing the oil-mill interests of that State. He 
came here in obedience to a telegram from Senator Culberson, after 
having had an interview, as I understood, with Senator Proctor, it 
being understood that they would not be heard later than Wednesday. 



300 OLEOMAKGAEINE. 

He is Laving- some figures pi-epaied bere in the Agricultural Depart- 
ment, and will not be able to obtain them before 4 o'clock. 

The Acting Chairman. To day? 

Mr. Jelke. To-day; yes, sir. I have just seen Senator Culberson 
in regard to the matter. He will be here in a few moments. He said 
he spoke to several members of the committee, and thought there 
would be no objection to his being heard to morrow. 

The Acting Chairman. The committee has not taken action on the 
matter; but it has been suggested by the chairman, whom we all delight 
to support in matters of this kind, because of his great wisdom, that 
the hearings be held open until Thursday, and that to-morrow be given 
to the cotton-seed oil people. 

Mr. Jelke. Yes, sir. 

The Acting Chairman. We understand that there are four repre- 
sentatives of that industry here. 

Mr. Jelke. Yes, sir. I do not know their number. The statistics 
which one of the gentlemen wanted are being prepared now in the 
Department of Agriculture, and he will be ready to present them to- 
morrow morning. 

Senator Heitfeld. That is what they asked for in the first place. 

Mr. Jelke. Yes, sir; he came here in pursuance of that arrange- 
ment, and he can not possibly present his statement any earlier, if it 
meets the approval of the committee. 

Senator Money. Tliere is another gentleman here by the name of 
Culbertson, too. 

Mr. Jelke. Yes; he is in the room now. 

Senator Heitfeld. I would suggest that we go on now. 

The Acting Chairman. Shall we go on, then, with the understand- 
ing that the cotton industry and others of the oleomargarine side of 
this case conclude their testimony to-moirow, and that on Thursday 
the butter people shall close the case? Can we get consent to that 
proposition i 

Senator Money. I do not want to compel the cotton-seed oil people 
to go on today. H they have more to say than we said to day I think 
they ought to be heard. Still, if they think that that is enough time 
for them it makes no dilference to me. 

The Acting Chairman. Mr. Schell, who has been speaking for 
quite awhile (as I stated awhile ago), announces that he will be 
through now in a few minutes. I assume that the remainder of to day 
and the whole of to-morrow can be devoted to the hearing of the 
cotton-seed oil interest. 

Senator Money. Whenever they get through I ain quite willing 
that they shall stop. 

Mr. Schell. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee: I 
think I am the only one speaking against this bill who has said any- 
thing about conceding the right of the friends of the bill to close. I 
have already said that when one side opens the case and then claims 
the right to close, the person speaking on that side must present their 
full case in the beginning, and must in the end confine their testimony, 
or what they have to offer, to rebuttal of what the other side have had 
to say. At the same time I said that if they introduced any new evi- 
dence or any new features iu the case whatever, we would claim it, not 
as a privilege, but as a right, and one whicli we thought the committee 
would not deny us, in view of the fairness it has shown in the past, to 
be heard in rebuttal of any new argument which they advanced. 

The Acting Chairman. Under those circumstances I can not very 



OLEOMARGARINE. 301 

well see the end of this lieariiig, because if we wait until everyone is 
satisfied that his last word is final we will never get through. 

Senator Money. We can say, though, that the last word shall be 
divided ecjually. We can say that. 

The Acting Chairman. The committee can say, of course, exactly 
what it pleases. 

iSenator Money. But is not that fair? Is it not fair to say so? 

The Acting Chairman. I should prefer to have it before the com- 
mittee in the form of a motion. 

Senator Money. Very well; we will put it before them in the form 
of a motion. 

The Acting Chairman. That can be done when we get the full com- 
mittee here. 

(Senator Foster thereupon took the chair.) 

The Acting Chairman (Senator Foster). Mr. Schell, you may 
proceed. 

Mr. Schell. Now, in supi)ort of my contention that probably all 
over the country, as in Cincinnati according to my positive knowledge, 
oleomargarine is not to any extent sold for butter, I want to quote 
Representative Bailey at page 108 of the House hearings. He said 
there : 

Let me fjive a little personal experience on that subject. I have spent parts of two 
days iu this market here. I have made two trips down through it lor the purpose 
of gettinji iiiforniatiou on that very jioint. I went down there absohitely incognito, 
an<l I tried my best to buy oleouiaigarine for l)utter. I went to this place and to 
that, and did my best to do it without tlieir knowing anything about 

Representative Lami?. What did you ask forf 

Representative Bailey. 1 asked for butter. I would say, '' What do you sell your 
best creamery butter forf" "Tliirty-tive and 40 cents." '-What liave you got 
some other grade for?" They would say that they had a cheaper grade down to 
28 cents, and I think the lowest butter I know of or had priced to me was 2.5 cents. 
When it got below that it was oleomargarine or butteriue ever.x time. 

Now, 1 was unable in that market to buy a single pound of it, and I could not get 
a single man to admit to me down tiiere that it was sold — not a single man. Now, I 
want yon to go down there, Mr. Lamb. I will tell you what I will do. I will bet 
you a 5-dollar bill that, if you choose to try it, you can not get one of those men to 
sell oleomargarine to you for butter. 

Senator Heitfeld. Was that in the market here? 

The Acting Chairman. That was in the city of Washington? 

Mr. Schell. Yes; that was in the city of Washington. 

Daring the holidays I took dinner one day with Dr. W^. A. Young, 
at Dayton, Ivy. At the same dinner table were his father-in-law and 
his brother-in-law, both doctors. I recognized oleomargarine on the 
table, and I made some comment about it. His wife flushed up, but Dr. 
Young said, "Of coarse it is oleo." I said, "What do you buy it 
for!" "For oleomargarine." "What do you call for?" "We called 
for butter and thought we would get this, according to reports; but 
we found out that we had to call for oleomargarine in order to get it." 

" You did get butter, then, when you called for it?" "Yes, and we 
got a very unsatisfactory product." I said, " Where do you get your 
oleo?" " We get it at one of B. H. Kroger's stores." Those are the 
stores oi)erated by the gentleman whose advertisement appeared in the 
Cincinnati Times-Star, and to which I called your attention yesterday. 

Now, in regard to this hotel talk about white butter, and so forth. 
I travel back and forth over the country quite a good deal. I am in 
Chicago, I suppose, two or three times a month: in Xew York fre- 
quently, and in Washington, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, and 
other large cities, and I have never as yet been given uncolored butter. 



302 OLEOMARGARINE. 

I aim to stop at tbe best hotels, or at least the highest priced. My 
clients pay the bills, aud 1 have no object in going anywhere else. In 
New York 1 stop at the Waldorf-Astoria, and 1 know their butter is 
fine butter, creamery butter, but ic is colored artificially. On my last 
trip here before the holidays I stopi)ed at the Arlington. There we 
had butter artificially colored^ I am stopping now at tiie tShoreliam, 
where 1 get butter artificially colored — higldy colored. And that has 
been my universal experience in all the cities which I have visited. 

Now, this is my conclusion on this phase of the subject: No factory, 
through me, or in any case in which 1 was engaged, or with which I 
was connected, has ever paid a fine, or defended a dealer for selling 
oleomargarine for butter. And I want to say that as far as 1 know 
(and I am in position to know pretty accurately) there is not a factory 
in existence which defends the dealers for selling oleomargarine for 
butter, assertions of the friends of the bill to the contrary notwith- 
standing. They do not show any instances; and I defy them to show 
any instance where it has been done. 

The factory says to the dealer, " If you break the law you must pay 
the penalty. If the violation is mine, through use of color or in any 
other way my fault, then I will hold you harmless. I do not answer 
for you, but I answer for myself.'' And what else could the factories 
do? I do not know that they all do that; but my people do it. If they 
break the law they pay the penalty. 

The Ohio laws are all riglit, except the color clause, and the one as 
to informing the purchaser. The latter I think is idiotic — the " inform 
the purchaser" part, tiauiiting in a purchaser's face the suggestion, 
" Yon are too poor to buy butter; consequently you have got to take 
something that is less costly." 

The color clause is unjust; and with these exceptions, I say, gentle- 
men, the laws are obeyed and are enforced. 1 think the Department 
misses but few dealers who are guilty of any actual fraud, and it 
sometimes arrests the innocent. I have known thar to be the case. I 
admit that the color laws are hard to enforce. In a case recently tried 
by a justice without a jury in Cincinnati, he found the defendant 
guilty, but is said to have remarked that he considered it an unjust 
law, but could not overrule the supreme court of the State of Ohio. 
But they say they do not want a color prohibition. They merely want 
us to " shinny on our own side," so to speak. If so, where is the hard- 
ship of nonenforcement of the color law, so long as the oleo-for-butter 
laws are enforced? 

So uuich, gentlemen, for their alleged purpose in this bill. The bill, 
like oleomargarine, like butter, is permeated through and through with 
the false color; and then they cover it up on the outside with a coat of 
shellac. If the purpose is what we belive the actual purpose to be, to 
destroy the production of colored oleomargarine, why not say so? 
Why are they not honest about it? Why are they not fair? 

How much better are they, ^\-hen they come here asking you to pass 
a bill under a false name— a bill which is not what it purports to be, a 
bill which they concede could never stand a constitutional test for a 
minute except under false colors — than the man who sells oleomarga- 
rine for butter for the purpose of defrauding his customers? And how 
infinitely worse are they than the man guilty of a mere innocent decep- 
tion, not deception at all, but an innocent sale where he knows that 
the purchaser wants oleomargarine, although he says butter in order 
to conceal his poverty from bystanders. 

Let them name the bill properly. Let it stand for what it is. Do 



OLEOMARGARINE. 808 

not cheat tlic nation. If they seek to destroy one industry for the bene- 
fit of another, or to foster one industry at the expense of ariOther, or to 
regulate prices, let them tell the truth about it and name the bill 
accordingly. JJut they do not do it. 

N'ow, gentlemen, the effect of this bill 

Senator JMoney. Excuse me. Have they not said the bill was to 
destroy oleomargarine? Has not that been stated? 

Mr. ScHELL. Senator. 1 have been trying to get them on record on 
that subject ever since they began. 

Senator JMonev. Was not somebody on record at the hearings before 
the House on that point? 

Mr. ScHELL. They came here and disputed it. 'J'hey said it was a 
ndstaUe, and that the minority members of the comnuitec were wrong. 

Now, gentlemen, whatever the purpose of this bill — and we chum the 
])urpose is to destroy the industry — whatever purpose they intend, it 
will destroy the oleonuirgaiine industry. The official condemnation of 
the Congress of tlie United States, stamjjed upon this product by a bill 
similar to the Grout bill, will kill the export trade notonly of the jtrod- 
uct but of all that enters into it. That has been gone into in detail. 

Now, gentlen)en, the main thing to be urged about this matter is the 
fact that the oleomargarine manufacturer is caught between the upper 
and the nether millstones. WMth the aid of the Grout bill he is ground 
in between the State and the Federal laws. As the matter stands he 
can say to the State which is enlorcing an unjust law, "Prove it." 
There he has some show, some chance. But according to this Grout 
bill he must make an accurate sworn statement to the (lovernment, 
under penalty of an absolute contiscatioii of his factory, his product, 
his equipment and everything, and tine and inijirisonment added. This 
sworn statement is a i>lea of guilty of a violation of the State law. They 
say, "We are willing that you should sell it for what it is." Some of 
them have said that, in a half-hearted sort of manner. They say, "We 
are willing." I think the great bulk of the people who are alleged to 
be represented here (but 1 claim their true sentiments are not repre- 
sented here), those who have at the instigation of lobbyists and others 
been writing letters to the Senators on this matter, while they are not 
by their representatives definitely on re;ord here, are too fair-minded 
to crush an industry out of existence and confiscate our property with- 
out giving us anything for it. 1 think the majority of tlie people who 
are opposed to the alleged method of traffic of oleomargarine are will- 
ing that it should be sold on the right side of the fence. That is all 
we want. 1 think they are willing it should be done. 1 think every 
fair-minded citizen must concede that it ought to be done. And yet, 
according to the provisions of this bill, it can not be done. Our factory 
there in Cincinnati must close down, after just expending $18,000 for a 
plant, and I do not know how much more for other equipment, to get 
ready to do business. They must quit. Their sworn statement which 
they must make to the United States Government would condemn them. 
They would thus plead guilty of a violation of the Stale laws. They 
simply can not make this product. They can not make it for export or 
on order of the consumer. They must close the factory. 

The sui)porters of the bill say that the 10-cent tax raises the price of 
oleomargarine so that it is on the same basis of the price of butter. It 
does not merely raise the price. In 32 States of the Union it abso- 
lutely prohibits the manufacture or sale of oleomargarine, colored. 
They can not even manufacture it to send to a State where it is all 
right to sell it, colored or otherwise; and those 32 States represent 



30-1 oLEoMARGARIjNE. 

four-fifths, as they say, of the population of the Union; and yet they 
pretend to defend their position by saying that they only want the 
thing eiiualizetl. Gentlemen, they do not want it equalized. They are 
not playing fair. They are not capable of i)laying fair. 

And, gentlemen, it will not lielj) the i)eople they pnrport to rei)resent. 
They have not shown that we hurt them. The testimony shows that 
bntter commands a higher price now than it has for twenty-five years; 
that milk is higher than it has ever been. iSIot only have they not 
shown that we liave hurt them, but they have not shown how the j)ro- 
posed legislation would help them. 

They tail entirely in tlie claim which they have made before you. 
They have not even shown any considerable bona fide country call for 
this legislation. We analyzed that claim yesterday, v^ e analyzed the 
(»,000,0U0 or 5,()()U,0()0 down to less than 3(),()()0, ai'id all of thein could 
not be iiidnced to put up 50 cents apiece; and we do not know the exact 
sentiments of those who did i)ut up the 50 cents apiece. They are not 
on record here. Their representative is not on record definitely. Every 
pressure (we will not say argunjent, we can not say argument) brought 
to bear has borne the earmarks of some politician or publisher who 
makes a nefarious — no, a precarious — living through creating dissatisfac- 
tion among the farmers and getting emi)loyed to relieve their wants. 
Even the Philadelphia commission men who a^ipeared were in leading 
strings, with an extra string attached to their leader in the presence of 
the auth(.r of the bill, who came in and sat down there; and when the 
leader was going to put his people on record he was coached by Repre- 
sentative Grout. He asked questions, both suggestive and leading 
questions, of the witness for his side, and then told him what he really 
wanted him to say, and he said it. 

When we analyze "the united dairy sentiment of the nation," as 
alleged in the outset in the House hearing, we invariably end up with 
Mr. Knight, Governor Hoard, and General Grout. They remind me of 
that well-known story of Mr. Lincoln, in which he told three persist- 
ent ofHce seekers that they reminded him of the Sunday-school boy 
who was reading the chapter in the Bible about the Hebrew children 
and the fiery furnace. He had repeatedly stumbled over the three 
names, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; and finally he broke down, 
and said, ''Well, here are those three rascally fellows again!" 
[Laughter.] And in whatever way we turn, we run up against this 
same trio. We can not get around them. Tliey are what is alleged to 
be the "united dairy sentiment of the nation;" and they have not 
shown their credentials to this committee. 

But that is not our main contention. Although they have demanded 
our property without price or process of law, and have not shown why 
we should give it up, or what good it would do them if they did, nor 
have they really tried to produce arguments. They say, " We are 
backed by 5,00(1,000 farmers. Give it to us, or we will turn them loose 
on you in your next campaign!" 

They emi)loy this alleged army as advance skirmishers, to show their 
supposed mightiness, by having letters and telegrams galore sent to 
members of your honorable body. Such methods should receive the 
censure they deserve; and the gentlemen should be shown that such 
methods, like packing stock butter, belong to a past age. 

The present laws are sufficient if enforced, and they are capable of 
enforcement. That is shown by their own people, their own testimony. 
But that is not reason enough. We want the best possible legislation.. 
The substitute bill will do what it is claimed is wanted. The factories 



OLEOMARGARINE. 305 

want the same result. The mills and ranches, and dairies and cream- 
eries, and packing houses that supply the oleomargarine tactories do 
not care. The fair-minded citizen can not object. !So, let us have the 
substitute bill — not because we want it, or anyone wants it, but because 
it a wise and, probably, a legitimate piece of legislation. 

Mr. Miller. Mr. Schell, excuse me. Mr. Tompkins, of Charlotte, 
N. C, is here this morning, and can not be here this afternoon, as he 
leaves at o. We are quite anxious that he should appear. Can you 
give way to him? 

Mr. tScHELL. I will finish in five minutes. 

Mr. Miller. All right. 

Mr. Tompkins. I am better satisfied to have Mr. Schell finish, because 
I am convinced that he is doing good work. 

Senator Heitfeld. Let us have the present speaker conclude his 
argument. 

The Acting Chairman. Yes; go on, Mr. Schell. 

Mr. Schell. I want to say that the only substantial difference 
between the substitute bill and the existing law is that the manufac- 
turer is compelled to put up his product in 1 and 2 pound packages, 
imprinted, wrapped, and stamped at the factory, which can not be 
broken until they go to the consumer. That, you will understand, does 
what I have claimed. It puts fraud practically out of the question. 
And the only point in that bill about which they have raised any ques- 
tion is this sentence: '*That any number of such original stamped 
packages may be put up by the manufacturers in crates, boxes," etc. 
They object to the word "original" as bringing in the "original 
package." 

Kow, for my part — and I think I can speak for all on that point — it 
is not the intention to put that word. in there for the purpose of making 
the law different from what it is, or taking any undue advantage of 
any "original package" decision, and we are willing, or I am willing 
that that word may be changed so that it may not apparently designate 
these packages as original packages, although the mere fact tliat the 
word appears here does not make them original packages any more 
than the law itself would make them original jjuckages without that 
word. 

I had intended to speak upon the Gn>ut bill at length and sliow the 
fraud upon the face of it, but I think it is so evident that 1 do not need 
to toucli ui)0u it all. Besides, the attention of the committee has been 
called to almost every feature of it. 

Another good reason against tlie Grout bill is that it totally fails to 
do anything more than rednce the tax on oleomargarine If cents per 
pound. If anyone wants to take advantage of defects and violate the 
spirit and not the legal meaning of the statnte — 1 say "if," for I know 
of no one in the business who would not try to obey the spirit and the 
letter of any act of Congress. My clients, at least, are law-abiding- 
citizens, and would probably want tool)tain the repeal of the statute by 
its strict enforcement — the best way to guarantee the repeal of any 
unjust, unfair, iniquitous legislation. However, allow me to retire for 
a moment from my capacity as attorney for a contending interest, from 
my position as a witness for the integrity of a nation, and give my 
opinion as a lawyer with some conceded ability on technical interpre- 
tations, and say that this so-called Crout bill would no more stand the 
technical test than a snow ball would keej) its proportions in perdi- 
tion. [Langhter.] Ben Butler must have had a bill of this kind in 
view when he said he could drive a four-horse team through any stat- 
S. Rep. 2043 20 



306 OLEOM AUG AKIN E. 

ute that was ever put on the books. This is that kiud of a bill; and 
in this statement L am not referring to a constitutional test. The bill 
fails of its alleged object regardless of the Supreme Court. The bill 
makes business for lawyers and lobbyists, but all others suffer, includ- 
ing the people who are suiiposed to be interested in the passage of this 
law — "the dairymen of the nation," 

But to return to my clients and my country : The bill is not fair on 
either side. I have wondered if it was drawn by the lawyers who 
brought forty cases under the repealed statute in Chicago, Or by one 
who knows his business. The enactment of this bill would mean, in 
my opinion, that the same fight would be fought over next session. 
But, Then, there are L'4,600 fnrmers at 50 cents to $1,000 per head! 

Now, as to the main question, its legality or otherwise: What is it — 
good, bad, or expedients Certainly not the former; and assuredly no 
circumstance has been shown to justify a bad measure on the grounds 
of expediency. In this case the ends do not justify the means. 

Is the bill i^olice, revenue, or repressive legislation ? If police legis- 
lation, Congress has no power to enact it. It is not claimed. If repres- 
sive legislation, Congress has no i^ower to enact it. That is not claimed. 
If for the purpose of raising revenue, it fails of its purpose. See the 
testimony of Commissioner Wilson. See the concession by Governor 
Hoard, who admits of record (p. 7, Senate hearing) that the one fourth 
of a cent per pound tax is scarcely enough to police the bill, and will not 
bring in any revenue. 

But it is repressive legislation, alleged to be sncli. Governor Hoard 
says (]). 1^, House committee): "In i)lain words, this is repressive legis- 
lation," justified by police ))retension, and attempted to be legally clothed 
by a revenue cloak. 

Gentlemen, the United States Supreme Court decisions have been 
ably argued by my brothers Gardner and Springer and by others, with 
different conclusions. I need not comment upon them. We do not 
need the interpretation of any court. We who ojjpose this bill are con- 
vinced that the bill is wrong, is unfair, is dishonest, is illegal. The 
friends of the bill have the insolence to admit of record its dishonesty, 
its illegality. They venture to question both the intelligence and the 
integrity of the Congress of the United States, They come here and 
say, " We will admit you can not openly exercise police power in 
a State. We admit that you can not exact repressive legislation and 
call it so; but you can, and for us you will and must, pass this act as a 
revenue measure. You must pass, under a false name, a law to pre- 
vent the oleomargarine manufacturer from giving his product a color 
which has been given it from the beginning." 

Then, while asking you to do an unfair thing for them and stultify 
yourselves before the nation and the whole world, they are not playing 
fair with you. They claim that they only want to keep oleomargarine 
on its own merits; and yet the only result of an enforcement of the 
act would be an absolute prohibition of the manufacture of the colored 
article, if not of the article itself, and they know it. 

(lentlemen, I have talked long. I hope not needlessly. 

I would have liked to have summed up all that has been said, briefly; 
but I will omit a summing up of the whole subject. 

But regardless of any general summing up, the subject is reduced to 
the question, "Is the bill right"? Is it just*? Is it honest? Is it what 
it purports to be? Is it constitutional — colored or uncolond?" 

If so, consider it. But if it is wrong — if dishonest — if class legisla- 
tion — if not vhat it purports to be — if not a revenue measure, and a 
wise one — relegate it to the oblivion which it so richly deserves. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 307 

Geiitlemeu, I thank you. 

(The following statements of Mr. Dolan and Mr. Pierce were pre- 
sented on Monday, January 7, and are inserted at this point in order 
to preserve the continuity of Mr. Schell's remarks:) 

Mr. SCHELL. Mr. Chairman, allow me to introduce Mr. Patrick Dolan, 
president of the United Mine Workers' Association, 4(»,0i)0 strong, and 
Mr. John Pierce, representing the Amalgamated Association of Iron 
and Steel Workers, 15,000 strong. The people they represent would 
indicate that they have sufficient interest at stake to entitle them to a 
hearing before this committee. 

The Acting Chairman. It will be very satisfactory to hear the 
gentlemen. 

STATEMENT OF PATRICK DOLAN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED 
MINE WORKERS' ASSOCIATION. 

Mr. Dolan. Mr. Chairman, the people whom I represent are some- 
what interested in this measure, as they are all working people. Kep- 
resentiug them, I have come here and have prepared a short statement, 
which I will read : 

The question involved here, so far as it affects the section of country 
from which I come (western Pennsylvania) and the people I represent, 
despite the verbiage of the bill, seems to be wliether or not white oleo- 
margarine is good enough for the workiugman and consumer, whose 
needs demand a cheap and wholesome article. In former times, before 
thegeneral introduction of oleomargarine and tlie manufacture of cream- 
ery butter, the grocers and merchants in our section used to have their 
regular butter day. It might occur on any day with different merchants, 
but when that day was set by any one of them it was an immovable 
feast — but such a feast ! Almost any of us can call to mind the strange 
collection of colors and shapes, accompanied by as many different and 
distinct perfumes as ever emanated from the ancient and distinguished 
city of Bagdad — the source of a thousand and one individual odors. 
The few rolls of really palatable and passable butter were seized on the 
arrival of the consignment and stored away for the pet customers (who 
didn't mind the price), and the balance was spread out in that portion 
of the establishment known as the butter counter for the inspection 
and sampling of those who were not so fortunate as to be able to pay 
the long price or to figure high in the affections of the merchant. 

But this is all gone in our markets, I find, except in a very few iso- 
lated instances. Two things seem to find sale, namely, first-class 
creamery butter and oleomargarine. The butter at present sells for 
from 30 to 35 cents, the oleomargarine at froni 2 pounds for 25 cents to 20 
cents per pound ; and while the latter all seems palatable, I have found 
a marked difference in the quality, which to me accounts satisfactorily 
for the wide variance in jirice, viz, from 12^ cents per pound to 20 cents 
per pound. 

That some oleomargarine may be sold for butter I do not doubt, but 
I am convinced that it is triflng; and to i^ropose such a measure as this 
as an alleged remedy for that is unfair, to my mind. This bill does not 
1 tret end to remedy an evil, but to exclude and prevent the sale of a 
healthful i)roduct — which seems to have been the real spirit of all the 
laws on the subject. 

I am convinced that the true intent of the pending bill is to make a 
market for the axle-grease portion of the butter product, which oleo- 
margarine, by reason of its cheapness and wholesomeness, has run out 



308 OLEOMARGARINE. 

of our section, doubtless iuto the kettles of some soap works, which is 
the sphere of its real fitness. 

In this age of progress let us not go backward, to say nothing of the 
injustice it Avill work to car people. What moral right have these but- 
ter people to ask you to pass a law that will compel those of us who 
have only 10 or 15 (;euts to pay for a pound of some spread for our 
bread, to either use white oleomargarine, ghastly in its unattractiveness, 
or to go back to the rancid product they foisted on us in years gone by? 
There is no interest save theirs which would have the sublime nerve to 
ask such a thing, and none but theirs which would have influence 
enough to half get it, as they have done. It is this sort of abuse of 
legislative and governmental power that has always been a menace to 
republics since republics were, and this sort of folly that has wrecked 
and ruined them — since history i)roves that they do not always last. 

I hope that this committee and the Senate will defeat this measure. 
It would be a step in a dangerous direction. Many of our individual 
States have already covered themselves with disrepute by passing 
crushing and unjust laws, dictated by this coming butter trust, which 
seeks to frighten and has frightened legislators by bawling " the 
granger vote," even to the extent of overlooking the rights of the con- 
sumer, and the fact that we are one people, and entitled to justice. 

The present United States oleomargarine law is unjust, as the 2 cents 
per pound tax comes off those least able to beai' it — the poor. The 
man who has but 10 or 15 cents to ])ay for a i)ound of oleomargarine 
can ill afford to pay a tax on it of from 10 to I'O per cent; and since 
that is the case, how can he afford to pay about 100 per cent, as pro- 
posed by this bill, and at the same time have his poverty legislated 
before his eyes and those of his family every time he sits down to a 
meal? We of western Pennsylvania understand this, and oleo is as 
firmly placed and as staple with us as sugar. To say that oleo could 
be sold for butter, to any extent, seems to us preposterous. I am really 
of the opinion that not one housewife in one hundred in our section 
could be so misled. Even if such were the case the logical remedy is 
simple. It is not found in this miscarriage of justice known as the 
Grout bill, or in legislation oft' the usual lines, which is invariably pro- 
loosed by butter interests; but in the just and common-sense ideas 
embodied in the Wadsworth bill, which was turned down by the 
House, i^roving conclusively that what was sought was not to honestly 
regulate the industry, but to destroy it. 

isow, Mr. Chairman, the reason I am interested in this bill is because 
I used to be in the grocery business, and I sold oleomargarine in large 
quantities to our people. They knew that they were buying it when 
they got it. It was cheaper, and as good in many instances as the 
creamery butter that I used to sell and paid a high price for and had 
to get a high price for from the consumer. I know that our peoi)le 
would be placed at a great disadvantage if this measure were passed. 

The Acting Chairman. Let me ask you a question, Mr. Dolan. Do 
you use the article yourself? 

Mr. Dolan. Yes, sir; every day. 

The Acting Chairman. What objection have you to having it of a .' 
color easily distinguishable from the yellow color of butter? What 
objection would there be to that? 

Mr. Dolan. Well, I will tell you. J 

The Acting Chair^ian. In other words, do you eat it on account of ' 
its taste and its nutritious character, or simply on account of its looks? 

Mr. Dolan. I eat it because it is wholesome, and cheaper than tlie 
other article for me to provide for my family. 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 309 

The AcTiNGr Chairman. But its color has nothing to do with its 
wholesomeness or palatability, has it! 

Mr. DoLAN. Well, the point about the color of it, Mr. Chairman, is 
this: People, while they are poor, have some pride; and they do not 
like to go into a store among other people who have money and buy 
this article, because everyone knows that it is oleo they are getting 
when they purchase it. 

The Acting Chairman. So, instead of the merchant deceiving them 
tiiey want to be put in a position where they can deceive their neighbors? 

Mr. DoLAN. They want to go in and buy it as butter. 

The Acting Chairman. Do they call for it as butter? 

Mr. DoLAN. They all know what they are getting. Mr. Chairman, 
you know that when people go into a store and get three rolls of but- 
ter for 50 cents they know they are not getting country butter. 

The Acting Chairman. But do they call for butter when they go 
to the store? 

Mr. DoLAN. Some do, yes; they have done it many times with me. 

The Acting Chairman. And they get oleomargarine? 

Mr. DoLAN. Yes ; they get oleomargarine. They know that it is 
oleomargarine. They will be told that it is. Every man who sells it 
will tell them. 

The Acting Chairman. They use the word " butter" simply to pre- 
serve their general reputation in the community? 

Mr. DoLAN. Yes; that is my understanding. But they know that 
they are getting oleomargarine; and it would be unfair to the working 
people 

The Acting Chairman. Why should it be regarded as disreputable 
to purchase an article which is wholesome and nutritive, and in every 
respect equal to creamery butter, simply because it sells for 15 cents a 
pound instead of 30? 

Mr. DoLAN. I do not know that it is disreputable; but 

The Chairman. Well, uncomfortable, then ? 

Mr. DoLAN. People have a little pride about it, you know. 

The Acting Chairman. They have a pride, usually, in getting what 
they want as cheaply as possible. 

Mr. DoLAN. Yes; and I do not think that that should be any reason 
for having this color taken out. You might as well pass a law to say 
to men if they were going to eat candies, they would have to eat white 
candies only. Some people prefer pink. And so it is with whisky. 
When it comes from the still, the worm, it is white ; and then it is after- 
wards colored, because people like it that way. I would rather have it 
that way than have it white. That is a plain statement of the matter. 

Our i)eople, Mr. Chairman, are against the passage of the measure. 
I represent over 40,000 miners and their families; and I know from the 
sentiment in other sections of the country to which I go, from talking 
to people who are interested in our organization, that they do not want 
to be deprived of the ability to purchase this wholesome article of food. 
If it is not made in a wholesome way, then they do not want it; but if it 
is just as good to them to spread their bread with as 35-cent butter, 
they do want it. And if this measure passes, the chances are that 
butter will go up to 50 cents, and poor people will not be able to pur- 
chase it at all. 

Mr. Knight. May I ask a question, please? 

Mr. DoLAN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Knight. Do you mean to say that candy manufacturers color 
their product for the same purpose that oleomargarine manufacturers 
color theirs ? 



310 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. DoLAN. ^o; I maintain that the candy manufacturers do the 
same as the creamery and butter manufacturers. They color it for the 
purpose of making it palatable, or because people prefer this pink 
color to white. 

Mr. Knight. Does the color in candy make it resemble any other 
article so tliat the people can not tell it from another article, and does 
it endanger the people being defrauded? 

Mr. DoLAN. I do not know that it does; but, although I have been 
in the business for over four years, I do not know of anyone who ever 
was defrauded through buying oleomargarine for creamery butter. If 
there are such cases they are isolated ones. 

Mr Knight. Your experience lias probably been limited to your 
own dealings with the people, has it not*? 

Mr. DoLAN. Well, that is a good experience; and I now travel around 
among the people. I am on the road all of the time, and I get in 
among the working people, and they are the people who are interested 
here. I am not here in the interest of the oleomargarine manufactur- 
ers or the creamery butter manufacturers, but in the interest of my 
own people, for I know that this bill will be an injury to them if it is 
passed. 

Mr. Knight. Do you know that the highest priced butter in the 
United States is absolutely as white as it can be made! 

Mr. DoLAN. Do I know that the highest priced butter is absolutely 
white, you say? 

Mr. Knight. As white as it can be made? 

Mr. DoLAN. I will agree with you that it is as white as it can be 
made. 1 have had some experience in that line. I used to own two 
cows, and my wife used to make butter. I thought she was a cleanly 
woman, but she could not make it white. 

Mr. Knight. She could not? 

Mr. DoLAN. No — not absolutely white. 

The Acting Chairman. But these gentlemen this morning proved 
that it is the dirt that makes it white. [Laughter.] 

Mr. DoLAN. Well, I do not know. There is one thing that I will tell 
you: It is not absolutely white, but it is not the color that you get it 
from the farmers. In my section I have known farmers to buy oleo- 
margarine. What they did it for I did not know. 

The Acting Chairman. I believe that is all, Mr. Dolan. 

Mr. Dolan. Thank you, sir, 

STATEMENT OF JOHN PIERCE, REPRESENTING THE AMALGA- 
MATED ASSOCIATION OF IRON AND STEEL WORKERS. 

The Acting Chairman. Are you the president of the Amalgamated 
Association of Iron and Steel Workers, Mr. Pierce? 

Mr. Pierce. No; I am one of its trustees. On last Saturday we 
had the regular quarterly meeting of our advisory board, and they 
selected me to come down here and represent the association. As you 
know, all of our people are workingmen, too. They all work in the 
rolling mills. 

When my attention was first called to the Grout bill by newspaper 
comment, after its presentation in the House of Representatives, I had 
no idea that such an infamous measure would ever receive serious con- 
sideration, much less pass that body, as it has done. The interest of 
the consumer seems not to have been considered at all, the sole idea 
apparently being that the creameryman and dairyman should have a 



OLEOMAKGARINE. 311 

mouopoly of the entire market for their wares, by rendering a competing 
product so unattractive that nobody would care to purchase it. Do 
you think that all the workingmen of western Pennsylvania or of these 
United States (a portion of whom 1 represent in the Amalgamated 
Association of Iron and Steel Workers) can atibrd to i)ay 35 cents per 
pound for creamery butter, which is the present price for the first-class 
article in Pittsburg? Everyone, I think, will admit that all can not. 

If this bill passes, what position are we in? On examination we 
find that we will have three options, viz: (1) Creamery butter at 35 
cents, if the conditions are no worse 5 and I am not sure but that the 
passage of this bill may make it 50 cents per pound, [ti) Colored oleo 
at li5 cents per pound, on account of the 10-cent tax. (3) White oleo 
at 15 cents. 

Colored oleomargarine is at present retailed at from 12^ to L'O cents 
per pound. On investigation I am satisfied that most of our people 
are paying about L5 cents per pound for it, and I can not admit that 
those who buy it can aflbrd to pay more. I therefore arrive at the con- 
clusion that they must either find 10 cents per pound more to pay this 
proposed robbery (for I can not dijjnify it by the name of tax), or buy 
and eat white oleomargarine. And this to satisfy the greetl of the 
manufacturers of butter, who think that white oleomargarine is good 
enough for those who can not aftbrd to pay 10 cents additional for yel- 
low, or the 20 cents or more additional for creamery butter, or use the 
off grades of butter now unsalable as food! 

Shall those thus defrauded of what should be their inalienable con- 
stitutional right be compelled either to wear in their homes, on their 
very tables, tiaunting before the eyes of their children and of those 
who may share their board, a badge of their poverty, and an emblem 
of their inability to pay a legalized robbery; or, on the other hand, to 
contribute from their meager board to the hellish greed of the butter 
interests, of whom it has been doubtless truly said that they seek to 
follow the fashion and form a trust, but are deterred by the existence 
of oleoniargarine? 

I believe that every ])ound of creamery butter to day is artificially 
colored. I have been told so by dealers and chemists; and it i^uzzles 
me, as a layman, where they get tlie basis or reason to ask for the 
exclusion or taxing of color in oleomargarine, when they use it ad 
libitum themselves. 

It has been said with truth that some oleomargarine has been sold 
for butter. 1 do not defend this. Every honest man would condemn 
it. If there are not laws to prevent it, there should be and would be, 
and they would be enforced: but the dairyman and the butter interests 
have never sought to have passed and enforced anything like that. 
They seize on every legislative opportunity to try to wipe out the sale 
of oleomargarine — not to regulate it, but to tax and legislate it out of 
existence. Have not a dozen States, through the immense influence 
of the butter interests, and their misstatements, in times past, enacted 
laws utterly forbidding the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine 
within their borders on the lying and shallow pretense that it was 
inimical to public health ? And this claim has been seriously advanced, 
despite the fa(;t that scientists to a man have declared it just as whole- 
some as butter, and Justice Peckham, of the United States Supreme 
Court, in rendering a decision said it was a "notorious fact" that it 
was a healthful article. 

New York had such a law on her statute books for years, as had 
Pennsylvania from 1885 to 1899. Now we have a color law. Our first 



312 OLEOMAEGAKINE. 

statute was more commeudable than tlie new one is, as tliere could be 
no mistaking its frank intent; but the second, despite its pretensions, 
would be as effective an exclusion as the first, were it possible to carry 
out its provisions, which are so unpopular in some places that a jury- 
can not be secured to convict anyone under it. 

To aftirmatively recommend, and pass this bill would be a crying 
injustice to the workingman in my section, and to consumers every- 
where. Oleomargarine, under its own name, should have the same 
freedom in our markets as any other article of commerce; and if legis- 
lative bodies will ignore the greed of the self-seeking butter interests, 
and pass stringent laws regulating its sale for what it is, and not 
ham})ering or jirohibiting its manufacture (as has been the sole intent 
of every law ever proposed), then all this fuss and feathers will cease. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, there are a good many of our people who make 
pretty good wages, and of course they can buy butter ; but the majority 
of them make small wages now, especially since we got into this trust 
business. 1 know there are lots of men who do not like to buy this 
white oleomargarine, because it looks more like lard than anj thing else. 
It does not look like butter at sdl. Why should they be made to pay 
10 cents a pound more because they get butter that resembles country 
butter, and looks a little better on the table? That is why 1 am here 
to oppose the passage of this bill. It is for our people alone, for of 
course I do not know much about the butter business myself. 

The Acting Chairman. It is a question of family pride, you think? 

Mr. Pierce. I think it is, yes; for I tell you, I would not like to eat 
it white. 

The Acting Chairman. You think that if a person goes into a store 
to buy this article, he does not like to be heard calling for oleomarga- 
rine? 

Mr. Pierce. That is right. 

The Acting Chairman. Therefore he calls for butter? 

Mr. Pierce. He calls for butter; but the merchant understands that 
he wants oleomargarine. 

The Acting Chairman. But how does the merchant get the idea 
that he really wants oleomargarine? 

Mr. Pierce. Well, I will tell you. In the case of families dealing 
at certain stores, the man who runs the store generally knows what 
they want. They will come in, or they will send the child in, ;iiid say, 
" I want three pounds of butter." The dealer knows exactly what they 
want; but they will say "butter," of course. He knows that they buy 
oleomargarine all the time, however. 

The Acting Chairman. That is, he knows he sells them oleomar- 
garine ? 

Mr. Pierce. Yes; and tiiey will come in and ask for it in that way, 
even if there is nobody in the store. If I were sent on an errand of 
that kind, I would not care about going up and asking for oleomar- 
garine. 

The Acting Chairman. Why not? Let me understand that. Is it 
regarded as a disreputable thing to have it on your table? 

Mr. Pierce. Oh, well, every man does not like to expose his poverty. 

The Acting Chairman. I know; but it is not exposing his poverty 
if the article is nearly as good as butter, and very much cheaper. You 
can, almost any day, see a bargain counter crowded with the best 
women in the community, who are trying to get a cent reduction on 
the price of a thing they want. 

Mr. Schell. That is the fashion. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 313 

The Acting Chairman. Now, then, why should it be regarded as 
disreputable to have this product on your table? Why should it dis- 
grace the children to wake up to the fact that they are really eating 
oleomargarine? 

Mr. Pierce. Well, I have heard children say: " Oh, look at that old 
stuff! It looks like lard." 

The Acting Chairman. Do they have that kind of oleomargarine 
now? 

Mr. Pierce. They will say that of the white stuff. They will do it. 
I have heard them say it. 

Mr. Knight. May 1 ask a question? Do you not know that oleomar- 
garine is largely lard? 

Mr. Pierce. I do not know what it is made of. 

The Acting Chairman. You eat it largely on faith yourself, I 
should judge, Mr. Pierce? 

Mr. Pierce. I do not. I never eat any. 

The Acting Chairman. You do not eat it at all? 

Mr. Pierce. Oleomargarine? No, sir. 

The Acting Chairman. Why not? 

Mr. Pierce. Well, I just don't have to. 

The Acting Chairman. So you regard it as the last resort, do you? 
(Laughter.) 

Mr. Pierce. Well, I would not be ashamed to eat it if I had to. 

The Acting Chairman. If it is as good as butter, I should not 
think a sensible man ought to complain against it because it is cheap. 

Mr. Pierce. I don't know that it is as good ; I don't know. I can't 
answer that question. 

The Acting Chairman. If you should go into a store and call for 
butter, you would expect to get the genuine product, I take it, Mi^ 
Pierce ? 

Mr. Pierce. Yes; but there is such a thing as farmers coloring their 
butter. 

The Acting Chairman. Oh, yes. 

Mr. Pierce. I know it. 

The Acting Chairman. But, from all the testimony, I understand 
that the coloring matter adds nothing to the nutritive or palatable 
qualities of either oleomargarine or butter. 

Mr. Pierce. Oh, no; it simply makes them look better. And why 
should they pay 10 cents a pound for making a thing look a little more 
palatable? Even if it is not, it will look more palatable. 

The Acting Chairman. Supi^ose it could be shown, Mr. Pierce, 
that a large number of these people who call for butter at the grocery 
stores of the country are looking forward to getting butter, and in 
point of fact are getting oleomargarine, and that they have the same 
prejudice against it that you personally have. Would it not be fair 
to so fix the law as to prevent their being swindled? 

Mr. Pierce. I believe there are some of them being swindled now 
through buying country butter. I know that some of these farmers 
buy oleomargarine. What they do it for I do not know. I do not 
mean to say that all farmers do it, or that they would all of them do 
anything like that; but I know it is done by some. And I know 
another thing: I saw a lady, when she came home from market one 
time, cut her o-p(>uud roll of butter in two, find a snowball in it, and a 
little stone in the middle of that. [Laughter.] 

The Acting Chairman. A little what? 

Mr. Pierce. A little stone in the middle of the snowball. That was 
" country butter," too, mind you. 



314 OLEOMAEGAEINE. 

The Acting Chairman. What time of the year was this*? 

Mr. Pierce. This was in winter. [Laughter.] It would not be apt 
to have any snowball in it in summer. 

Mr. Knight. It was to refrigerate it, I guess. 

Mr. Pierce. So you see you can't depend altogether on the farmers. 

The Acting Chairman. Of course not. The idea is, that if this bill 
were passed it would put a stop to impositions of that sort, whether 
practiced by farmers, grocers, manufacturers, or anybody else. Do you 
think the workingmen of your association would seriously resent being 
guaranteed that they would get what they called and paid for? 

Mr. Pierce. Well, I know that they don't like this 10-cent business; 
and they want to buy oleomargarine that is colored. 'They like that 
style of it; and they don't like to have to pay this extra 10 cents, or 8 
cents, or whatever it is going to be. 

Now, that is wliy our people object. I think the cheaper you keep 
this oleomargarine the cheaper we will get our country butter, too. 
That is the way 1 look at it. If you raise this tax to 10 cents, don't 
you think the farmer will run his butter up, too'? 

The Ac'J'iNG Chairman. Well, I will not undertake to go into that 
question. 

Mr. Pierce. I don't know, either; but I just think that way about 
it. I am looking at it for my own sake there, because I don't want them 
to raise the price of butter any more. I think 35 cents a pound for 
butter is enough for anybody. 

The Acting Chairman. That will do, so far as the committee is 
concerned, Mr. Pierce. 

STATEMENT OF D. A. TOMPKINS, OF CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA. 

The Acting Chairman (Senator Foster). Mr. Tompkins, do I under- 
stand that you represent the cotton-seed interest! 

Mr. Tompkins. The cotton-seed oil interest — yes, sir. 

The Acting Chairman. From what State are you? 

Mr. Tompkins. North Carolina. 

The Acting Chairman. How long a time do you wish ? Would you 
like the full time, thirty minutes? 

Mr. Tompkins. If I can have thirty minutes, 1 will be very much 
obliged to the committee. 

The Acting Chairman. That is all the time we have this morning. 

Mr. Tompkins. The committee will be very liberal, then, if it gives 
me all the time it has. 

Senator Heitfeld. We convene at 12 o'clock, you know, and we can 
not give you any more time this morning. 

Mr. Tompkins. Yes, sir. What I say will be more of a general nature 
than an attempt to go into specific details; because, I believe, you have 
had any quantity of them. 

I have built a great many cotton-seed oil mills, and have given a great 
deal of time and attention to the subject of finding new uses to which to 
put the oil. It is a product which is a result of discoveries of the value 
of cotton seed, and the new uses to which it is being put from time to 
time exhibit the great value to humanity which is being realized from 
cotton seed in the way of getting a good, wholesome food product. 

English literature is absolutely full of the fights of old methods with 
new methods — of the resistance of peoples who are behind the times 
against those who have made a step foiward, and who have put some- 
thing into the field of competition. And you will admit the value of 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 315 

competition as having- been acknowledged iu all industrial occupa- 
tions. In putting forward something which puts the old processes at 
a disadvantage a flight has always resulted, and the fight has always 
ended in exactly the same way. The new and better thing has always 
won in the end, and it is going to do it in this case, in my opinion. 

The value to humanity to any new discovery or invention may be 
tremendously hidden by the action of a body which exercises such tre- 
mendous powers as the United States Senate. But that one class of 
people shall be legislated for to the exclusion of all humanity getting 
the benefit of the advanced method of putting food stuffs on the market 
I do not believe, or that the inferior of those propositions will succeed 
as against that larger one which appeals to the whole of humanity as 
against the interests of a small class in one occupation alone. 

When the power loom was invented there was the same fight. The 
hand-loom weavers made a great growl about the power loom tearing 
up a domestic industry by the roots, about the unfairness of having 
machinery to put cheaper goods on the market than could be made 
by the hand loom, and there was riot after riot over it, just as in these 
modern times there is appeal after appeal to the United States Senate 
to ])rotect something which in the first place does not need protection, 
which is against the interests of 90 per cent of the people and in favor of 
the interests of 10 per cent. And it is just as in the case of the power 
loom, or in the case of the introduction of aniline dyes as against 
indigo. You might as well be legislating upon the subject of whether 
we could dje our cotton goods with aniline dyes or whether we ought 
to be made to dye them with indigo, because it is a farming industry 
which ought to be protected. 

Whatever the outcome of this particular investigation may be, what- 
ever the Senate may do on this particular occasion, if a food stuff has 
been found out, extracted from vegetable products, largely made up of 
perfectly healthful products on the other hand, which is a good thing 
for all the humanity of the United States, and especially a good thing 
for the working people of the United States, then in time, if you pass 
this law, it is going to be repealed. Some Senators have told me that 
they feel constrained to vote for it because they have heard from their 
constituents. I say that if tliey pass this legislation, they will undo it 
later, because they will hear from their constituents again when they 
do do it. And why? Because, for instance, if you pass this law, 
throughout the whole South you will ap])reciate the products of corpo- 
rate dairies, of men with large fortunes, while you will depreciate by 
$2 a ton all the cotton seed that is sold in the South to a cotton-seed 
oil mill. 

If petitions from farmers were any good, and if these cotton-seed oil 
people had had the foresight to go about it, they could have gotten a 
petition signed by every cotton farmer in the South, because practi- 
cally none of them have any interest whatever in the dairy business, 
and every single one of them has an interest in the cotton-seed oil 
industry to the sake of making or losing -$2 a ton, according to whether 
you pass this bill or whether you do not pass it. 

The Acting Chairman. Do you think it would depreciate cotton- 
seed oil ? 

Mr. Tompkins. I know it. 

The Acting Chairman. What is cotton seed worth now? What is 
the price of it! 

Mr. Tompkins. It varies from $8 to $12; and if you put this tax on 
oleomargarine, and destroy the market for it, the cotton seed will have 



316 OLEOMARGARINE. 

to be bought that much cheaper in order to sell the oil at the depreci- 
ated ])rice, because of the absence of this market. It has got to be 
shipped, then, to Rotterdam to make butter, which is done now to a 
very large extent. There are enormous shipments of cotton-seed oil 
made now to Kotterdam, and the butter of a large proportion of those 
people in Europe who can not afford to use anything but cheap butter 
comes from this cottoji seed oil product, just exactly as the oleomar- 
garine made in this country is largely made up of it. 

Now, in respect to other interests which are interfered with, you have 
heard from the stockmen, and you know tlie extent to which the bill is 
considered adverse to their interest. But there is still another interest 
which I have not heard anybody speak of. I was formerly an employee 
of the Bethlehem Iron Works, in Pennsylvania. 1 lived with the work- 
ing people, because I was one of them, and the food stuffs that were 
bought there had to be economical food stuffs. It was exceedingly 
desirable that they should be able to buy wholesome food stuffs; and if 
your bill were directed to the question of whether these products are 
wholesome or not, it would be quite a different situation. But that is 
not the proposition. And as fai- as this butter being more or less manu- 
factured is concern.ed, the dairy butter itself is really manufactured; 
while the very coloring matter which you are proposing to refuse the 
use of in connection with butterine is identically the same thing, and is 
used to identically the same extent in many cases in the butter that 
comes from cattle, and there is just as much deception in the one case 
as in the other. Asa matter of fact, there is not any deception in either 
case. 

If in the.renovation of butter it is considered desirable to give it a 
uniform color, that is all right. If it can be done without injury, it is 
all right. If the same thing can be done in butterine, I do not see any 
objection to it, any more than you should attempt to object to a girl's 
wearing a pretty color on her clothing to make her look better. The 
dressing up of goods is practiced all the world over all the time. The 
exhibition of goods in show windows, with the brightest colors put for- 
ward, is simply creating an attraction by which the goods can be sold. 
And to undertake to pass upon coloring matter simply because it is 
coloring matter and nothing else is identically the same thing as to 
attempt to prevent one class of women from wearing a particular color 
because it makes them look like another class of women who are 
assumed to have the right to wear those (colors. 

Take the matter of ginghams. We have the same situation all the 
time. We buy a French or a Scotch gingham over here that costs any- 
where from 30 to 60 cents a yard. Immediately, the next year, those 
patterns are all copied and sold for 10 cents a yard. Xow, is the fact 
that the same colors are used, the fact that a girl who perhaps works 
in a factory undertakes to dress herself up in a similar manner to a 
woman who is worth a fortune, but in a very much cheaper way, a legiti- 
mate subject for legislation? And is not this proposition to legislate 
with respect to the color of food stuffs identically the same proposition? 

For this reason, Mr. Chairman, practically the whole farming interests 
of the South are very much interested in seeing this bill defeated. 
The stock interests in the whole United States ;ire very much interested' 
in seeing this bill defeated; and tbere are undoubtedly working people 
from Maine to California who are interested in seeing that a whole, 
good, and cheap foodstuff, made at a price which they can afford to 
pay, is not legislated out of existence — not because the richer man 
wants the poor man not to eat butter at all (and I am not making any 



OLEOMARGARINE. 317 

special i)lea about the poor man; I am simply speaking about the 
facts), but because the fellow who makes the butter and himself colors 
it wants his particular business to be legislated into a monopoly. 

Now, in respect to this matter of petitions, about which I have 
heard a good deal, there is not to my mind tlie slighest doubt in the 
world that they have been manufactured. The dairy interests have 
gone out among farmers and persuaded them that their interests were 
being interfered with by this product, and having gotten their names 
on petitions without their ever having come voluntarily forward to sign 
any of those petitions at all. And I assert, without the slightest hesi- 
tation as to the truth of what I am stating, that 90 per cent of the 
farmers of the South could be gotten to sign a petition asking for 
every one of you to vote against this bill. I have not the slightest 
doubt that oO i^er cent of all the working people of every State in this 
Union would do the same thing; and 1 know I could go to the Bethle- 
hem Iron Works and get !)0 per cent of the people there, by a repre- 
sentation of what you aie doing and what you propose to do, to sign a 
petition demanding that you should not vote to destroy the best 
improvement in foodstuffs which has been made for the last quarter 
of a century for the benefit of those who have to live economically, 
whether they are working peojile or whether they are not. 

I assert another thing, wliich is a repetition of that which has already 
been stated — that if you are passing this bill in the belief that it is in 
accordance with the wishes of your constituents, when you pass it you 
will hear from your constituents again. Your constituents on the 
other side have not any appreciation ot what you ])ropose to do. The 
people who are interested in the cotton business and the cotton-seed oil 
business have been absolutely idle in this matter, whereas the friends 
of the bill have been securing petition after petition, using money and 
labor, and getting the names of people who were not interested in it at 
all. Now, I would like to make a wager that the petitions you will get 
if this bill is passed, after it is passed, will immensely exceed those 
which you have gotten before. 1 claim that those you have gotten 
have been manufactured to a very large extent, while those which you 
will get will be spontaneous and energetic. And they will come from 
Maine and from Pennsylvania and from Ohio and California and Texas, 
and from every other State of the Union; because there are too many 
people interested in this subject, vitally and in their homes, too many 
people who would look upon it as being exactly the same thing as a 
law which would prevent an ordinary girl from wearing a gingham 
which imitated somebody else's tine frock — the same thing as a bill 
which would ])ermit the use of aniline dyes, which are cheaper and in 
some cases better, because somebody wanted to promote the indigo dye 
business; or a bill to try to prevent by legislation the use of a ])ower 
loom, because it would destroy the domestic industrj^ of hand loom 
weaving. 

Now, if there is anything the matter with this coloring matter which 
it is proposed to put into either butter or oleomargarine, then you can 
properly put a high tax upon it or forbid its use entirely as being inju- 
rious to health. It would be perfectly proper to inquire into the whole- 
someness and into the healthful character of all the i>rocesses and all 
the ingredients that go into either butterine or butter: and if you 
should undertake such an inquiry, I predict that you would find just as 
many faults in one as in the other in all probability, and that if in the 
processes or in Hie materials that are used, or in the raw materials with 
which the processes start, there should be any advantage one way or 



318 OLEOMARGAKINE. 

the other it would be on the side of cotton-seed oil every time. There 
is not a more wholesome article made, and it so closely approaches olive 
oil, which is one of the finest foodstaffs that has been known for cen- 
turies upon centuries, that you can scarcely tell the difference, even if 
you are an expert, while those who are not can not tell the difference 
at all. 

Senator Money. Will you allow me to interrupt you? 

Mr. Tompkins. Certainly. 

Senator Money. A few years ago the Italian Government prohibited 
the imiiortation of cotton-seed oil because it was destroying the olive- 
oil industry. 

Mr. Tompkins. And what was the result? That the exportation of 
olive oil fell off about two thirds, as I understand. 

Senator Money. Yes. 

Mr. Tompkins. That is just what I am predicting will follow in this 
case. They found that it injured an industry much greater than the 
one which they were making laws about, and that they had to promptly 
repeal the act which they had passed just as soon as they could get to 
it. They found that the interests of the olive-oil people themselves 
were interfered with by an act which practically destroyed a large part 
of the trade in oil. 

Senator Dolliver. They mixed the cotton-seed oil with the olive 
oil and sold it to the purchasers as being the genuine stuff, did they 
not? 

Mr. Tompkins. Sometimes they mixed it and sometimes they did 
not. Sometimes tiiey sold it without any mixture as the genuine stuflfj 
and it was the genuine stuff. It was just as good an oil. It was a 
v«^getable oil. It was refined to the same degree of color. It was used 
for the same purpose, and you could not tell it from the other. Why 
was it not the same stuff"? 

Senator Money. Why, the Senator himself is using it every day. 

Mr. Tompkins. Of course he is. 

Senator Dolliver. No; I avoid all suspicious mixtures. 

Mr. Tompkins. Then you do not eat anything but cotton-seed oil, for 
there is nothing suspicious about that. I think about a great many of 
these other things, and especially about dairy butter, there would be 
quite a suspicion attached to them. I am not criticizing it, you under- 
stand, but I say there would be quite a strong susi^icion attached to 
dairy butter as regards simply whether it was nothing but dairy butter 
or whether it was something made in a dairy, and was oleomargarine 
or butterine, as you call it. For it is a fact that even the buttermen 
use coloring matter. It is probably harmless, and is all right enough, 
but in many cases they also use more or less stearin and cotton-seed 
oil in their products. In fact, when they jjut the coloring matter in 
the butter, I understand they use cotton seed oil as a medium for the 
color, so that all the so-called dairy butter has more or less cotton- 
seed oil in it, wherever it has been colored, and cotton seed oil has 
been used as the medium. 

Senator Money. All the higher grade butter has cottonseed oil in it? 

Mr. Tompkins. All the higher grade butter has cotton-seed oil in it. 
[Laughter and applause.] 

I had occasion once in my life to be sent to Germany to put up a 
lot of machinery, and in going to the place where I boarded, I observed 
that there was some trouble about the question of my sheets. On 
investigation I found that they were straining a point consideiably to 
give me linen sheets to sleep on instead of cotton sheets. When I 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 319 

fouud that out I told them that they were worrying themselves about 
something which I did not consider ot' any consequence at all. I said: 
"Go ahead and put the cotton sheets on; 1 would just as lief sleep on 
them as sleep on linen sheets'' — like the fellow in a storm, who, when 
the ship ran on a mud bank, told the captain to put him out, that he 
was brought up in a muddy country. I told them that I was brought 
up in a country where cotton grew — that I had no prejudice against it 
at all, and that it was all right. 

But in that country they had identically the same prejudice against 
the use of cotton — cotton clothes and cotton sheets — as we find exists 
in this country with reference to a food product made by another proc- 
ess than in a churn. ISIow, I knew that that was a prejudice, and noth- 
ing but a prejudice. I knew that it was a prejudice which would 
break down with absolute certainty. And yet all over Germany, 
because the habit had existed for century after century for a girl who 
was going to get married to get a whole lot of linen sheets and linen 
tablecloths and linen naj)kins, it was not thought respectable to have a 
house with cotton sheets in it. Yet cotton was a good clothing jjrod- 
uct. I told them that they would get over that prejudice. And since 
that time — it has been twelve or fourteen years ago — I have heard that 
a tremendous increase in the use of cotton cloth has taken place, 
because it is cheaper, because it is just as good as linen. And it is 
simply a question of time when the whole prejudice will be totally 
broken down, and cotton goods will go in Germanj^ just as they go here. 
Some will use linen where linen is better, and some will use cotton 
where cotton is better; but the great bulk of the plain peo])le will use 
cotton, and it will fall to a condition where linen is only used, not 
because cotton is not just as good and just as agreeable, but becanse 
people are rich and want to pay more for something in order to make 
a little distinction about it. Now, 1 predict that this product of cotton- 
seed oil and other ingredients which go to make a good, wholesome, 
ordinary butter will come to be used all over this country; that the 
United iStates Senators and the other aristocracy [laughter] will not 
question whether it is that or anything else; that only a few people 
who want to be finicky about having something a little different from 
anybody else will pay a bigger price for the dairy butter, the supply of 
which will always be inadequate to meet the demand, and is inadequate 
now. But the great mass of the consumption will be of a butter made 
of wholesome products from the cow, in the way of beef, stearin, and 
tallow, and otber things, and of cotton-seed oil, and whatever other 
ingredients aie necessary to make a butter just as satisfactory, when 
compared with the dairy butter, as cotton is satisfactory when com- 
pared with linen. 

Senator Dolliver. Do you think the curiosity on the part of the 
average citizen to know what is in it will disappear in the course of 
time? 

Mr. Tompkins. Except on the part of the dairymen. I think tlieir 
curiosity will continue throughout the investigation. 

Senator Money. Like bash; they do not care what is in it. 
[Laughter.] 

Mr. Tompkins. Take the case of the poor workingman. You know 
perfectly well that they can not aftbrd to pay .35 cents a pound for dairy 
butter. Tliey do not question whether the butter sold to them at 15 or 
20 cents a pound was made bj^ this process or that i^rocess. They 
simi)ly question whetiier it is wholesome and whether it tastes all 
right; and I will tell you that there are no more particular people in 



320 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

the world than those working people of Philadelphia and Bethlehem, 
where I formerly worked, as to the matter of the wbolesomeiiess of the 
food they eat. The housewives there keep the best houses iu the 
United States, They use cottou sheets, and they use cotton all the 
way through. 

Senator iMoney. They have good sense. 

Mr. Tompkins. Yes ; they have good sense. They make our armor 
plates and armor forgings and build our ships. Those are the people 
who do these things. 

I take it tiiat the United States Senate can handicap the progress of 
improvemeut. They can pass a law saying that a power loom can not 
be run except by paying a tax on it, in order to try to protect the hand- 
loom weavers. That is what the English people did a hundred years 
ago, but it did not succeed. The opi)Osition did not last. There were 
people killed. There were riots. Tliere was intiuite trouble. You can 
stay the progress of an improvement for a time, but if it is an improve- 
ment it will succeed in spite even of legislation. Political economists 
tell us that on one occasion in Eugland,and on more than one occasion 
in other countries, trade had been maintained by smugglers when the 
tariff attempted to destroy it, or was put so high as to make it practi- 
cally prohibitory. It is well known in making tariff lists that if you 
attempt to put an embargo on a certain class of goods, you can not put 
more tlian so much on it, because if you do you will throw the business 
totally into the hands of smugglers. 

I ain one of those who believe that this cotton seed oil business, 
together with its outgrowing industries, is one which you are not going 
to stop by legislation. It is a food stuff which is too valuable, wliich 
goes to too many people, to have a stop put to it even by law ; and you 
will have a whole lot of people arrested in the year during which the 
bill lasts if you i)ass it. You will have a whole lot of trouble about 
collecting these revenues; but the industry will go on, and in time you 
will get tired of it and you will repeal this bill, and the improvement 
will live, as almost all improvements live. And some of the people who 
helped to pass the bill will live at home and run dairies, instead of 
legislating in Congress. 

I may say that if there are any questions which the gentleman would 
like to ask I will be happy to answer them. 

Senator Dolliver. Have you gone over the question of how far 
cotton-seed oil enters into the oleomargarine product? 

Mr. Tompkins. It is a veiy variable (luantity, more or less; and in 
many cases cotton seed oil is used for cooking pur[)Oses without any 
mixture at all. I think the Secretary of the Treasury has investigated 
the subject, though. Mr. Miller, can you tell me what tlie percentage 
is? It is something like 10 per cent. 

Mr. JNIiLLER. Ten million pounds, I understand, were used during 
the past year. 

Senator Dolliver. What is the percentage in that particular 
formula "? 

Mr. Tompkins. It is a matter of investigation by the Secretary of the 
Treasury. You will find his statement accurate, I think. 

Senator Dolliver. What is it — the oleo oil, or the neutral oil, or 
the butter oil? 

Mr. Tompkins. The butter oil. 

Senator Dolliver. It seems to be 8 per cent. Of course this legis- 
lation does not affect the ordinary domestic use of cotton-seed oil. You 
have said that considerable of that was being used without admixture. 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 321 

j\Ir. Tompkins. Well, the whole proposition is this: Here are two 
food stuffs. Put one tlirough identically the same tests that you do 
the other, and the only difficulty about that, so far as the dairy people 
are concerned, would be that the oleomargarine and cotton-seed oil 
products would come out ahead every tinie. 

Mr. SCHELL. If the committee and the speaker please, that formula 
which is given there is only the formula used in one particular grade 
of oleomargarine at one particular factory. It is not a criterion of all 
that that factory turns out or of what any other factory turns out. 

Senator Dolliver. Is there any accessible criterion to which we 
could turn ? 

Mr. Tompkins. The Secretary of the Treasury has made an investi- 
gation, and you could ultimately get the result of his investigation by 
applying for it. But, as I tell you, it is very variable. Some factories 
use 8 ])er cent, some 

Mr. Knight. The Secretary of the Treasury says 10 per cent is the 
average. 

JNIr. Jelke. About 10 per cent. 

Mr. Tompkins. The Secretary's report gave. 10 per cent as an aver- 
age of the whole sum of oleomargarine. There is oleomargarine made 
without any cotton-seed oil at all, I think. 

Senator Monev. That is the lowest grade. 

The Acting Chairman. Then you cotton-seed oil men are rather 
opposed to some kinds of oleomargarine! 

Mr. Tompkins. Ko; we are not opposed to any good thing. We 
think a good thing is all right and ought to be let alone. It is only 
the dairy men who are '' gunning for it." 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAS'i'. I call the attention of the gentleman to this fact, 
which probably will not be provided against as the bill now stands: 
Cotton-seed oil, under this bill, could not be used at all, because cotton- 
seed oil has quite a little color in it, and, as I suggested when I was 
speaking befoie the committee, it would be one of the ingredients 
which would cause it to look like butter. 

Mr. Tompkins. Then, in that phase of the bill, I do not understand 
how a committee of the United States Senate could consider for a 
moment the passage of an act wiiich would permit the use of a color- 
ing matter in one case and prohibit it in another, any more than you 
would permit the wearing of a dress of a certain kind by one woman 
and prevent the use of the same color by another. I do not see under 
what pretext it could come about. 

Senator Money. It appears, from what they claim here, then, that 
everytliing needs coloring except cotton-seed oil. [Laughter.] Butter 
needs coloring, and oleomargarine is colored, but cottonseed oil does 
not need anything in it. 

Mr. Tompkins. Cott(m seed oil really, on its merits, needs absolutely 
nothing. This is a controversy between other products. 

The Acting Chairman. Your time is up, Mr. Tompkins. We must 
go to the Senate. 

Mr. Knight. If there is any other representative of the cotton-seed 
interest here I would like to get him to give me the figures as to the 
interests of the cotton- seed oil people here. According to a little cal- 
culation I have made, the amount of cotton- seed oil used in oleomar- 
garine constitutes less than two-thirds of 1 per cent of their gross 
output. 

Mr, Tompkins. I can tell you right now that they have $0,000,000 
worth of interest a year in it, if this bill is passed in depreciation of 

S. Rep. 2043 21 



322 OLEOMARGARIISrE. 

the value of cotton seed. According to my estimate of 3,000,000 tons 
of cotton seed which are used for making oil every year, their loss would 
be $0,000,000 a year — the loss of the cotton-seed people alone. Now, 
you would bleed the working people of the country of ten millions more, 
and you would bleed the stock people of five. That is what you would 
do. That is an estimate of the value, in dollars and cents, of these 
interests. 

The Acting Chairman. We have been informed that 107,000,000 
pounds of oleomargarine were made last year, at about 20 cents a pound. 

]\Jr. IScHELL. You are forgetting the efiect of this legislation on 
exportation. 

Mr. Tompkins. Yes; its efiect on the market ])rice, in decreasing the 
market price of oil, and increasing the i>rice of the food stufis of the 
working j)eople, who now buy oleomargarine. You must not forget 
those two facts. 

Thereupon, at 12.05 o'clock, p. m., the committee took a recess until 
2.30 o'clock, ]). m. 

At the expiration of the recess the committee resumed its session. 

Present: Senators Uolliver (acting chairman) and Foster. 

Present, also, Charles Y. Knight, secretary of the National Dairy 
Union ; John F. Jelke, representiug Braun & Fitts, Chicago, 111.; Frank 
W. Tillinghast, rejtresenting the Vermont Manufacturing Company, of 
Providence, K. I. ; Charles E. Schell, representing the Ohio Butterine 
Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio, and others. 

The Acting Chairman. Who is the next speaker ? 

Mr. TiLLiNCiHAST. Mr. Conley is ready to be heard, as I understand. 

The Acj'iNG Chairman. You are here in the interests of cotton seed? 

Mr. Conley. Yes, sir. I represent the De Soto Companj^, of Green- 
ville, Miss. 

STATEMENT OF J. B. CONLEY, OF GREENVILLE, MISS. 

31r. Conley. ^Ir. Chairman, I am here representing the Crushers 
Association, and more particularly the mills of Mississippi. There are 
other gentlemen here from diflerent sections of the country represent- 
ing the same interests, who will enter their protest with mine against 
the ])assage of the bill known as the Grout bill. 

1 feel sure, Mr. Chairman, that the passage of this bill will be far 
more reaching than yon now contemplate. It will afiect the cotton- 
seed oil mills very materially, to a greater extent than we can now 
realize if we take into consideration only the loss of the sale of the oil 
that goes into oleomargarine. The efiect of the jiassage of the bill 
would be to leave a surplus on hand which we would have to in some 
way dispose of; and the best that we could count on, assuming that 
Ave could dispose at all of this accumulated surplus of oil (and I will 
add here that the mills generally carry over a surplus of oil) would be 
to dispose of it at a lower price. As you know, Mr. Chairman, a sur- 
l)lusof any commodity means a lowered price. 

There are something over 400 mills in the cotton States, about 240 
mills east of the Mississippi River, 21 in Arkansas, and 2 in Missouri. 
As to the number of mills in Texas, I am not accurately informed, but 
will estimate it at about 150. We have 45 mills in Mississippi; and if 
this bill becomes a law it will entail a very serious loss to the mills 
and to the planters and to the laborers and everybody interested. We 
have 4 mills in the little city of Greenville, where I live, representiug 
a capital of something like $400,000; and I do not think I exaggerate 



OLEOMARGARINE. 823 

when I say it would be likely to result in a loss to the mills of any- 
where from 3 to 5 cents per gallon, each cent being- equivalent to 40 
cents per ton on seed. Or, taking the whole consumption of cotton seed 
for manufacturing purposes, it would mean a loss of from $.^,000,000 
to 85,000.000 per annum to the oil industry, each cent per gallon of oil 
being equal to $1,000,000 per annum on the whole crop of cotton seed. 
This would mean, furthermore (viewing* it in another light), that there 
would be a clear loss to the oil industry of from 10 to 20 per cent of 
their total earnings. Of course, there is no doubt that this loss would 
ultimately fall on the planter, who in a large majority of instances is 
the small white planter and the negro, and as the working men in the 
northern and western countries would be deprived of a cheap and 
healthy substitute for the butter, the poor farmer of the South would 
get less for his cotton seed. 

The passage of this bill unquestionably means a blow to the indus- 
trial interests of this entire country. I do not mention the raisers of 
cattle and hogs, as their case has been already ably represented before 
your committee. They would also be heavy losers, and who would be 
the gainers by it? As half of the oil manufactured is exported, it 
would mean that the foreigner would gain to half the extent of the 
Southern losses, while in this country the only gainers would be the 
dairymen of a few States of the Union. In our own State of Missis- 
sippi, where practically all the available seed is used by oil mills, the 
loss on the above basis would amount to three-quarters of a million of 
dollars, which would be equivalent to placing a tax of about 75 cents 
per bale on the planter's cro]). 

If the object of the bill be simply to prevent the sale of oleomarga- 
rine as butter, we have no objections whatever to a more stringent and 
searching regulation than now exists, but we certainly protest against 
the injustice of hampering an industry in which we are largely inter- 
ested by putting oleomargarine under regulations that do not apply to 
other products of a similar nature, and branding it thereby as an 
unhealthful article of food. It seems to me that it is entirely against 
the spirit of the Constitution of our country to tax one industry for 
the benefit of another industry. Moreover, the passage of this bill 
would be an entering wedge and a new argument to the European 
nation for putting prohibitive duties on our products, for the slur cast 
upon oleomargarine by the Grout bill will be eagerly seized upon by 
the foreigners, who wish to keep out products, as an evidence that we 
ourselves believe oleomargarine to be unhealthy. 

It seems to me very unfair that the manufacturers of oleomargarine 
are not to be permitted to color their product to suit the public taste, 
under a heavy penalty, while the manufacturers of butter are not to be 
hampered in any way, although it is a notorious fact that nine-tenths 
of the butter put on the market is colored artificially. I think all that 
the oleomargarine people ask, and all that we ask, is fair treatment; 
and if there is to be a tax on color, then let both industries be taxed 
alike. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to call your attention to the fact that 
our industry has been built up in comparatively a few years, until now 
it is one of the most important industries in the United States, after 
cotton and grain. While cotton seed was formerly a waste product, it 
may be said that our industry has sprung from a waste. The South 
now realizes from it a revenue of from $30,000,000 to $50,000,000 per 
annum. If this Grout bill should pass and the oleomargarine industry 
is thereby crippled or wholly destroyed, it will mean that one avenue 



324 OLEOMARGARINE. 

of consumption is cut off from the oil mill, and the annual surplus of 
production over and above consumption will be doubled. Any busi- 
ness man will know what this would mean. It would mean a reduction 
of thefprice of tlie product, especially at the beginning and the end of 
each season. 

In view of all these facts, Mr. Chairman, we beg leave to enter our 
most earnest protest against the passage of this bill. 

STATEMENT OF HENRY BOND, OF CHATTANOOGA, TENN. 

Mr. Bond. The gentleman who preceded me said just about the same 
thing that I am going to say, but 1 did not know he was going to do so. 

I am engaged in the cotton-seed-crushing business and manufacture 
crude cotton seed od. 

There are 15 cotton seed oil mills in Tennessee, representing, in 
investment and capital, abont $2,0(M),00(>. They employ about 1.000 
men and have a weekly i)ay roll of about 110,000. 

I am req nested by these interests to i)rotest before this committee 
against the i)ass}ige of the (iroiit bill — first, because we are opposed to 
class legislation, and, secondly, because we think this i)articnlar bill 
will work a great hardship to oui' community. 1 desire to give briefly 
our reasons for so thinking. 

I have here the credentials authorizing me to represent the mills of 
which 1 speak, and 1 will say that the company of which I am the vice- 
president owns and operates U of the I."> mills in the State of Tennessee. 

Testimony heretofore given before your committee indicates that 
about .0,000 barrels of cotton seed oil are used in the manufacture of 
that portion of oleonuirgarine that is consumed in this country annually, 
and while we have no definite data, the impression prevails that more 
margaiine oil is exported than is used here. 

The mills of Tennessee will crush this year about 150,000 tons of 
seed and make over 100,000 barrels of oil, or probably just about 
enough to fill the requirements of the oleonuirgarine trade. 

The oleomaigarine manufacturers, however, use only the very best 
grades of cottonseed oil wherever they can find it, and pay higher 
prices than the mills ran obtain from any other source, and we believe 
that their demands go a long way toward setting the market price for 
the whole cotton seed oil })roduction. 

After it was known last spring that Congress would not (for some 
time, at least) further imi)ede the oleomargarine business the ])rice of 
cotton seed oil at once advanced, and the advance was maintained all 
during the summer and fall, until Congress reassembled and renewed 
the attack upon it. Since then, although other conditions seemed to 
warrant the expectation of higher prices, oil has declined about 5 cents 
per gallon, or $2.50 per barrel, and w^e believe this decline is due to 
the threatened legislation against oleomargarine, which deters the 
manufacturers from making purchases for future use. ' 

Favorable weather all fall and winter had expedited the picking and 
ginning of the cotton and the marketing of the seed. That part of the 
business is practically over now, and there is no way in which the mills 
can protect themselves, so that they alone will have to bear the burden 
of the loss this season. 

Hereafter, however, should the Grout bill or any similar prohibitoiy 
measure become law, and these conclusions be correct, the nulls, in 
self-protection, will be forced to reduce the price of seed to correspond 
with the reduced price of oil, and the farmers will then have to bear 



OLEOMARGARINE. 325 

tlie loss. A decline of -$2.50 per barrel iu the jirice of oil will necessi- 
tate a reduction of $2.50 per ton in the price of seed ; and upon that 
basis the Tennessee mills alone would pay out for the quantity of seed 
used this year $375,000 less than they would otherwise do, even if there 
should be no further decline in the market i)rice of oil; and this loss 
would fall upon the class of fanners least able to bear it. 

This statement applies with equal force and truth to every oil mill, 
and on the same basis will indicate, on tlie 2,000,000 tons of seed 
bought by the 100 mills, an annual loss to the farmers of the South of 
$5,000,000; and this, mark you, is caused merely by the fear of the 
enactment of the law. What depression would result from its actual 
enactment can only be conjectured. 

A few words about our product: 

Tlie uuinufacture of cotton seed oil is conducted entirely by means of 
machinery, and with the utmost cleanliness. From the time it leaves 
the fields as seed cotton until it leaves the mills as oil, it is not touched 
by hand. As it is the cheapest edible oil known, it is not possible to 
profitably adulterate it. Its nutritive (i(ualities are so well recognized 
by physicians that its use is often indicated by them, even in its crude 
state, to those of their i)atients who, suffering from tuberculosis and 
other wasting diseases, are unable to buy the higher-priced olive and 
cod liver oils. Its palatability is known by everyone engaged in its 
manufacture. Tliough oil mills run only a few months in the year, they 
never have any trouble in getting hands, and at the time of starting up 
are usually overwhelmed with applicants. A negro will quit any other 
job to get where he can inhale the fragrant odor of the oil and drink as 
much of it as he pleases. 

Mr. Knight. May 1 ask the gentleman a question? 

The Acting Chairman. If he will permit it. 

Mr. Knight. Do you use any chemicals in the puritication of cotton- 
seed oil? 

Mr. Bond. We do not refine, sir. We manufacture only the crude oil. 

Mr. Knight. Are you cognizant of the process of refining! 

Mr. Bond. No, sir. 

Mr. Knight. In speaking of the loss that is likely to occur to the 
planter in case the amount of cotton seed oil used at present in the 
manufacture of oleomargarine in this country is displaced, you spoke 
of it as $5,000,000. 

Mr. Bond. Five millions of dollars; yes, sir. 

Mr. Knight. Do you know what the actual amount of cotton-seed 
oil used in the manufacture of oleomargarine in this country isf 

Mr. Bond. Approximately. 

Mr. Knight. What arc your figures, please? 

Mr. Bond. Well, sir, I have stated that about 40,000 barrels are 
used in the manufacture of oleomargarine in this country. That cor- 
responds with the figures from the Treasury Department here. There 
are something like 107,000,000 pounds of oleomargarine made, of which 
amount about 10 or 11 ])er cent is cotton-seed oil. 

Mr. Knight. And what is that oil worth ? That would be 10,000,000 
l)Ounds. What is that oil worth i)er pound? 

Mr. Bond. I have just stated in what I have said that it is the very 
best grade of oil, and we think it goes a long way toward setting the 
price for our whole production. It is a matter of fact, not of specula- 
tion, that the price of oil advanced as soon as Congress adjourned last 
spring and declined when this bill came up again. The mills of Ten- 



826 OLEOMARGARINE. 

nessee have already actually experienced a loss, I think, of $2.50 per 
barrel on all oil that had not been contracted for. 

Mr. Knight. Well, it is worth 6 cents a pound, is it? 

Mr. Bond. Oil? 

Mr. Knight. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Bond. Six cents a pound? 

Mr, Knight. Yes, sir — that is, butter oil! 

Mr. Bond. Kot crude oil ; no, sir. 

Mr. Knight. The refined oil, I mean? 

Mr. Bond. I am not familiar with the refined oil. I do not handle 
refined oil. The price of crude oil in last May varied from 30 to 31^ 
cents per gallon of 7i pounds. 

Mr. Knight. Five cents a pound, then? 

Mr. Bond. Not as much as 5 cents a pound. 

Mr. Knight. Yes; that is true, there being 7^ pounds to the gallon. 

Mr. Bond. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Knight. At that rate the 1(),(K)(),000 pounds of cotton-seed oil 
would be worth about .f7.'i(>,000, would they not? 

Mr. Bond. What 1(3,000,000? 

Mr. Knight. The 16,000,000 pounds probably used in the oleomar- 
garine produced last year. 

Mr. Bond. In this country? 

Mr, Knight. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Bond. Well, the oleomargarine people buy the very finest grade 
of oil, and this number of pounds, as you will understand, is after it 
has been refined. There is a considerable loss in refining. How much 
it is I do not know; but the 1(5,000,000 of pounds represent more crude 
oil than they would in pounds of refined oil. 

Mr. Knight. Yes ; I see. 

Mr. Bond. So I think the estimate I have made there of 100.000 
barrels is probably as near as we can get to it. 

Mr. Knight. One hundred thousand barrels? 

Mr, Bond. One hundred thousand barrels in this country; yes, sir. 

The Acting Chairman, Is this cottonseed oil used in the manufac- 
ture of other food products besides oleomargarine? 

Mr, Bond, Why, sir, I presume a good deal of it goes into creamery 
butter. It goes into olive oil, which is largely used in lard. Compound 
lard has a large per cent of it. It is used in linseed oil, undoubtedly. 
It is used by the soap makers. 

The Acting Chairman. It is used by the lard people, you say. 

Mr. Bond. Why, yes, sir. 

Mr. Peuson. Yes, sir; it is very largely used by them. 

Mr. Bond, I do not know the per cent that is used in compound lard, 
but 1 remember that in 189(5, I believe it was. Swift & Co. said they 
used 500,000 barrels of cotton -seed oil in their compound lard. I have 
no statistics as to the quantity that is used now. 

Mr. Person. It is used in butter color, always. It is the medium 
that carries the color for butter color. 

Mr. Knight. That is a very slight use, however. 

Mr. Bond. But the oleomargarine people are the best customers we 
have. They buy the finest grade of it and pay the highest prices, and 
if we are deprived of their trade we feel that we will lose the best cus- 
tomer we have. 

JNIr. Knight. P>ut is there not any way of getting at the vahie of 
that refined oil, that butter oil? 



OLEOMARGARINE. 327 

Mr. Bond. Why, you could probably get that from the oleomargarine 
people, sir. 

The Acting Chairman. Where is this oil refined? 

Mr. Bond. There are several refineries at Louisville, and there are 
refineries at Cincinnati, New York, New Orleans, Kansas City, Savan- 
nah, Atlanta, and ^leniphis. 

Mr. Knight. To get back to the subject, the oil that is used by the 
oleomargarine people could not at the outside amount to more than a 
million dollars in value, could it? 

Mr. Bond. A million dollars! I have not made the calculation that 
way. If, as I figure it, the}' use 100,000 barrels of oil, that would be, 
at, say, U5 cents a gallon, about a million and a quarter dollars. But 
the oil which is used by the oleomargarine manufacturers sets the price 
for all of our oil. We estimate, in round numbers, that there are about 
forty gallons of oil in a ton of seed. In practice we do not get out that 
much. So you will see that a difference of a cent a gallon on the oil 
will make a difference of about 40 cents on a ton of seed. The price of 
seed has been reduced about $2.50 a ton. 

Mr. Knight. You mean that the value or price of butter oil, and not 
particularly what these people buy, sets the value of your product, do 
you not? 

Mr. Bond. Well, the quantity is small. I estimate that the quantity 
is about 7^ per cent of our total production. There are about 2,000,000 
tons of seed crushed in the South, and I figure that about 150,000 tons 
go into oleomargarine, or about 74 per cent. 

Mr. Knight. Do you know the amount of exports of cottou-seedoil ? 

Mr. Bond. No, sir; of cotton-seed oil entirely, you mean? 

Mr. Knight. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Bond. No, sir; I do not. 

I will say that when I received notice from these mills to aj)pear here 
to represent them, I went around in the town in which I lived to make 
some inquiries about the sale of oleomargarine. I was not familiar 
with it. I went to my grocer and he told me that his exclusive sale at 
this season of the year was in 1-pound bars, each of which was wrapped 
up and branded in large letters " Oleomargarine." He had two grades, 
apparently alike, one of which he sold at 15 cents and the other at 20 
cents; and he sold his best butter at 35 cents. He said: "Here is a 
grade of butter that I sell to you, but I have a very great difficulty in 
getting enough of it to supply my trade." He said: •' I sell about as 
much oleomargarine as I do butter. I sell about 500 pounds of each 
every week ; and no man has ever bought from me oleomargarine think- 
ing he was getting butter. There is no occasion for any deception, 
because they call for it and buy it for what it is." 

I want to say further that I was in Sheffield, Ala., two or three weeks 
ago. We run an oil mill there. As I went into the office of the hotel, 
there was a notice written in large handwriting and stuck up con- 
spicuously on the wall in the hotel office, " We use butterine in this 
hotel." You do not find that everywhere. That man was probably a 
little more honest than some others. 

The Acting Chairman. Probably he was conforming to the State 
^aw. 

Mr. Bond. No, sir; not at all. 

Mr, Knight. I think that is in accordance with the State law of 
Alabama. They have a law in Alabama forbidding the coloring of 
oleomargarine, and something regarding signs. 



328 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. Bond. I think that indicates tliat there is very little prejudice 
against it. 

The Acting Chairman. Has anyone here a list of the Southern 
States which have prohibited the sale of colored oleomargarine? 

Senator Heitfeld. Oh, yes; it is right here in the House report. 

Mr. Peuson. You can find that in Bulletin No. 20. I will give you 
a synopsis of the laws of all the States. 

The Acting Chairman. Before the present speaker retires, 1 would 
like to ask some questions about this matter. 

I notice, Mr. Bond, that a number of the Southern States seem to 
have forbidden, by law, the sale of oleomargarine colored in semblance 
of butter. The State of Alabama, the State of Georgia, the State of 
Kentucky, the State of South Carolina, the State of Tennessee, and 
possibly other of the cotton producing States seem to have made it a 
violation of their statutes to sell colored oleomargarine. 

Senator Heitfeld. Those statutes, you know, differ. You can find 
the statutes in this report, 1 believe. 

The Acting Chairman. Y^es; but they ajjpear to agree in the 
respect that yellow oleomargarine is prohibited. How does it happen, 
then, that these great cotton-raising communities have taken that kind 
of action against this healthful food product? 

Mr. Bond. I think there must be some mistake about the State of 
Tennessee, because it is largely sold tliere. This grocer has it on his 
counter. 

The Acting Chairman. That is what it says here. 

Mr. Bond. And he told me he sold 500 pounds of it a week. 

Senator Heitfeld. I have the Tennessee law here. It provides that 
any article which is in imitation of yellow butter, and not made exclu- 
sively from pure milk or cream, is prohibited; but oleomargarine, free 
from'color or other ingredient to cause it to look like butter, and made 
in such form and sold in such manner as will advise the consumer of 
its true character, and other imitations, if uncolored and labeled with 
their correct name, are permitted. Wholesale packages are requested 
to be plainly labeled, and a label must accompany retail sales. 

That permits the sale of oleomargarine free from color. 

The Acting Chairman. How does it occur that in great cotton- 
producing States like South Carolina, and Tennessee, and Mississippi, 
it is a crime under the State laws to sell an article which is so essential 
to the cotton industry? 

Mr. Bond. I think that must mean under the name of butter. 

The Acting Chairman. Well, under the appearance of butter? 

Senator Heitfeld. The language nereis, -'Oleomargarine free from 
color or other ingredients to cause it to look like butter." 

Mr. Bond. What is the date of that law? 

Senator Heitfeld. That is the law of 1895. 

Mr. Bond. Well, sir, that is ex post facto. That is not the present 
law. 

Mr. Knight. Here is the latest publication from the Agricultural 
Dei)artraeut, dated 1000. The Tennessee law is given there in full. 

The Acting Chairman. Now, I suppose that law is observed by the 
oleomargarine people, is it not? 

Mr. Bond, i do not know how they do. The grocers sell it there on 
their counters. 

The Acting Chairman. Do they sell oleomargarine? 

Mr. Bond, It has the appearance of cow butter. 

The Acting Chairman. Do they sell it for oleomargarine? 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 329 

Mr. Bond. Yes, sir. 

The Acting Chairman. Or do tliey inform their customers that it is 
butter? 

Mr. Bond. Each brick or print of it is wrapped up separately, and 
has the word ''oleomargarine," in large letters, printed on the outside 
of the wrapper. 

Senator Heitfeld. That is in accordance with this statute, which 
says that it can be sold, but not in imitation of butter. It must be free 
from color. 

Mr. Bond. It is not sold in imitation of butter. It is sold as oleo- 
margarine. 

Senator Heitfeld. It says here i)lainly, " But oleomargarine, free 
from color or other ingredient to cause it to look like butter," can be 
sold. 

The Acting Chairman. Would you expect this committee to be 
more tender of your cotton-seed interests than the legislature of Ten- 
nessee has been "I 

'Sir. Bond. Well, sir, oleomargarine is sold there openly. I did not 
know of this law. I do not think that is the law now. 

The ACTING Chairman. I have no doubt it is. This is a compila- 
tion of the Department of Agriculture, giving a statement of the national 
and State dairy laws. 

Mr. Miller. Mr. Chairman, I will say here for the benefit of Mr. 
Bond that there is a law in Tennessee, but it is practically inoperative. 

Tlie Aci'iNG Chairman. That is to say, the oleomargarine manufac- 
turers and dealers violate it? Is that the idea? 

Mr. Miller. The goods are sold in the State as oleomargarine by the 
retail dealers as well as by the manufacturers. There is no attemj^t at 
violating the law. The goods are sold exactly on their merits. 

The Acting Chairman, But the law seems to prohibit the sale of 
the article if it is made in imitation of yellow butter and not made 
exclusively from j)ure milk and cream. It is stated here that any arti- 
cle which is in imitation of yellow butter, and not made exclusively 
from pure milk or cream, is prohibited. 

Mr. Miller. Well, Mr, Chairman, as you know, there are thousands 
of laws on the statute books which are offensive to the mass of the 
people and are not enforced. That is one of them. 

The Acting Chairman. There ought not to be any law in the State 
of Tennessee which would be in violation of material interests such as 
our friend here has described, I should say. 

Mr. CONLEY. Mr. Chairman, I would liKe to call your attention to the 
Mississippi law for a moment. Have you it"? 

The Acting Chairman. I have it here. In Mississippi the law pro- 
vides that packages of oleomargarine or similarly manufactured but- 
ters shall be plainly labeled with the correct name of their contents, 
and the i)roduct shall be sold by that name, A privilege tax of $5 is 
imposed upon persons selling the article named. 

Senator Heitfeld, That is simply a label law. 

^Ir. Conley. I merely wanted to call your attention to the fact that 
the Mississip])i law does not prohibit the sale of colored oleomargarine. 

.Mr. Person. It recognizes its legality. 

Senator Heitfeld. Oh, yes; you can sell oleomargarine of any color 
there. 

The Acting Chairman, Now, in South Carolina, which is one of the 
great cotton-producing regions of the country, I notice that the State 
has enacted a law which says that any article not made wholly from 



830 OLEOMAKGARINE. 

pure milk or cream, and in imitation of pure butter, is prohibited; but 
oleomargarine, colored pink, and in such form and sold in such manner 
as will advise the consumer of its real character, is i)ermitted. 

Now, do you expect Congress to deal more tenderly with the cotton- 
seed industry than the legislature of South Carolina has? 

Senator Heitfeld. What is the date of that act. Senator? 

The Acting Chairman. That seems to be the present law. 

Senator Heitfeld. The present law given here is different from 
that. 

Mr. Knight. This is a later one. Senator. 

Senator Heitfeld. What I have here is the law of IS9G. 

The Acting Chairman. This publication is dated 1900. Tt is a 
compilation by R. A. Pearson, well known as an expert on the dairy 
question. 

Senator Heitfeld. What I have is the report of the House hearing. 
They have the last year's law. 

Mr. Knight. That report was printed last March, and this one was 
just printed in the last few days. Senator. 

The Acting Chairman. Now, the point made by me is whether or 
not the cotton-seed industry will be disturbed if oleomargarine is put 
upon a basis which will not disturb the butter business — that is to say, 
if it is put upon the market in such packages as would not, by the imi- 
tation of butter, deceive the community as to the character of the 
goods. That seems to have been the view taken by these Southern 
States. 

Mr. Bond. Yes, sir. As I said in that paper, I do not believe the 
cotton-seed oil interest will sustain any further loss after this year, 
because they will throw it upon the man who sells the cotton seed. 
They will take care of themselves. They will not pay him as much for 
the seed; that is all. 

The Acting Chairman. But it seems to me that the legislature of 
Tennessee ought to be looking out for the raisers of seed, too. 

Mr. Bond. How is that? 

The Acting Chairman. Would not the legislature naturally be tak- 
ing care of the interests of the agricultural population of the State? 

Mr. CoNLEY. Mr. Chairman, allow me to interrupt you. Are not all 
those laws old laws, enacted six or seven years ago? 

Senator Heitfeld. Oh, no. The law of South Carolina is that of 
1896; Tennessee, 1895. They are not old laws. Virginia has a color 
law which was passed in 1898. Louisiana has a law passed in 1888; 
Florida, 1881; Georgia, 1885. i^ow, the Georgia law, accordiiig to this 
synopsis, is : 

Imitation butter and clieese are defined as any article not produced from pure 
milk or cream — salt, rennet, and coloring matter excepted — in semblance of butter 
or cheese, and designed to be used as a substitute for either. Shall not be colored 
to resemble butter or cheese. Every package must be plainly marked "Substitute 
for butter " or " Substittite for cheese," and each sale shall be accompanied by verbal 
notice and by a printed statement that the article is an imitation, the statement 
giving also the name of the producer. The use of these imitations in eating places, 
bakeries, etc., must be made known by signs. 

Mr. Knight. That is an anticolor law. 

Senator Heitfeld. Of course; but it does not prohibit the sale of 
these articles. 

Mr. Knight. It does if they are colored. 

Senator Heitfeld. Yes; you are right about that. 

Mr. Miller. Mr. Chairman, I would like to say just here that about 
three weeks ago Governor Hoard was down in Georgia trying to stir 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 881 

up some sentiment iu favor of tlie Grout bill, and incidentally lie got a 
few peoi)le In Atlanta to introduce a bill placing further restrictions ou 
butterine. The cotton- seed oil people found it out and killed the bill 
in a few days. That happened three weeks ago. 

Mr. CoNLEY. I was going to state, Mr. Chairman, that if you will go 
back a few years in the South everybody had prejudices against the 
use of cotton-seed oil iu cooking. They raise it there, and as I stated, 
it comes from the waste. We used to throw it away and never made 
any use of it. Everybody was prejudiced against it, and it is only in 
the last year or two that it has become so notoriously healthful a food. 
Since then I am satisfied the laws have not been changed; but at the 
same time the product and the article are sold in all those States right 
along without any interruption. 

The Acting Chairman. That would simply indicate the hiwlessness 
of the business. 

Mr. CoNLEY. How is that? 

The Acting Chairman. That would indicate a disposition on the 
part of those interested in the business to disregard and violate the 
statutes. That is not a healthy sign. 

Mr. CoNLEY. Well, 1 think any one of our Southern States can vio- 
late a statute when they want to do it, you know. 

The Acting Chairman. I should think that was so. 

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM PERSOIJ, REPRESENTING AMMON & 
PERSON, JERSEY CITY, N. J. 

Gentlemen of the Committee: In speaking to you of the subject 
under consideration, it will perhaps be difticult to present it to you iu 
any way more convincing than it has already been given to you by 
those who have heretofore had your patient and courteous atteiition. 

Eepresenting a firm reputed to be one of the largest — and let me 
here impress upon you at all times legitimate — dealers in oleomargarine, 
I may be pardoned for the belief that as a dealer I can give you some 
facts which will merit your full consideration, if not your indorsement. 

In our State, New Jersey, we have several hundred retail dealers iu 
the product duly licensed and under the constant espionage and con- 
trol ot the revenue department of this great Government, and as is 
conceded by the Commissioner, with ample means in men and money 
to rigorously enforce every requirement of the severe regulations which 
have from time to time been promulgated. Besides this, New Jersey 
has a dairy commissioner, who, as his title indicates, is clothed bj' law 
with full authority to control the sale of all butter substitutes within 
the State. Let me here say that New Jersey has the exceptional dis- 
tinction of being about the only State the law of which closely dove- 
tails or harmonizes with the Federal law in requiring every seller of 
oleomargarine to convey with each sale his full name and address, 
together with the amount and nature of the article he sells as a sub- 
stitute for butter. 

As proof of this I desire to have go in the record these examples of 
tickets commonly used by dealers throughout New Jersey: 

10 lbs. oleomargarine, 

Auimon & Person, 

138-140 Ninth street, 

Jersey City, N.J. 



332 OLEOMARGARINE. 

By tbe last census you will find that the State of New Jersey is not 
far behind those which lead in the magnitude and variety of its manu- 
factures, which leads me to suggest that in this coutiuuiug controversy 
between oleomargarine and butter (good or bad) the mechanics, oper- 
atives, artisans, or other workers for a modest wage have rights which 
a white man is bound to respect, be he butterman or Congressman, 
and should at least be permitted to exercise his God given and Consti- 
tutional right to cater to the normal requirements of his inner man. 

This brings me to the point I wish to make, that butter, the best of 
it, is now retailing at 28 to 30 cents per pound, and in some instances 
double and treble tliese figures when sold under the mark of cattle 
which carry the pretensions and prestige of a long lineage and small 
fortunes invested in them because of their pedigrees. As contrary to 
this condition, consider the prices of the "poor man's" butter, which 
under a name designed to hinder its sale steadily and continously sells 
at a much lower price to the everlasting credit of the little Frencli 
chemist, who first evolved it from the fat of the steer and gave to the 
cattle interests of the United States an added impetus and value, and 
to the world at large a food product, which, measured in the light of 
coming generations, will be beyond human calculation or measurement 
in its benefit to mankind. 

This may seem like an overdrawn statement from an enthusiast, yet 
let us probe into the future a trifie to see how far away we are. 

In the hundred years intervening between 1790 and 1800 the popu- 
lation of the United States increased from 3,929,214 to 62,022,250 
people, or an increase of 1,493 per cent. 

Is it a wild proposition to suggest that in the next hundred years 
our population will increase half as much as it did in the preceding 
hundred years, or, say, 700 per cent? If you will concede this, let me 
mirror the future for you in four sections of time and you will have in — 

1925 125,000,000 

1950 230,000,000 

1970 - 350, 000, 000 

1990 500,000,000 

Now, let us bear these figures in mind while we consider their rela- 
tion to the question of butter versus butterine. If the estimate of 
future population is correct, I am bold to assert that in the period 
between 1925 and 1950 there will be no milk available for the making 
of butter, which of course would be no great hardship, provided you 
or your successors do not tax butterine out of existence. You may 
smile at the gloomy outlook, yet it is a fair prophecy in saying that if 
the present rate of increase of population is maintained with the esti- 
mated shortage of the cow supply, the supply of milk in the coming 
years will all be required for table purposes, invalids, and let us hope 
as a saving and salvation for our race — butterine. 

In confirmation of this I may cite Secretary of Agriculture Wilson, 
who stated a short time ago that there are 10,000,000 less cattle in 
this country than there were ten years ago. Think of it, a decrease of 
1,000,000 a year. His reason for it was the conceded impoverishment 
of the grazing lands, which he stated would only feed the present num- 
ber of cattle at best. 

Some of you gentlemen will recall the drought of last summer, espe- 
cially in the eastern section of the country, when many farmers sold a 
part of their herds because of lack of pasturage and feed, the effect of 
which is still felt in an enhanced cost of those products largely depend- 
ent upon a good grass crop, of which may be instanced condensed 



OLEOMARGARINE. 333 

milk, of wbich oue factory alone was short 1,000,000 cases of 4 ilozeu 
cans each which they had sold but were imable to deliver because of 
the milk shortaj^e. The denuding of the forest lands has in many 
instances lowered the beds of the rivers, and an open winter such as 
we are now exi)eriencin4;', with a lack of snow, often results in jjoor 
crops and poor pastures. Such conditions mean great scarcity of milk, 
with invariably high prices for butter. Wdl it not — does it not follow 
logically that people of limited or moderate means will be compelled to 
use some substitute because of their inability or unwillingness to pay 
a high ])rice for the cow product"? 

This line ot thought prompts an answer to tue question put by one 
of the committee at a jjrevious session, as to whether "the continued 
production ot butterine v\ ill tend to decrease the i)rice of milch cows ?" 
An answer may be found in the Orange Judd Farmer, which is author- 
ity for the statement that in 181)1 there were in the United States 2(18 
cows to every 1,000 inhabitants, and that the average value of these 
cows was $!il.02 each. The ligures given for lOdO are 250 cows, at an 
average valuation of $31.12 each, an advance of 44 per cent in cost 
and a decrease of about 'S^ per cent in ratio of increase. 

If this is so, as I think our iriends on the cow side of the fence will 
be forced to admit, the predictions for the future must be taken as 
more than conservative. Further authority is found in the Sussex 
Independent, of Deckertown, N. J., published in a county which sup- 
plies one-fifth of the total milk i)roduct of that State, and in its issue 
of February 2 explains the scarcity of cows as follows: 

The time was, and not far distant either, that the bntter-niaking farmers of these 
grass-growini;- midland counties made it a point to raise the greater portion of their 
r'alves and sell oft" those they did not want in .September and October foi- prices rang- 
ing from $3 to $5 a liead. Of late \ ears they feed the calf well nntil it is six or 
eight weeks ohl and get about donble for it what they did when they kept it from 
fonr to six months under the old style. The new method has had a great deal to do 
with making the supply of cows less, and there is not half the number of cows 
from up this way marketed in Orange County that there was fifteen years ago. 

In further contirmation of the proposition that the supply of cows or 
milk will not keep pace with the increase in population, it will not be 
gainsaid that the increased demand for milk in the cities has already 
caused a tremendous decrease in tlie production of butter in all the 
States known as the eastern and middle divisions, and has caused the 
milk to tiow from the farms to the consumers in the cities and towns of 
those States. Indeed, so much is tliis the case that statistics of the 
railroads known as milk roads will show that the average haul of milk 
has doubled, and in some instances trebled, in the jiast ten or fifteen 
years, sliowing beyond cavil how widely the territory has extended 
which contributes to the milk supply of the centers of population. 
Are there any who will hazard a prediction that in twenty-five years 
butter will not be a luxury and butterine more of a necessity than it is 
even uowf If, as I believe, the future has this in store for us, why not 
prepare for it, and make ready for the inevitable condition which will 
confront those who will come after us, but who, if this tax is permitted 
to become a law, will certainly not build monuments to your states- 
manship or pronounce eulogies on your foresight. If these suggestions 
do not meet your approval, let me in all seriousness ask your approval 
of a plan which I am sure will quickly have the indorsement of every 
farmer in the land and will certainly relieve you gentlemen of all pres- 
sure from your constituents to vote for the present bill, 

Kemove all tax on oleomargarine and instead leave to the States 
such regulations as will permit the farmer to work up his milk with the 



384 OLEOMARGARINE. 

materials wliicb are also raised on the farm aud wliicli go to make oleo- 
margarine, and so render him independent of the creameries, which 
are rapidly growing- into a monopoly or trnst aud who pay what they 
like to the milk producer. 

Another reason, and a strong one, for the removal of taxes, espe- 
cially the special tax of $48 per annum on retail dealers, is the inabil- 
ity of small storekeepers to pay it. The larger ones do not find it a 
hardship, but the ])Oor widow or old man struggling to eke out a bare 
living does not ordinarily have $48 in a lump atone time; besides, 
does not sell sufficient to make the $48 in the course of a year. On the 
other hand, he can not compete with large tea and grocery companies, 
who, with hundreds of branch stores, buy butter in large quantities 
and retail it at cost price as an advertisement to draw customers for 
tea aud coflee, which yield large profits. Thus the poor people trading 
with the lone widow and old man are prevented by law from sharing in 
one of God's richest blessings in the shape of a liealthful, wholesome 
food. 

To a layman, it would seem that oleomargarine is no more an object 
of Federal taxation than any other of the thousands of food products, 
original and simulated, all of which are susceptible of proper control 
by State legislatures. In disposing of this feature of the question let 
me ask, is it not crowding the mourners pretty close, es})ecially in dis- 
tricts where butter is not made, to compel its residents to pay tribute 
to Uncle Sam who now has an annoying surplus of quickly acquired 
wealth, and to the private firms engaged in the creamery business? 

Doing business in a State where the law is regulative, not prohibi- 
tive, our experience in the selling of oleomargarine may be (lifferent 
from those who do business in States where its sale is not permitted at 
all. In New .Tersey, with its thousands of mechanics, mill operatives, 
and other earners of small wages, there has been developed a large 
and widely distributed trade in oleomargarine, which is called for and 
sold as such, bearing every mark and label called for by both the Fed- 
eral and State laws. 

That the trade is large and constantly growing larger is due to the 
fact that we advertise our goods constantly and extensively, and per- 
sonally urge ui)on the grocers of the State the merits of our goods as 
a cheaper and better article than the process or other grades of butter 
that their class of trade i)ermits them to purchase. 

The Acting Chairman. Will you allow me to interrupt you just at 
this point to ask a question? 

Mr. Person. Certainly, sir. 

The Acting Chairman. It appears that the law of New Jersey pro- 
vides that any article made wholly or partly out of any fat, oil, etc., 
not from pure milk or cream, artificially colored in imitation of pure 
yellow butter, is i)rohibited. 

Mr. Person. Yes, sir. 

The Acting Chairman. How do you manage to do business in yel- 
low oleomargarine in New Jersey, then? 

Mr. Person. We have had that question settled by the courts, Mr, 
Chairman. 

The Acting Chairman. What was the settlement? 

Mr. Person. I can not recall just what the decision of the court 
was, but it was sufiQciently in our favor to enable us to sell the goods 
as we sell them. 

The Acting Chairman. What was the decision of the court? 

Mr. Person. The decision of the court was that if the goods carried 



OLEOMARdARINE. ^^35 

any artiticial color tliey were not to be sold, but we Lave goods in our 
m;trket made from a richer oil that gives us a color that will sell in 
our market. 

The Acting Chairman. Tlien you find it possible to get a good 
trade in oleomargarine that is not colored in imitation of pure yellow 
butter? 

Mr. Person. >*o; our goods liave a color. 

The Acting Chairman. But is it the color of pure yellow butter? 

Mr. Person. It is the color of yellow butter. I will show you the 
colors directly, Senator, if you will allow me to go on. 

The Acting Chairman. 1 was simply curious to know how you did 
such a good business there with that law. 

Mr. Person. This is the situation in our State, and has made many 
of the groceis ready converts to the sale of oleomargarine, and, being 
in close touch with customers in their neighborhood, has helped to 
popularize oleomargarine in all the large cities and towns of the State, 
while even in strictly farming sections farmers are buying it openly 
and above board, and blessing their lucky stars they can sell their milk 
and for a part of its returns purchase an article which they admit is 
better and more uniform than they could themselves produce. 

Let me now speak of the color phase of the question. If you gentle- 
men couhl get out and among the dealers of a great State, as we do in 
our business, I am sure you would get some new and peculiar ideas of 
the so-called color of butter. Like the human race, butter is o( all sorts 
of colors and conditions, with sufficient and varying shades of color as 
to well typify almost every race on the globe, except our Afiican 
brother, the black. I have here fourteen different standard shades of 
yellow (and there are still others) which you can find reproduced in the 
butter of commerce. 

[Mr. Person at this point exhibited samples of color to the committee.] 

Mr. Person (continuing). Every one of those. Senator, is a yellow. 

The Acting Chairman. Do you find it possible to sell oleomarga- 
rine of that color [indicating very dark shade] in New Jersey? 

Mr. Person. No, sir. 

The Acting Chairman. That is labeled " 95— D." 

Mr. Person. But I will promise you, on the word of a man, that 
those are all honest, straight yellow colors or shades. 

The Acting Chairman. But do you find it possible to sell oleo- 
margarine in New Jersey of the color indicated upon that slip? 

Mr. Person. No, sir; not here. 

Mr. Jelke. But it is sold in Cuba. 

Mr. Person, in the French islands, in Martinique, and Porto Eico 
they demand a very high, rich color. 

The Acting Chairman. This [indicating another color] appears to 
me to be a light orange. 

Mr. Person. Yes, sir. 

The Acting Chairman. Will oleomargarine colored in that shade 
sell 

Mr. Person (interrupting). We have seen some of the high-priced 
Sharpless butter in the height of the season that was I think I may 
fairly say, colored as highly as that; was it not, Mr. Jelke? 

The Acting Chairman. What I mean to inquire is, can you sell 
oleomargarine that is colored in that shade? 

Mr. Person. Yes, sir. 

The Acting Chairman. In New Jersey? 

Mr. Person. Yes, sir. 



336 OLEOMARGARINE. 

The Acting Chairman. Without any prejudice on the part of the 
poor people? 

Mr. Person. Oh, there is some prejudice as to that, because that is 
a very high color. 

Mr. Jelke. I have seen that color of oleomargarine and butter both 
sold in St. Louis. 

Mr. Person. But I do not think the majority of people would care 
to have it as highly colored as that. 

Mr. Jelke. Of course that is not a reasonable color. 

Mr, Person. No; that is what we would call a highly-colored butter. 

Mr. Jelke. Those are only a few shades, practically. 

The Acting Chairman. Will you point out the color there which is 
salable in New Jersey? 

Mr. Person. That [indicating sample] is about it, is it not, Mr. 
Jelke? 

Mr. Jelke. I think that would be nearer [indicating another sample]. 

Mr. Person. We have a very light yellow there. 

The Acting Chairman. What I want to get at is this: Your law 
there seeins to prohibit the sale of oleomargarine if it is artificially 
colored in imitation of pure yellow butter. That seems to be prohibited. 

Mr. Person. The trade in our State is in the highest (piality of goods. 
We require the highest quality. 

The A( ting Chairman. But I want to know what decision your 
courts have made which eual»les you to sell oleomargarine in New 
Jersey. 

Mr. Person. We are permitted to sell it where the State can not 
prove, by analysis, that the goods carry an artificial color. 

The Acting Chairman. But you do not color the goods'? 

Mr. I'ERSON. We have them made for us. 

Mr. Adams. Mr. Chairman, I have a reference to that decision, if the 
gentleman will permit me to give it. 

Mr. Person. Not until I am through, if you please. 

The Acting Chairman. I would like to see it. 

Mr. Person. I am perfectly willing that you should show it to the 
Senator. 

The Acting Chairman. You can proceed, sir. 

Mr. Person (continuing his remarks). I have here 14 dift'erent 
standard shades of yellow (and there are still others) which you can 
find reproduced in the butter of commerce; l)ut let me say, in justice to 
the would-be monopolists of the national color of China, that the darker 
shades are used by those who export butter to the French and other 
islands near our new possessions. It is singular, yet true, that differ- 
ent localities in the same State often call for lighter or darker shades 
in their butter; aiul while nature often responds to new and peculiar 
demands of humanity, she has not yet produced the cow that will give 
14 shades or more of yellow butter that are required to meet the 
demand. If, therefore, the Grout bill becomes a law the creamery men 
of the West will have the privilege of using any number of so-termed 
yellow colors, while the maker or seller of the substitute will be limited 
to a solitary, separate, and painfully distinctive white, which only the 
sense of taste will enable a consumer to detect from lard. 

It is constantly asserted and reiterated by those behind this bill that 
it is in the interest of and primarily for the benefit of tlie "poor farmer," 
which, I take it, eliminates the rich farmer from any interest or con- 
cern in its outcome. If so, I oppose this bill as a farmer myself, owning 
a few acres in New Jersey, whereon I assure you I can beat all my 



OLEOMARGARINE. 337 

neighbors in securing a crop of stones, sliowing that I am the poorest 
farmer in the buncli, yet with my two little Jersey cattle I gain a 
revenue sufficient to compensate me for my ignorance in other direc- 
tions, as my milk pays me much more hiindsomely than any other part 
of my operations as a farmer, and is a proposition which ai)plies to 
every other farmer iu the county, the majority of whom sell inilk to its 
residents and are better satisfied with the returns than those from 
any other product. 

There is, however, a more serious aspect to this bill from the farmer's 
point of view wliich, if they rightly uuderstood it. they would be less 
ready to be used and quoted as disciples of the false creed and doc- 
trines which have been conceived in selfishness and sin, born under 
misconception and falsehood and practiced with deception toward the 
cow owners and consumers until the real merits of the question have 
been hidden and obscured in a mighty clamor which has been manu- 
factured for the present occasion, until even the representatives of the 
whole people have been cajoled and misled into an indorsement of an 
act intended to but partially, at most, benefit a class, instead of the 
mass, of the people tliey are su])posed to represent. 

I contend that, far from injuring the farmer, the oleomargarine indus- 
try can be made a positive, lasting benefit to him. At present in 
States prohibiting oleomargarine the milk producer must sell either to 
the milk dealer or to the creamery man. If this is true then would it 
also be true that if oleomargarine makers were operating in all the 
States a larger and still more profitable market for milk would be 
gained, as the milk producer would have another large and steady com- 
petitor for his product, with a certainty of still better prices; in proof 
of which many farmers in New York and Kew Jersey are on record who 
formerly sold their total product to the factories in those States. 

Now, in harmony with what I have just stated, I want to digress and 
say this: That we have in New Jersey a county called Sussex, which, 
as I have already stated, produces the great bulk of the milk that is 
sold in the State as milk. Owing to the agitation in the State legisla- 
ture regarding oleomargarine, I have personally visited hundreds of 
farmers in Sussex County, all of whom were in accord in saying that 
they got better prices for their milk when we had oleomargarine factories 
in New Jersey and New York than they have ever been able to get 
since. 

That I am not alone iu this contention 1 submit the following extract 
from the July report, 1895, of the Hon. George W. Eoosevelt, United 
States consul at Brussels, Belgium: 

Some tiiiic since, France sent a dele.ijation to Holland for the purpose of studying 
the methods employed there for the suppression of frauds in butter makinu;, and also 
to ascertain if the manufacture of margarine (oleomargarine, butteriue) has been 
favorable to agricultural interests. The report contains the attestation of seven 
mayors of communes in southern Holland, showing tiiat since the introduction of 
the mar<rarine industry in that country (Holland) not only has the price of milk 
increased, but also the number of cattle, which plainly shows that the industry in 
question has become a source of profit to the farmers. 

That buttterine is a "large" subject is already well attested by the 
mass of testimony that has been adduced before the lower House, like- 
wise by the testimony which has been presented to this committee, and 
by the more painful fact that an extraordinary large tax is sought to be 
placed upon the product which is the subject of this discussion. I ask 
the committee to bear with nie a few minutes longer, in order to say that 
the most bitter of our opponents no longer oppose oleomargarine on 
the ground of unhealthfulness or impurity. On the contrary, the con- 

S. Kep. 2043— i!i^ 



338 OLEOMARGAKINE. 

sensus of expert, authoritative opiiiiou tbroujihont the world is in favor 
of its absolute purity in its iuception or basic materials, and tborouj;li 
cleauliiiess in their manipulation and the completed product, and to-day, 
if exact justice were done, the sign and synonym of perfect purity, 
without suspicion of dross or alloy, would be the words, "Pure as but- 
terine.*' For what other food ])roduct under the sun can the same be 
said? Take any list of foods sold by the grocer, or any other purveyor 
of eatables, and instantly you will be confronted with the suggestion 
that the bulk of them are open to the suspicion of sophistication or 
substitution of their most imiiortant or essential elenients. This asser- 
tion applies to butter more readily than to many other food necessi- 
ties, as is evidenced by the efforts that have been made for some years 
past to control the sale of renovated or jirocess butter, and which in 
truth is more urgently required than the commonly advertised and 
open sale of oleomargarine. 

It is the good fortune of this Government to have in its Department 
of Agriculture one who has a world-wide fame as an exi)ert on dairy 
products. I refer to Prof. Henry E. Alvord, chief of the dairy division. 
This gentleman is on record as a consistent advocate of the purity of. 
our dairy products and as opposed to all sham and fraud in the sale 
of substitutes; willing that oleomargarine shall be sold as such, and 
maintaining that the greater and more subtle fraud — renovated butter — 
should be under the regulation of the (Government. 

To show this 1 am permitted to read a letter from Professor Alvord 
to a prominent i)hysician, giving his views on renovated butter. It is 
as follows: 

February 8, 1900. 
Dr. J. J. Baumaxx, 

661 Jersey Avenue, Jersey Cify, N. J. 

Dear Sir : Your inquiry has been received relating to process or renovated butter. 

We Lave nothing printed upon tliis subject, and it would be impossible to give you 
a full account of it within the limits of a letter. 

Briefly, it is butter which has become nnmerchaiitable, or what we would call bad 
butter, running through all the de.urees of badness, bought up cheaply, brought 
together in large quantity, reduced to a limpid oil by melting, and clarified by both 
chemical and mechanical ]irocesses, which are more or less secret. The oil is then 
drawn off, a semblance of the crystallization or granulation of butter fat is obtained 
by chilling, usually by spraying the fat into ice water, and then it is rechurned with 
more or less sour milk or buttermilk to give it the new flavor, salted, and made up 
for market. 

It is in this form just what the name "renovated "implies. Unless adulterated with 
other fats, which is not usual, it can be claimed to be pure butter, as far as chemical 
composition is concerned. But many of the characteristics of good and fresh butter 
are lacking, and the renovated article deteriorates very rapidly unless it is kept 
quite cold. 

The chief objection to this renovated butter is that it is sold in large quantities 
under misrepresentation in place of fresh creamery butter, and at prices much above 
its actual value. Fraud upon purchasers and consumers is thus perpetrated, and 
this is the feature connected with the business which needs governmental interfer- 
ence and regulation. 

Very respectfully, yours, Henry E. Alvord. 

I have here the original letter, which substantiates what I have read. 

Further evidence of the necessity for the regulation of this fraud is 
found in the laws which have been passed here in the District of 
Columbia, as well as in some of the States, and are published in Bul- 
letin No. 2ij of the Department of Agriculture, which you now have 
before you. These laws are intended to secure in this District and in 
the States mentioned a standard for pure butter, and require, m the 
District of Columbia: 88 per cent of fat, 12 per cent of water, 5 per cent 
of salt. Iowa : 80 per cent of fat, not over 15 per cent of water, not over 



GLEOMAEGARINE. 339 

per cent of salt. Indiana: 80 per cent of fat. Georgia: 80 per cent 
of fat. Oregon: Not over 14 per cent of water. 

I might say, in addition, that these figures of water and salt open up 
vistas of considerable adulteration or " tilling." 

Besides this, New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and one or two 
Western States (1 think they are Wisconsin and Michigan, are they nof?) 
have laws providing for the selling of process butter under its true name. 

Mr. Adams. Yes. 

Mr. Person. But all of which are evaded or defied because of the 
difficulty of its detection when sold as the pure butter of the "poor 
farmer" or his master, the creamery man. Contrast this with the con- 
ditions surrounding oleomargarine, which is subject to the laws of 
thirty-two States and the Federal law, which spreads over and embraces 
every sale of over 10 pounds from the dealer to the consumer through 
the monthly reports which the revenue law exacts. 

Taking the figures of the New York butter market — the largest in the 
country — as an index, the receipts of butter there during 1900 show an 
increased production of that article, the excess in 1900 over 1899 being 
48,000 packages, the large falling oft in exports proving that the home 
consumi)tion is increasing rapidly, and also proves that the price of 
butter in other countries is less than in the United States, as Canada 
and Australia undersell the United States in the English and other 
European markets, which all tends to illustrate clearly that through 
the operation of the tax laws against oleomargarine and the import duty 
against butter, the people of the United States are compelled to pay 
more for their butter than people of other countries. 

Mr. Knight. May I interrupt you a moment. Do you know what the 
receipts were in New Y^ork in 1898? Have you got those figures there? 

Mr. Person. No, I have not; but these are figures that I have 
taken 



Mr. Knight. That is, to show an increase in receipts in New York? 

Mr. Person. Yes, sir. I had no idea of making a dig at the Chicago 
butter market, 

Mr. Knight. Oh, I do not care about that. I do not belong to 
Chicago. 

Mr. Person. I have but recently learned of the ])roposition made by 
a gentleman who has previously ap])eared before this committee, which^ 
in my opinion, is a fair and full solution of the unfortunate condition 
you gentlemen have to consider, and if our friends on the opposite side 
de><ire to meet us on a fair basis, it will, I think, be found in that sug- 
gestion, which is, that the butter and oleomargarine interests agree 
upon distinctive well-defined shades of yellow color, by which their 
respective products can instantly and positively be identified. The 
numerous shades of that color, some of which are very marked, cer- 
taiidy afford full opportunity to sharply define the limit of color which 
either product shall not transgress or appropriate, and which will 
afford the public every chance to exercise its judgment in deciding 
which article they shall select as a lubricant for their bread or other 
purposes. 

Believing in the honesty of many of those who would have the (7 rout 
bill as a remedy for their supposed wrongs, and in the rights of the 
oleomargarine makers and dealers, whose interests would be annihilated 
by a law which forces them to bleach out whatever shade of yellow their 
goods might develo]) from the basic materials used, it will, 1 tliink, appeal 
to you, as fair-minded men, that the suggestion as to separate shades of 
yellow should be accepted by both sides, and so end this unpleasant 



340 OLEOMAKGARINE, 

and interminable warfare between two large and equally important 
industries. 

For tbis much to be desired culmination there are almost unlimited 
opportunities, some of which may be found in the creamery associa- 
tions on one side and the makers of oleomargarine on the other — the 
representatives of both of which could ijrivately, or in public conven- 
tion, arrange full details. I am sure that one-half of the eftbrt made by 
the butter interests, if rightly directed toward a mutual understanding 
and purpose to i^rotect the right of the opposing side, would be 
promptly and effectively aided by the butterine or oleomargarine 
advocates. 

The Acting Chairman. Now, I want to ask you a few questions. 

Mr. Person. Certainly, Mr. Chairman. But do not ask me as a law- 
yer. Ask me as a layman. 

The Acting Chairman. Yes, as a business man. It appears here 
that the legislature of New Jersey has passed a law making it a 
criminal offense to make or sell oleomargarine which is colored with 
so-called annotto, so as to make it resemble the color of butter. 

Mr, Person. Yes, sir. 

The Acting Chairman. Now, you say that there has been a decision 
of the supreme court of New Jersey which permits you, as a citizen of 
that State, to sell oleomargarine in the State" of New Jersey regardless 
of its color 1 

Mr. Person. No; I did not say that. Senator. 

The Acting Chairman. On the theory that the color arose from 
the material out of which it was manufactured? 

Mr. Person. Yes, sir. 

The Acting Chairman. Now, do you mean to say that without arti- 
ficial coloring marter the oleomargarine manufacturers, by the use of 
the natural ingredients that enter their product, can produce these 
colors ? 

Mr, Person. Not these colors — no. I simply say this, Senator: 
That the oleomargaiine makers can, by a selection, at the proper time 
of the year, of the cotton-seed and animal or oleo oils, pick out the rich- 
est oils, which carry with them a color of their own. I think any gen- 
tleman will bear me out in saying that cotton-seed oil has a color of its 
own and so has oleo oil. 

The Acting Chairman. Can they produce, for example, the color 
of June butter"? 

Mr. Person, No, sir; far from it. 

The Acting Chairman. Can you sell oleomargarine that is not of 
that color? 

Mr. Person. The June color? 

The Acting Chairman. Yes, 

Mr, Person. Yes, sir. What is the June color? 

The Acting Chairman. Now, as I understand, the ordinary con-, 
stituents of oleomargarine produce a white product. 

Mr. Person. No, sir; that is an error. 

The Acting Chairman. Then we have been misinformed here. 

Mr. Jelke. You are mistaken in that. 

Mr. Person. What do you mean? 

Senator Bettfeld. I do not believe anybody testified that it was a 
pure white color. 

Mr, Person, White is not a color. 

Mr. Jelke, It is a sort of grayish white, I think. 

The Acting Chairman. On the order of the color of lard, for 
example? 



olp:omaroarine. 841 

Mr. Jelke. If the Senator will allow me, I will state that cotton-seed 
oil has a sort of greenish tinge. You will notice that in those colors 
there is a great variety of tint, and none of the 14 yellows that are there 
look like butter colors. They have a sort of greenish tint. 

The Acting Chairman. They do not all of them look like yellows^ 
for that matter. I may be a little blind on color. 

Mr. Person. Well, 1 may be blind myself, sir. 

Mr. Jelke. The mixture with lard andoleo oil (which has a pale straw 
color) makes a combination of color that is not pleasing to the sight. 
It is not a clear white, like butter. 

The Acting Chairman. Now, then, I understand from what has been 
said by the present speaker that the manufacturers, without adding any 
artificial coloring matter, but by selecting the materials proi)erly, can 
produce oleomargarine without that objectionable color. 

Mr. Jelke. I have been told that they could. 

The Acting Chairman. Who is your manufacturer? 

Mr. Person. Well, I do not know that I should answer that question 
here. Senator. You are opening up a field that I am not i^repared to 
go into. 

The Acting Chairman. What I want to know is how the product 
finds its way into the open market in the 32 States where it has been 
prohibited by law. 

Mr. Person. I think that question has been met by the answer giveu 
you some time ago — that if the laws are not in consonance with public 
thought and feeling, and are not indorsed by the public, they will not 
be sustained. 

The Acting Chairman. But you, as a merchant, do not stop to 
inquire whether the laws of New Jersey are iu consonance with public 
thought and feeling before you ijroceed to violate them, do you "? 

Mr. Knight. Mr. Chairman, you will have liim incriminating himself 
presently. 

The Acting Chairman. I am simply interested to know about this 
matter. 

Mr. Person, Your remarks are rather leading, Senator. 

The Acting Chairman. I do not want to make my remarks offensive 
at all. 1 find here, however, these statutes preventing this thing, and 
yet you are a good merchant, proceeding to do a good business in the 
State of New Jersey. 

Mr. Person. We have the courage of our convictions. 

Mr. Miller. Mr. Chairman, allow me to say that Mr. Person is a 
wholesale dealer. He sells goods in the original packages only. Is 
that not so? • 

Mr. Person. That is right. 

Mr. Miller. We have had a number of opinions from the Supreme 
Court, giving ns the privilege of selling original packages, unbroken 
packages, manufactured in other States. 

Mr. Person. I have referred to the fact that we wefe handling 
original ])ackages there, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Miller. There is a decision in Minnesota and one in New Ham- 
shire to that effect. 

The Acting Chairman. But the supreme court of New Jersey seems 
to have decided that that law is constitutional, even as applying to 
interstate commerce — that is to say, to articles shi[)ped in from the 
other States and sold in the original packages. 

Mr. Person. That law has been upset by a more recent decision of 
the United States Supreme Court, Senator. 



342 OLEOM AEG ARTISTE. 

Mr. Knight. Oh, no. 

Mr. ScHELL. Why, Mr. Chairman, on the color question 1 agree with 
your view. I never saw butter that looked exactly like that particular 
combination. But is the ordinary butter what might strictly be termed 
yellow, after all? Is it not more of a golden color? Of course it is a 
shade of yellow, but it is not 

Mr. Person. I have not spoken of these as colors. I have spoken 
of them as shades. 

Senator Heitfeld. You can find butter here in the Center Market 
that has a tint approaching that third deepest color — that is, that would 
be the color, but it is reddish. It is a reddish yellow, just the same. 
It is the Elgin butter, I believe. 

Mr. Knight. Senator, I want to say that in the butter trade we 
have made a great many efforts to reproduce the color of butter in 
some way so that a standard could be printed, and we find it impos- 
sible to print anything that looks like the real butter color. The color 
of butter is on a grease, and it appears that no printing ink, on paper 
or anything of that kind, will look like the actual butter color. We 
have tried that and we have failed. 

Senator Heitfeld. Then there are so many shades of color, even in 
June and July; and different grasses make different colors. Take our 
Western country, for instance. The blue grass gives color different 
from that of butter from alfalfa. The color of butter from alfalfa, again, 
is different from that of rye. In fact, the color of butter from rye is so 
deep that it is rather objectionable. 

Mr. Knight. You are something of a butter man, Senator, I see. 

Senator Heitfeld. Well, 1 have been in the dairy business all my 
life; and I know all about it so far as the farm goes. We have even 
wrapped it in all sorts of clotlis when we could not get the butter cloth. 

The Acting Chairman. Now, is there anyone else desiring to be 
heard this afternoon f 

Mr. ScHELL. Allow me to say further on the color matter that my 
chemist advises me that there are over 700 different kinds of named 
colors as a result of the coal-tar ])roduct, and that there are thousands 
of other colors and shades which have not been named. The color 
question, then, is one without limit, and if they will not define their 
butter color, how are we to know what it is? They say we are not to 
color oleomargarine in imitation of butter. How can we tell what the 
color is that we are not to imitate? There should be some standard. 
They say, "You are using our color," but they do not give us any 
standard. 

Mr. Adams. Yellow is the standard. 

Mr. ScHELL. What yellow? 

Mr. Knight. Any shade of yellow. 

Mr. Schell. Then white is another shade of butter. We can not 
color our oleomargarine white, or we will be accused of imitating butter. 

Mr. Knight. No; we say yellow butter. 

Mr. Schell. What shade of yellow? 

Mr. Knight. Any shade. 

Mr. Schell. Any shade? There are over 700 different shades of 
yellow, and we can not have any, but you are entitled to all? 

Mr. Knight. Oh, no. 

Mr. Jelke. If you will allow me to say one word on the subject of 
color, I will say that I have been told the production ot a color for use 
in silks and other dress goods means a fortune to a chemist, and that 
some of them spent their lives, in Germany and France, studying to 



OLEOMARGARIISrE. 343 

produce a new and attractive shade. Very often we see the ladies 
adopt a certain new shade that comes out. If the color is attractive 
and new and pleases the eye, sucli a demand is immediately created 
for it that its producer becomes rich. 

Mr. Knight. Mr. Jelke, may I ask a question at this point? Do yoa 
know whether there is any one color of silk to which the consumer is 
so attracted that he refuses any other color? 

Mr. Jelke. Well, yes. They will not take a color of silk, Mr. 
Knight, tbat is displeasing to their sight if they can get what they 
want. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. The question which the chairman asked has not, 
to my mind, been satisfactorily answered. Perhaps it can not be; but 
I think I can assist in answering it to some degree. That question was 
as to how colored oleomargarine can be sold in those States which have 
the anticolor law without a violation of the statutes of those States. 

For instance, Ehode Island borders on Massachusetts. The factories 
in Rhode Island take their orders from the consumers in Massachusetts 
in such a way that the sale takes place in Rhode Island, where it is 
perfectly lawful. In that way the goods enter Massachusetts in a way 
which is nut in violation or even in evasion of the Massachusetts 
statutes. 

The Ac'JiNG Chairman. How does the Massachusetts merchant 
handle the situation after he gets over there? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. I do uot Say that the Massachusetts dealer can 
sell his product to his consumers without a violation of the law, sir. 
What I mean is we sell them directly to the consumer. Of course, to 
carry that argument out, if a person in Massachusetts came over the 
line of Rhode Island, bought a package of oleomargarine, and took it 
home, that would be no violation of the law of Massachusetts; and that 
is precisely the theory upon which the whole business is conducted, in 
so far as it applies to those places which are near enough to h'hode 
Island to supply the Massachusetts customers. In other words, in 
Massachusetts the sale takes place in the State where it is lawful that 
it should take place, and there is no violation or even evasion of the 
statutes. 

Mr. Knight. That is just exactly what we are after. 

STATEMENT OF J. J. CULBEETSON, OF DALLAS, TEX. 

JNlr. CxiLBERTSON. Mr. Chairman, as secretary and treasurer of the 
Continental Cotton Oil ( ompany of New York, and also as represent- 
ing a number of cotton mills in the Southern States, I want to bring 
before y©u some facts on this question that are intimately associated 
with our industry. 

We are what might be termed an infant industry, in our swaddling 
clothes, perhaps. We have had some pins sticking in us years since, 
and they are pricking us now. We do not ask for protection; but we 
do ask to be let alone. 

The cotton-seed oil industry is a comparatively new one. Thirty 
years since it was practically unknown. We have to day some four 
hundred mills throughout the South; and in the State from which I 
come we have some 11- or 120, including the Territories. 

The development of the industry, I think, has shown more i^rogress 
than anything in the industrial line in the South, and has become one 
of its leading industries. The products that are made are practically 
new to the manufacturing and commercial world, and they naturally 



344 OLEOMARGARINE. 

displace articles of kindred nature in the various channels into which 
they have gone. 

The chief channels in which the oil has been consumed have been 
developed since the recent large development of the industry. The 
consumption of cotton-seed oil is very large as an admixture of lard 
for use as a cooking oil and as a component part in the manufacture of 
oleomargarine or butter substitute. We naturally have to find uew 
outlets to keep i)ace with our increased production, and while the busi- 
ness has grown considerably in this country it lias increased to a greater 
extent abroad. The uses to which it is ])ut there are chietiy as a sub- 
stitute for higher-priced oils, and for the manufacture of what is termed 
there "margarin," which is identical with the oleomargarine or butterine 
of this country. 

We want to protest against anything that interferes with the use of 
our i)roduct where it is legitimately emi)]oyed on the same ground that 
we think the paper which is made from tlie wood of the forest to-day 
is entitled to as great a ])osition in the ( ommercial world as the paper 
made from rags by our forefathers. We consider that we are in the 
same line of advancement and development as other industries of a 
progressive country, and 1 want to say that the trend of those in the 
manufacturing business geneially — in the commercial world and in the 
arts — has been toward improvement in whatever line they are follow- 
ing. In onr particular line (utr aim has been to ])roduce from an article 
that has been wasted in past years something that is good and whole- 
some as an article of human diet. We think we have succeeded. 

Cotton is grown, not for the seed, but for the lint it produces. The 
progress in tlie development of its culture once made the Soiith rich. 
Since the civil war the giowth has increased until, at this time, the 
"whole world relies on that part of the country for its main supply of 
cotton. The seed isa by-product, and a bulky one; and it was foimerly 
a burden to the ])]anter. It was burned or dumi)ed into the river to 
get rid of it: and frequently the gins were compelled to move to get 
out of the way of the accumulation of seed. 

tSome ingenious mind discovered that cotton seed contained oil; and 
he who first made oil from cotton seed became, to my mind, a bene- 
factor of the race. Cotton-seed oil plants were built for the production 
of this vegetable oil, which was found to be ])ure and wholesome, and 
as an article of human diet, in the various trades and manufactures in 
which it entered into consumption, it at once found favor. It is used 
in itself as a cooking fat. The prejudice that formerly existed against 
cotton seed or any of its products has so far prevented it from coming 
forward for what it is — a pure and wholesome article of human diet. It 
is used largely as an admixture to olive oil. The various grades of 
olive oil produced in the south of Europe require the use of an article 
of this character to mild and blend them down. The people themselves 
use it. And while in Italy (as Mr. Tompkins noted this morning) a 
practically prohibitory duty was imposed on the article, the exporta- 
tion of olive oil to other countries from that country has in no wise 
decreased its consumption for that particular purpose; and I think the 
time will come when we shall have cotton oil put up as a pure vege- 
table oil, on an equality with olive oil. Its character is about tbe 
same, so far as its organization is concerned. It is a matter purely of 
an acquired taste — purely. An article of high grade, refined cotton 
oil is as good for human diet as is olive oil, the latter being used in the 
south of Europe very extensively as an article of diet, and largely as a 
cooking oil. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 845 

This product, as I have said, also enters into and is part of the com- 
position of oleomargarine, or butterine; and I want to say tbat tlie man 
who first produced oleomargarine was, in ray opinion, a benefactor to 
the race. The iusredient of cotton oil that enters largely into the 
manufacture of oleomargarine, butterine, or butter substitute, as is 
shown, is a pure and wholesome vegetable oil, free from any possibility 
of disease. The people of other countries have gone into this subject 
more fully than our own. 

In Great Britain I tbink the question of pure food has been given 
more attention than perhaps in any civilized nation in the world; and 
anything that is pure and good and wholesome and healthful for human 
diet is welcomed there by the people ot the country — anything in the 
food product line which will lessen the cost of living to the mass of 
people. The colonies of Great Britain have been very large producers 
of butter, notably Australia and New Zealand. I think they have 
subsidized boats with refrigerating apparatus in order to bring that 
product to (jreat Britain for the purpose of lessening the cost of that 
food to its working people. 

The butter countries of the Continent, especially Holland, produce 
more " margarine," as they call it, than they used to produce of butter. 
The organization of that product or article is about the same as that 
produced in this country. That produced in those countries is exported 
and sold in all the large manufacturing towns of Great Britain by the 
side of butter. If they are able to frame a law which will protect the 
butter manufacturer there, why can not we"? If there is anything 
deleterious in it, the scientific men of that country would certainly find 
it out. I think they have not more stringent laws than we have, 
although they have given more attention to the subject: and the prod- 
uct is sold openly for what it is, of course — margarine. And by its 
means the mass of people are able to obtain a food product that is at 
once as healthful and good and wholesome as butter itself. 

It seems to me that the claim which has been made here that a law 
can not be framed which will protect the interests of the butter maker 
and of the nmker of the butter substitute can not be well founded. I 
do not think that in any country of the world is the Government as 
zealous of the health of its people as that of Great Britain. In the 
shops in all the manufacturing towns and the other large towns of that 
country where butter and kindred products are sold there are dis- 
played side by side for sale butter and what they there term "mar- 
garine."' In the countries in which it is manufactured it is used in the 
same way. Its manufacture has become a great industry; and that 
industry is being developed and fostered. When I was in Rotterdam 
last spring I visited a very large "margarin-fabrick," as it is called, 
and the proprietor took especial pains to show me a tablet in marble 
that had just been y)laced there in commemoration of a visit of Queen 
Wilhelmina, of Holland, showing that it has the approval not only of 
the mass of the people, but of the Government. Its manufacturer 
contributes very largely to the work of the people there, and the 
export business is a great source of income. 

We want to protest against the passage of such a bill as Is before 
your committee as being hurtful to our interests at large, and espe- 
cially hurtful to those mills in which I and my friends are directly 
interested. They are located in Texas, where there is produced a 
quality of oil that averages better tlian that made in the other Southern 
States. And while in the aggregate the total production of oil used in 
this particular line may seem small, to us it is very large. 



346 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. Bond stated that iu bis opinion, if I am correct, about 40,000 
barrels of cotton oil were used in tbe West in tbe manufacture of oleo- 
margarine, or butter substitute. I do not think that nearly covers it. 
In fact, the mills in which 1 am directly interested would, if that is 
correct, have supplied 25 per cent of tbat quantity. 

The total production of oil of all grades, I think, equals from 
1,500,000 to 2,000,000 barrels per year. Of that quantity I think there 
are consumed in this country, for oleomargarine i)urposes, from 125,000 
to 150,000 barrels. There are exported for the same purpose about 
300,000 barrels, showing that the total quantity used in that particu- 
lar line is equal to at least 25 per cent of the whole. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Will the gentleman pardon a moment's interrup- 
tion? 

Mr. CuLBERTSi 'N. Certainly. 

Mr. TiLLTNGrHAST. Will you explain to the committee how you get 
tlie better butter oils and the lesser grades of cotton oil! 

Mr. CULBBRTSON. All right; I will touch on that in a minute. 

The exportation of this large quantity of oil has been brought about 
by hard work on our part, by the development of other businesses, par- 
ticularly in the oleomargarine line. And if you gentlemen frame a law 
that is practically prohibitory of an article that has the Government 
stamp of approval on it in the shape of the 2-cent tax, how can you 
expect us to maintain our export trade? 

The exportation of cotton oil for that particular purpose forms a 
small part of our exports. What is to become of the trade in oleo oil 
or in neutral lard? The countries that make this product rely on this 
country for its ingredients. What is to become of that business, that 
has taken years for us to work up, if you gentlemen pass a prohibi- 
tory, unjust, and vicious tax on something that has been approved by 
this Government? I think there ought to be some consistency iu 
things of that character. We have at times been importuned to join 
export associations for the development of export trade, on the ground 
that our export business would be increased and that our business 
would be enlarged It seems to me they could turn their attention to 
the development and maintenance of their domestic trade. It seems to 
me that legislative bodies like yours should not be called upon to protect 
internally one interest as against another. 

We hear of oleomargarine. What is oleomargarine? When the 
stamp of approval of the Government was put on it it was an article 
that was sold for what it was or supposed to have been. You want to 
take out now one ingredient, that of the butter color, an article that 
has been i)roduced and manufactured since butter was made. Have 
they a patent right to that particular thing for their particular mixture? 
The butter color, as I understand, was originally made, and the vehicle 
by which it was carried was olive oil. They found they could lessen 
the cost of the production of that article by using cotton-seed oil, so 
that, as Mr. Tompkins has stated this morning, every ])ound of butter — 
June butter, if you may so call it, made in December — has cotton oil in 
it, where it is colored, i do not see why the butter people should 
claim a patent right to that particular ingredient. It seems to me that 
the butter-color manufacturers would cry out against such a procedure. 
You might just as well compel by law the elimination of any other 
principal ingredient in oleomargarine or butterine, or butter substitute, 
whatever you may call it. 

The Acting Chairman. Would it disturb you if I should ask a 
question on that point? 



OLEOMARGAKINE. 347 

Mr. Culberson. No, sir. 

The Acting Chairman. It Las been stated here that the butter 
color could be produced without the addition of coloring matter, by- 
taking advantage of certain grades and states of the cotton-seed oil 
and other materials. What grade of cotton-seed oil is used in the 
manufacture of oleomargarine"^ 

Mr. Culberson. What is known as butter oil. 

The Acting Chairman. Refined oil? 

Mr. Culberson. Refined oil. 

The Acting Chairman. What is the color of it? 

Mr. Culberson. The color of it is straw or light yellow. 

The Acting Chairman. And would the use of that proportion that 
enters into oleomargarine give that color to the product? 

Mr. Culberson. The light-yellow color? 

The Acting Chairman. Yes. 

Mr. Culberson. No. 

The Acting Chairman. Is there any possible mixture of the oil and 
other materials, in the absence of other distinct coloring matter, that 
would produce the butter color? 

Mr. Culberson. I think not. 

Mr. Schell. Mr. Chairman, on that subject allow me to suggest 
that one of my clients is the oldest man in the oleomargarine business 
in this country, and he has experimented all his life with the idea of 
avoiding the use of any artificial color: and, so far, his efforts have 
been unsuccessful. 

The Acting Chairman. He ought to consult with this firm that 
furnishes it for New Jersey. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Tillinghast. The gentleman will pardon me a moment; but 
the use of your cotton-seed oil does give to the oleomargarine a slight 
color. 

Mr. Culberson. Perhaps so, but not sufficient color to bring it to 
the color that the Government approved at the time they taxed it. 

I would like to know what the butter makers of the country colored 
their butter with before this butter color was manufactured? Our 
grandmotliers. I take it, used carrots. If this is an improved method, 
why should it be confined to butter itself? Why should any legislative 
body give to any manufacturing enterprise a patent right to use that 
exclusively? I can not see it. Oleomargarine or butterine has always 
been made with a certain amount of color — butter color, if you will. I 
think the manufacturer of that color considers it just as much an oleo- 
margarine color as a butter color, because it is used for such, and why 
it should be restricted to one branch of trade to the exclusion of every- 
thing else I can not see. 

What shall we say of this free and iibertyloving country and people 
drafting measures practically forbidding the manufacture of an article 
because it comes in competition with an article — with butter — and con- 
demning it because it is used as a substitute for butter, and thus rob- 
bing the mass of poor people of a substitute that is at once pure and 
wholesome and good, and has been so proved. 

Mr. Tillinghast. As you are from Texas (I do not remember 
whether we have anyone else from that State or not), can you tell me 
how oleomargarine is placed on the market there, and whether you 
have any opinion as to how much of it is sold for butter, if any? 

Mr. Culberson. In Texas ? 

Mr. Tillinghast. In Texas. 



348 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. Culberson. I must confess that I am not fully posted on that 
matter. I do not think there is any law governing its manufacture or 
sale. 

The AcTiNa Chairman. There Is none. 

Mr. Culberson. There was an attempt made a year or two ago to 
frame a law, which was defeated. An attempt was made to follow some 
of the laws of the North and East iti that respect, but the venture did 
not go through. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Uo you hear any complaints about it being sold 
for butter in your State"? — A. No. I think I have mentioned in regard 
to a certain percentage of the total quantity of oil produced as being 
used for butterine or oleomargarine purposes. At some of the mills 
in which I am directly interested one-lialf of the production of those 
liarticular mills is sold either in this country to butterine manufacturers 
or is exported for that same purpose, so that the passage of this bill 
would hurt us very materially. 

Mr. Knight. Will you pardon a question ? 

Mr. Culberson. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Knight, Are you a refiner of cotton-seed oil? 

Mr. Culberson. We have refineries at our plants; yes, sir. 

Mr. Knight. Do you use any chemi(;als in refining cotton-seed oil? 

Mr. Culberson. There is no other way to re^ne it other than by 
chemicals. 

Mr. Knight. What chemical is used? 

Mr. Culberson. Various, 

Mr. Knight. What is the principal one? 

Mr. Culberson. The same chemicals' that have been used ever since 
cotton-seed oil was refined. 

Mr. Knight. 1 am not a cotton-oil man, so I do not know what those 
are, and I do not think the committee does. 

Mr, Culberson. We use caustic soda in diluted form. We further- 
more have our own processes by which when the oil is finished it is 
perfectly neutral. There is absolutely no sign of chemical or of color- 
ing matter, 

Mr. Knight. You cau refine cotton-seed oil and make it absolutely 
white — make what ihey call a winter oil? 

Mr. Culberson. Yes; that can be done. 

Mr. Knight. Do you think it is possible that any of that caustic soda 
will be left in the oil after the refining? 

Mr. Culberson, It is possible, but not for butter oil purposes. 

Mr. Knight. Then in all of the oleomargarine that we eat we eat an 
oil that has been through a process of refinement by caustic soda or with 
caustic soda? 

Mr. Culberson. Not necessarily, 

Mr. Knight. Well, some other chemical equally strong. 

Mr. Culberson, Not necessarily. There are other processes. I tell 
you what we use. 

The Acting Chairman. Are there others to be heard this afternoon ? 

Mr. Jelke. Mr. Chairman, it was expected that Mr. Tompkins, who 
spoke this morning, would continue this afternoon, and there has been 
no provision made for a further speaker. Mr, Tompkins was called 
away to Richmond at half past 3. 

The Acting Chairman. Then on behalf of the committee, thanking 
those who have spoken for their attendance upon the committee, we 
will stand adjourned until to-morrow morning at half past 10 o'clock. 

The committee, at 4.32 p. m., adjourned until Wednesday morning, 
January 9, 1901, at 10.30. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 349 

Washington, D. C, Wednesday, January 9, 1901. 

The committee met at 10.30 a. m. 

Present: Senators Proctor (cliairmau ), Foster, Money, and Allen. 
Also Charles Y, Knight, secretary of the National Dairy Union; Frank 
W. Tillinghast, representing the Vermont Manufacturing Comi)any, of 
Providence, R. I. ; Charles E. Schell, representing the Ohio Butterine 
Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio; John F. Jelke, representing Braun & 
Fitts, Chicago, 111.; J. J, Culbertson, representing the Continental 
Ootton-Oil Company, of New York City; Henry E. Davis, representing 
the National Butterine Company, of Washington, D. C; John F. 
McNamee, representing the Columbus Trades and Labor Assembly, 
Columbus, Ohio, and others. 

Mr. Davis. May it please the committee, it has been my wish, in 
behalf of the oleomargarine industry, to appear before you; and I have 
several times endeavored to make an arrangement for a brief part of 
your time tliat would be consistent with the convenience of the committee 
and of the gentlemen who are here from other cities. 

I learned from the newspaper this morning that it is the purpose of 
the committee to close this hearing finally tomorrow. That being so, 
I would, still yielding to the convenience of those who are from other 
cities, ask the committee to do me the favor to specify some hour at 
which I can take a little of your time. M3^ special justification for this 
request is the fact that, although oleomargarine is not manufactured in 
any Territory of the IJnited States, a large establishment is under 
process of construction here which will involve an outlay of several 
hundred thousand dollars. It is manifest to the committee, without 
argument, that that industry is peculiarly within the reach of Con- 
gressional legislation, which makes it proper, it seems to me, that some 
suggestions on this subject which have occurred to my mind should be 
laid before the committee. 

The Chairman. There is no objection on the part of the committee 
to your going on to day at any time. 

Mr. Davis. [ want to accommodate myself to the convenience of 
these other gentlemen, and I am at the command of the committee so 
far as the time is concerned. 

Senator Allen. Mr. Chairman, so far as I am concerned, I can sit 
here all afternoon. 

Mr. Jelke. I spoke to Mr. Knight this morning, and he has some 
gentlemen here from outside of the city who would like to be heard 
this afternoon. 

The Chairman. Who is there here who wants to be heard this 
morning in behalf of oleomargarine? 

Mr. Jelke. There is Mr. McNamee, of Ohio, and Mr. Peters, of 
Texas. 

The Chairman. Why can not Mr. Davis go on now ? 

jNIr. Jelke. If Mr. Davis thinks he will have time. I can see no 
objection to that; but these gentlemen are from outside of the city, 
while Mr. Davis lives here. 

The Chairman. That is true; but he says he will not require a great 
deal of time. 

Senator Foster. How much time will you require, Mr. Davis? 

Mr. Davis. I shall be very brief. 1 can save time, however, if the 
committee will give me a later hour, for the reason that in conversation 
with Judge Springer 

Senator Fosj'ER. Then how wonld it do for vou to come in at half 
past 2 :' 



350 OLEOMARGAKINE. 

Mr. Jelke. I believe if Mr. Kiiiglit's frieuds are heard this morning 
and Mr. Davis comes on in the afternoon Mr. Knight will be satisfied. 

The Chairman. We would rather have the dairy interest heard from 
to-morrow as far as possible and the oleomargarine interest to day. 

Mr. Jelke. These gentlemen are from outside of the city, if you 
please. 

The Chairman. We will try to accommodate them, but the oleomar- 
garine interest has the right of way to day. 

Mr Knight. Senator, as to the matter broached by Mr. Jelke, we 
will not want over ten minutes' time. 

The Chairman. All right; you can have that. Let Mr. Davis come 
in at half i)ast 2. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN F. McNAMEE, VICE-PRESIDENT AND CHAIR- 
MAN LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE COLUMBUS TRADES AND LABOR 
ASSEMBLY, COLUMBUS, OHIO. 

Mr. McNamee. Mr. Chairman and Senators, it has not often been 
my privilege in the capacity I occupy to appear before a committee 
representative of so dignified a body as the Senate of the United 
States. I am not a manufa(;turer of oleomargarine, nor, in fact, a manu- 
facturer of anything. I bear from the Central Labor Union of the city 
of Columbus, Ohio, officially known as the Columbus Trades and 
Labor Assembly, credentials which, with your permission, I will read 
to you: 

Columbus, Ohio, January 5, 1901. 
To tohom it may concern: 

This is to certify that the bearer, Mr. John F. McNamee, vice-president of the 
Coluuibus Trades and Labor Assembly, is authorized and empowered by said body 
to exert every eli'ort and use all honorable meiins in accomplishing the defeat of a 
measure now pending in the United States Senate, and known as the Grout bill, the 
object of which is to destroy a legitimate industry in the interest of its competitors, 
said Grout bill being regarded bj^ said Trades and Labor A8seml)ly and all it repre- 
sents as a gross injustice, class legislation, an invasion of citizenship rights, and a 
serious menace to the best interests of all citizens, particularly those in moderate 
circumstances. 

Any courtesies extended to our representative, Mr. McNamee, will be fnlly appre- 
ciated and remembered by the Columbus Trades and Labor Assembly. 

[seal.] Frank B. Cameron, President. 

William F. Haijck, Secretary. 

Senator Money. Mr. Chairman, I have to go to the Committee on 
Foreign Kelations. A bill is under consideration there in which I am 
very much interested — the recii>rocity treaty. Mr. Bate and Mr. 
Warren told me that they had to attend the session of the Military 
Affairs Committee. At any rate, they are not here; I thought they 
would be here. Mr. Heitfeld told me he had to attend the meeting of 
the Committee on Patents, where a bill involving filtered water for the 
District, I believe — I do not know just what it is — is to come up. I hope 
there will be no vote taken in the committee about the final hearing or 
closing. 

The Chairman. We do not expect to take any. 

Senator Money. All right. 

Mr. MciKamee. Gentlemen, if the labor organizations of the United 
States were possessed of sufficient cai>ital to enable each one of them 
to send a representative here to convey to you their sentiments regard- 
ing this Grout bill, I assure you that you could not possibly conclude 
this hearing before the next Presidential election. This letter of intro- 



OLEOMARGARINE. 351 

duction wliicb I have presented represents but faintly the bitter 
antagonism which prevails in the ranks of organized labor to said 
measure. 

When any class of men are organized, matters bearing upon their 
interests generally receive full and exhaustive discussion in the organi- 
zation representing that particular class. And so it is with the Grout 
bill. In nearly every labor organization in our country it has been 
up for discussion; and I myself have heard iron molders, blacksmiths, 
electrical workers, and members of almost every craft discuss the mat- 
ter, making such familiar use of technical chemical phrases as to im- 
press one who did not know what their occupation really was with a 
belief tliat they were either chemists or deep amateur students of that 
profession or art. 

The members of organized labor are thoroughly familiar with all of 
the phases of this bill. They speak about the chemical analyses which 
have been made of oleomargarine by official chemists, and they discuss 
all of the various components and ingredients of the product with almost 
as much familiarity as the manufacturers themselves are capable of 
doing. So I say that they are wide awake to the necessity, in the pro- 
tection of their own interests, of having the bill defeated. Not only 
that; but as patriotic American citizens they feel deeply the indignity 
to which our legislative bodies have been subjected by this attem])t to 
utilize them for the promotion of the interests of certain individuals 
and corporations in violation of every sense of right and justice and at 
the expense of the constitutional prerogatives of other citizens. They 
feel that the legislative bodies of some of our States and the Congress 
of the United States have been insulted by this attempt to utilize them 
as tools for the protection of certain interests which can not sustain 
themselves against comjjetitors. 

Senator Allen. Mr. McNamee, would it interrupt you if I should 
ask you a question or two? 

Mr. McNamee. I shall be very glad to have you ask me all the ques- 
tions you wish. 

Senator Allen. How many laboring men are engaged in the manu- 
facture of oleomargarine? 

Mr. McNamee. How many laboring men, you say? 

Senator Allen. Yes; how many men are there who earn their daily 
living by that industry? 

Mr. McNamee. There are thousands of laboring men who earn their 
living by manufacturing oleomargarine. 

Senator Allen. How many thousands would you say, in round 
numbers? 

Mr. McNamee. I am not in a position to state exactly or even 
api)roximately the number of men. 

Senator Allen. Then your contention is that the man of moderate 
means has a right to purchase an article which is cheaper than genuine 
butter, if he desires to do so, and use it? 

Mr. McNamee. My contention is this. Senator: That we are desirous 
of perpetuating the employment of the men who make the butterine, 
although we may not know to within live or six how many men are so 
employed. But we are mainly desirous of perpetuating the existence 
of this product, with which we have had anii>ly sufficient experience to 
know tliat it is healthful, wholesome, and i)alatable. 

Senator Allen. Tlien the whole thing is sumn)ed up in this one 
remark — that the laboring people whom you represent are desirous of 



352 OLEOMAKdARINE. 



I 



having the right to purchase a product that is cheaper than butter if 
they desire to do so? 

Mr. McNamee. Not necessarily to purchase a product that is clieaper 
than butter; no, sir. 

Senator Allen. Well, 1 should not say "cheaper." but they have a 
right to a choice between tlie two? 

Mr. McNamee. They should have a right to a choice between the two. 

Senator Allen. That is your contention? 

Mr. McNamee. That is the substance of it, Senator; and, moreover, 
it is a fact that if the manufacture of butterine is prohibited, the but- 
ter manufacturers, whetlier they are individuals or a combination of 
individuals formed for the purpose of monopolizing that particular 
industry, will have the opportunity of manufacturing almost auy sort 
of product they please that cau be used as Itutter generally is, and of 
charging for that product any price they please. We hold that if the 
manufacture of butterine is prohibited, then men using butter or using 
a spread of that kind lor their bread who desire to use it will then, as 
now, have the choice of either buying it or going without it; and the 
chances are that the price will be so high that a great many such citi- 
zens in moderate circumstances will be compelled to go without it. On 
the other hand, if the manufacture of butterine is perpetuated, it will 
equalize the butter market. 

Senator Allen. The competition will bring down the prices, of course. 

Mr. McNamee. And it will keep butter within the reach of those 
who do not care to use butterine. 

Now, I appeared before the committee on agriculture of the Ohio 
legislature, and after having dissected all of the various arguments in 
favor of certain measures for the destruction of the butterine industry 
(and I guess they had five or six of them up there), there was a farmer 
who said to me : 

Suppose you fellows are permitted to go ahead and have this butterine manufac- 
tured without limit. Suppose there is no restraint put upon its manufacture, or it 
is not stopped in some way — what are we going to do witii our cows? 

That exi)ression of that farmer represents as plainly as it is possible 
for words to express it the one and only object that is sought in the 
passage of this Grout bill, viz, the legislative destruction of a legiti- 
mate industry in the interest of its competitors, after those competitors 
have failed, by their inability to maintain their goods up to a proper 
standard, to themselves successfully compete with the product of that 
industry, and the desecration of our legislative bodies having such 
glorious traditions and such sacred. duties to perform in the accomplish- 
ment of such a base purpose. 

Gentlemen, there are hundreds of thousands of our citizens in mod- 
erate circumstances who are now looking to the United States Senate 
for protection against the perpetration of such a gross injustice. They 
are depending absolutely upon that sense of justice, that sense of honor, 
fair play, and conservatism which has always characterized this body to 
protect them Irom this, one of the most culpable violations of their rights 
which any individual or combination of individuals has ever attempted 
to per])etrate upon the American public. They are looking to this body 
with the lirni hope that its traditional love of justice will prevail and pre- 
dominate in this crisis. Should this measure become a law, arising 
from the mists of the near future there will come a monster into whose 
insatiable maw the contributions of our citizens shall continually flow, 
and Avhose appetite shall be increased by all attempts at its gratifica- 
tion. This monster we have all, in our api)rehensive conviction of the 
certainty of its existence, learned to regard as the creamery trust of 



OLEOMARGARINE. 353 

the future — the combiuatiou of creamery interests into one great organi- 
zation, which shall monopolize the manufacture, not only of the food 
product known as butter, but of everything of that nature. That octo- 
pus is now being conceived. If the United States Senate should consent 
to the passage of a bill so outrageously unjust as this one is, then its 
birth will have been accomplished. 

I am not an attorney and have never had the advantage of study- 
ing law. My intercourse with the world has been principally upon 
the deck of a locomotive. But by virtue of that instinctive sense 
of justice, that untutored, instinctive, layman common sense con- 
stituting the jury feature of and recognized as being as essential 
in the maintenance of our common courts as is the learned judge on 
the bench — by that instinctive sense of right, I can not but realize 
that the passage of this bill or the establishment of a law of this kind 
is class legislation. I can not, as a common, everyday citizen, see it 
in any other light, and I am satisfied that the Supreme Court of the 
United States will take the same view of it that my colleagues and I 
have taken, and there is no question but that if this bill becomes a law 
it will meet the same fate that the income-tax bill has met. If the 
income-tax bill has been declared to be class legislation by the Supreme 
Court, I can not see how that court can hesitate to place this in the 
same category. 

Not only that, but a precedent will have been established which 
must either be sustained or subject some of our honorable Congressmen 
to submit to the charge of inconsistency. You will have every corpo- 
ration which has a competitor, a small competitor, that it wants to 
crush, coming here to the United States Congress and trying to get it to 
enact legislation based upon one pretext or another, none of which can 
be more flimsy than the alleged justification upon which the passage 
of the Grout bill is sought. 

In contending for the defeat of this measure I do not make the claim 
that wage earners are all poverty stricken — not at all. There are many 
wage earners who are in very comfortable circumstances. But even 
they shall sufitei' by being comi)elled to pay an enormous tribute to the 
god of monopoly by virtue of the existence of the institution of which 
I have spoken, which will be as sure to arise upon the destruction of 
this industry as the sun will upon to-morrow morning. The poorer 
classes being compelled in such event to go without a material of the 
kind altogether, they will simply have to eat dry bread, or use some 
of this glucose, of which some of our dairy and food commissioners in 
some of our States, so industrious in the endeavor to destroy this legiti- 
mate industry, permit to remain upon the market. 

Much of the zeal evinced is more an effort on the part of some of 
those gentlemen to establish themselves politically than it is the expres- 
sion of a desire to protect the public interests. In proof of that state- 
ment, I will, with your permission, read to you a circular which, prior 
to the last election, was circulated broadcast amongst the farmers of 
our State. This will explain itself, gentlemen, and I am sure that it 
needs no elaboration on ray i^art. 

April 13, 1900. 

Dear Sir : Case No. 6000, supreme court of Ohio, referred to iu Bulletin No. 4 of this 
•department, inclosed herewith, was decided iu favor of the dairy and food depart- 
ment on Tuesday last. 

A copy of the Columbus Citizen of April 10, 1900, telling the whole story, has been 
mailed you. As the course I have pursued in this matter sets the pace for the food 
commissioners of other States of our Union whose oleomargarine laws are practi- 
cally copies of ours, this victory means that the death knell of oleomargarine has 
been sounded, not only in Ohio, but in the entire United States. 

S. Rep. 2043 23 



354 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Tbiuk, gentlemen, of a public official appealing for political support 
to a particular element with wiiicli, on account of tlieir numerical supe- 
riority over their competitors, he has allied himself, not that the manu- 
facture and sale of oleomargarine may be regniated. but that its death 
knell may ring in tbe credulous ears of those financially interested Id 
its destruction and, drowning temporarily the voice of their [)rotesting 
consciences, permit of his leelection. 

Just think of such prostitution of the dignity of the office of our State 
dairy and food commissioner: 

The many assurances of good will an<l expressions of gratitude I have already 
received from the larmers and dairymeu of Ohio are all the more appreciated because 
of their antagonism of the ])ast, au antagonism that was engendered by a few per- 
sons who placed a greater value u])on their own opinions as to the most effective 
method of making war against oleomargarine than upon the advice of able lawyers, 
whose counsel I saw tit to follow. 

So that is one of the duties of a dairy and food commissioner — to 
make "war" upon a certain product, and then try to use the Congress 
of the United States as au ally in that warfare. 

I submit to you whether or not my course has been vindicated by the results 
obtained 

Believing that I am deserving of some evidence of gratitude and confidence from 
tbe farmers and dairymen for this victory, the benefits of which accrue to them, and 
knowing that their interests will be best subserved by making no change in the per- 
sonnel of this office, because of the possibility that some of the ])oiuts in the above- 
mentioned case may be taken to the Supreme Court of the Knited States, I respectfully 
ask you to use your intluence in behalf of my renomination with the delegates of 
your county to the Republican State convention. 

We should stand together in a fight to a finish against oleomargarine. I will 
appreciate very much an acknowledgment of the receipt of this, with any expres- 
sions you may care to make. 

Very truly, yours, J. E. Blackburn. 

Now, gentlemen, if that is not conclusive evidence of the fact that 
one of the main objects of the attempted enactment and enforcement of 
legislation of this kind is the sacrifice of a useful, legitimate, and 
(except with competitors) popular industry on the altar of political 
ambition, then evidence is worthless in i)roving anything. However, 
it is not necessary to dwell upon that point before a committtee consti- 
tuted as this is. 

Now, we can not see that there is any justice whatever in placing any 
tax upon oleomargarine. Heaven knows that its manufacture is already 
sufficiently restricted and that it is an utter impossibility, under the 
stringent laws which exist in almost all of our States regulating its 
sale, for any deception to be practiced therein. And I want to assure 
you, gentlemen, that if any deception in this connection should be 
attempted in our part of the country it would be, and often is, in under- 
taking to palm o& inferior butter for the product known as oleomarga- 
rine. I am myself a constant consumer of the article, and 1 propose 
that it shall be continually used by my family, because I know, and so 
do all of the members of organized labor who have listened to the dis- 
cussions relative to this product in their various unions, that it is abso- 
lutely free from all disease germs; that the process of its manufacture 
is such as to destroy all the bacilli of tuberculosis and various other 
disease germs that exist in the cow, and through the medium of butter 
consum])tion are conveyed to the human system, and that butter is not 
subjected to any process which will eliminate that element of danger. 

The Chairman. If that is so, would you not use it if it were of its 
natural color f 

Mr. McNamee. Well, I will tell you. Senator; if, in eating a nice 
ripe apple, it were harmlessly colored green, I would not eat it with 



OLEOMARGARINE. 355 

the same relish that I would if it bore a nice natural rosy color. In 
the same way, we from our childhood liave been used to eating butter, 
and in a great many instances have relished it. Now, if we are pre- 
sented with a white product, even though we are convinced that it is 
as good and as wholesome as butter, I say to you that it is impossible 
for us to relish it as much as if it bore the proi)er color. 

Now, I cnn not see why, when this coloring matter is absolutely harm- 
less, and at the same time makes the product attractive and appetizing, 
the Congress of the United States should say to the citizens of the 
United States, "You shall not enjoy that advantage; you must eat it 
white." VTe say, " Why?" " Well, because we say so." "But is there 
any i)articular harm in eating it if it is colored with a harmless and 
wholesome coloring matter?" "No; there is no particular harm in it; 
but we want you to eat it white. For reasons we do not care to explain, 
the future welfare of the nation depends ujion people eating this product 
white." 

Gentlemen, I can not see any argument in favor of compelling us to 
eat it white, if we prefer to eat it yellow, as long as it will not injure 
our health. 

For example: Suppose I, when working in my capacity as locomotive 
fireman, come in from a hard run, and there are two tables set — one a 
bare board, greasy and black, such as our oil cans temporarily rest 
upon in the oil room; and that is laden down with the most attractive 
and luscious viands. Suppose that on the other side there is a table 
with a nice white cloth on it, glistening silverware, sparkling water in 
clean glasses, clean cups for the coffee, etc., but the food is not up to 
the standard of that which is resting upon the table of inferior appear- 
ance, and I, being very hungry, have a choice as to which table to eat 
from. Why, I would most certainly go to the clean table and eat a 
much heartier meal, and a meal that I can digest better, notwithstand- 
ing the inferiority of the food. There is no question, gentlemen, but 
that the appearance of the food we eat has a great deal to do with it, 
and also with the relish we may experience in consuming it. 

But, speaking about the tax on oleomargarine, I can not, nor can 
any of my colleagues, understand why there should be any tax upon it. 
We have laws in Ohio regulating the closing of saloons at certain 
hours on week days and all day on the Sabbath. Quite a large num- 
ber of saloons violate these laws, yet I have never heard of legislation 
being attempted for the abolition of the saloon business in Ohio. They 
remain at the old stand, and do business right along, although hun- 
dreds and thousands ot our good citizens are clamoring for their aboli- 
tion, or for the enforcement of those laws. We have in the United 
States a product known as whisky. The Government has exerted all 
of its ])owers to try to enforce a certain tax known as the internal- 
revenue tax upon the manufacture of that product. But we all know 
that there are still illicit distilleries in operation. We all know that at 
the present time there are being manufactured large quantities of 
whisky from which the Government does not derive one cent of reve- 
nue. Yet the Congress of the United States has never undertaken to 
enact legislation abolishing the manufactuie of whisky. 

Some of our ambitious otticeholders in Ohio — Brother Blackburn, for 
instance, or his attorney — tell us that because it is difficult to secure 
convictions under the existing laws we should have legislation enacted 
which will absolutely prohibit the manufacture of this article. It would 
be just as sensible for a man to say that as humanity is liable to commit 
murder through the possible moral perversion of one or two or three of 
its individuals in each community a proper preventative precaution to 



356 OLEOMARGARINE. 

take would be to aimihilate bu inanity altogether. There is just as 
much sense, gentlemen, in one argument as there is in the other. And 
I want to say to you that the men who constitute organized labor, the 
men who are sufficiently appreciative of the necessity of organization 
as to band themselves together for the protection of their own interests, 
are also sufficiently intelligent to appreciate thoroughly and fully the 
injustice of this attempt to abolish this industry and the nonsense of 
the arguments which are produced in support of that attempt. 

I have been speaking about members of organized labor. I will say 
that there are hundreds of thousands of wage earners who are not 
organized, and who have not had the same opportunity of investigating 
the various phases of this controversy that the men have had who meet 
in their lodge rooms, and local union halls, and give it full and intel- 
ligent discussion. These men are not yet aware of the danger which 
menaces their future interests. But whenever, in the very iujprobable 
event of this bill being passed and sustained by the Supreme Court, 
these men are informed by their various grocers, " You must eat this 
product white," you will hear a protest from all over this country that 
will certainly demand your attention, gentlemen. There is no ques- 
tion about it. Why a man who from choice or necessity uses butterine 
should be compelled to eat it white, is something that he can not under- 
stand, and is something that no other good citizen can understand, and 
no living man can satisfactorily explain, so long as the coloring sub- 
stance which has made it heretofore attractive and appetizing is in 
itself not only not deleterious to health, but wholesome and good for 
human consumption. 

To my personal knowledge, much of the butter that is presented 
upon the market is made and kept in bedrooms. There is no question 
about it. It is the easiest thing in the world to prove. A trip into the 
country is all that is necessary. 

We all know that there are not many health officials out in the 
country, and that the vigilant eye of the sanitary officer is not watch- 
ing the manufacture of this butter. And we all know that people will 
get used to almost anything. It is only necessary for them to be con- 
fronted with the necessity of taking such a course temi)orarily, and not 
being in a position to experience any of the disadvantages of that par- 
ticular method they can not see why they should discontinue it. 
Consequently, in a great many instances, butter is made amidst envi- 
ronments that would not be tolerated for a moment were it known to 
the proper health authorities. 

Senator Allen. Excuse me for interrupting you to make a sugges- 
tion. My idea is that the butter made by the farm wives is superior 
to all other kinds of butter. 

Mr, McNamee. I know. Senator. But you will pardon me if I sug- 
gest that farm wives differ in their habits, however. 

Senator Allen, Yes; that is true, of course. 

Mr. McNamee, And while there may be a great many farm wives, 
and while I will admit that there may be a majority of farm wives, who 
understand the proper method of manufacturing butter, I desire to say 
to you that it has been my personal experience that there are a great 
many farm wives who do not understand how to make butter properly, 
and if they did understand it, butter used in general commerce would 
be more easily consumed than it is at present. 

Take it among us railroad men, for instance. When a conductor 
goes out on a run, as we call it (it is called a trip by the general pub- 
lic), he takes along with him enough food to last until he gets back 



OLKOMARGARINE. 357 

home. Ill his basket he carries a certain amouut of butter. I remem- 
ber, before the use of oleomargarine became as general as it is is uow, 
the comjilaints that these men used to make about butter getting sour. 
The heat of the caboose would cause it to become rancid and unpalat- 
able in a very short time, and in a great many instances they would 
simply have to throw it out. But since the use of oleomargarine has 
become general, these men, without an exception, take it along with 
them on their runs, and they never have any complaints to make 
about it. 

Now, I speak from practical experience, and I myself, when going on 
a long run, have taken with me a certain amount of it in my dinner 
pail. We used fre(|uently to fix things so tiuit we can make tea or coffee, 
or something of that kind, and try to have a hot meal wlien we are out 
on the road. I am not, at the present time, engaged in railroad serv- 
ice, but I have been until a comparatively recent date. Eight or nine of 
the best years of my life have been devoted to it. And my experience is 
that the introduction of butterine has been a boon to the men wlio want 
something that is healthful and palatable in the way of a spread for 
their bread — men who are compelled to take it along in their lunch 
pails as these men are, and to use it whenever the necessity for its use 
arises 

There are a great many members of organized labor who are familiar 
with the methods made use of in the majiufacture of oleomargarine. 
They have visited tlicse factories. They have noticed that without 
exception they are spotlessly clean, and are kept up to that standard. 
They know that this product is heated to such a degree as to preclude 
the possibility of any disease germs remaining in it. Chemists have 
proven that such is the case, and the members of organized labor are 
thoroughly satisfied that there is absolutely no danger of the spread 
of disease or of contracting any disease from its use. On the other 
hand, it has been clearly demonstrated that in a great many instances 
cows which yield butter are afflicted with consumption. The germs of 
consumption exist in them, and they will necessarily get into the 
product known as butter. Now, of course, there are lots of people who 
can not contract consumption, as the condition of their system will not 
permit the growth of the germs, t)ut there are hundreds of people who 
are predisposed to it. and as soon as such i)ersons consume butter of 
the kind I have numed the germs commence to develop in them, and, 
as a consequence, hundreds and hundreds of our (citizens are brought 
to premature graves through this dread disease. 

Eelative to the restrictions of the sale of oleomargarine that already 
exist, I can not see that they can be improved upon as protective 
measures. Every package of oleomargarine must be stamped, in the 
first place. 0?ie of the provisions of the Grout bill is as follows: 

Bnt when colored iu imitation of butter the tax to be paid by the mannfactni'er 
shall be 10 cents per ponnd. 

Now, gentlemen,! want to state to you, upon my honor as a man and 
as a rei)resentative of thousands of members of organized labor, who 
have empowered me to come here and in their name and iu their behalf 
to protest as vigorously as it is possible for me to do against the enact- 
ment of this law, that the people in the section of country from which 
I have come insist, as a protective measure, upon seeing the i)roper 
stamp is upon the paper or package inclosing the oleomargarine that 
they buy, so that they can be sure it is oleomargarine, and so that they 
shall know that no deception is being practiced upon them. 



358 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Why talk about substituting oleomargariue for butter? The danger 
exists now in the other direction. That is absolutely true. There is 
butter at present being sohl, or at least on the market, that is utterly 
unfit for use, unfit for human consumption; and when our citizens, 
knowing what they are purchasing, desire to purcliase a certain article 
of food in preference to some other article which is not, in their estima- 
tion, just as good, and when the article which they prefer is in no sense 
injurious to tlieir health, I can not see, nor can anyone else who looks 
at the matter properly or studies the question thoroughly, conceive how 
it can in any sense be a province of government to say to them, "You 
shall not use it, or you shall use it only under certain conditions." 

The Chairman. If they prefer oleomargarine, and wish to have proof 
that it is oleomargarine, why would they not prefer to have it in its 
natural color, so that no further proof would be required? That would 
settle it. 

Mr. McNamee. Why, Senator, my answer to your last question would 
also answer this. They have been used to a certain color. They have 
become accustomed to consuming this product colored as it is at present. 
Now, as long as they prefer to use it under that color, knowing what it 
is composed of, knowing what its ingredients are, where is the justice 
or right or sense of saying to them, or wherein is it within the province 
of government to say to them, " You shall not be permitted to use it 
colored in this way; you must use it white?" The same old question 
comes up over and over again — "Why?" "Because the Congress of 
the United States says so." "But why does the Congress of the 
United States say so?" etc. 

The gentlemen defending the butter side of this proposition would 
be in the same position then that a certain farmer, a member of the 
agricultural committee of the Ohio house of representatives, before 
which body I. appeared on behalf of the Columbus Trades and Labor 
Assembly as chairman of its legislative committee, who said to me, 
"What will we do with all our cows if you fellows are permitted to 
manufacture and use all the oleomaigarine you want to?" 

Just as I told the gentleman at the time, if each of the farmers 
present had a (piarry upon his pro])erty, they would probably consider 
themselves justified in coming to the Ohio legislature as representatives 
of that body and endeavoring to enact a law i)rohibiting the manufac- 
ture of brick. Why? Simply because it would interfere with their 
quarry industry and curtail the sale of stone for building purposes. 

I can not see any other argument in support of the Grout bill; and 
there are thousands and hundreds of thousands of our citizens who are 
in the same unfortunate plight as I am at the present time. 

There is no question, gentlemen, but that the object of this Grout 
bill is not the protection of the public in general, but the abolition of 
the oleomargarine industry. This tax is not a reasonable tax. It is a 
prohibitive tax. There is no question about that. Put 10 cents per 
pound additional tax upon butterine, and if its use is continued who 
will pay that extra 10 cents? The consumer will pay it — no one else. 
Who is at the present time paying the two-cents per-pound tax which 
our paternal Congress has placed upon this ])roduct? The man who 
earns a dollar and a quarter per day; the railroad man who goes out 
at the risk of his life to earn a living for himself and his family; in 
short, the citizens who consume the oleomargarine are at present paying 
this two-cents-per pound tribute to the existence of this already unjust 
law. As soon as this tax was imposed the ])rice of the product to the 
consumer advanced 2 cents per pound and has remained so ever since, 
since. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 359 

I liave here with me a pile of protests coming' from organized labor. 
Organized labor, being familiar witli the danger which confronts its 
interests, has taken advantage of the opportunity which that familiarity 
gives it to protest before the bill is passed, and, if i)ossible, by such 
protest, to pievent its passage. But the thousands, the hundreds of 
thousands of men who are not organized can only protest (by virtue of 
the fact that they are not organized) against this measure after they 
become its victims. Then they will protest, as all unorganized indi- 
viduals generally do. 

A great many people seem to think that the consumers of oleo- 
margarine regard its use as a disgrace or as an evidence of impoverished 
■circumstances. This is not the case, gentlemen. I myself know of a 
great many people in very good circumstances who use it from choice. 
Some of our best families in Columbus use it from choice. I will ven- 
ture to say that I could secure from a great many members of our board 
of trade in Columbus, with many of whom I am personally and intimately 
acquainted, statements to the ettect that oleomargarine is constantly 
consumed on their tables. It is no evidence of penury, and consequently 
it is no disgrace for any man's child, or wife, or servant, or messenger to 
go away from the grocery bearing in his hand, for consumption by the 
family, a package of this oleomargarine, stamped as oleomargarine. 
And it is no disgrace for such an individual or householder to go into 
the grocery and before, or in the presence of, a great many other i)eople 
to say, ''Give me a pound" or "two pounds of oleomargarine; and let it 
be stamped, so that I shall know it iis such." And our officious incum- 
bents of certain State positions know this as well as they know they 
are living. 

This precaution has become almost unnecessary now, because a great 
many, and in fact nearly all of our grocers have become aware of the 
necessity of giving j^eople what they want; and in a case of this kind 
^0 per cent of our people, I will venture to say, want this product. If 
the product should become inferior, or if it should be adulterated, no 
one would detect the fact more quickly than the intelligent consumers; 
and at the present time it is to the advantage of the oleomargarine 
manufa(;turers that the general public know that they are buying oleo- 
margarine, because, as 1 have said, it is preferable to butter. Any 
deception that might be practiced would work a great injury to their 
interests, simply because the people want oleomargarine and ask for it. 

I will state, gentlemen, from practical experience and from inter- 
course with the general public in and around Columbus, Ohio, that it is 
the general impression of the people that this bill can not get through 
the Senate of the United States. In conversation with a great many 
citizens I have heard them say : 

There need l>e uo fear of that. Coiii;res8nieu have motives of their own in sus- 
taining sneh a bill — they can not consistently avoid doing so; but members of the 
Senate need not entertain any such fears. There is no possible danger of the bill 
getting through the vSenate. The Senate is composed largely of men who have 
graced judicial benches, of the most prominent and learned citizens of our country, 
of men who have a proper appreciation of justice, and those men will not for a 
moment tolerate any attempt to enact a law of this kind, which upon its face is so 
grossly unjust and so apparently an attempt to utilize their body for the promotion 
of private interests. 

As I was coming away from Columbus the other morning I passed a 
blacksmith shop. There were brawny horseshoers in there, three or 
four anvils ringing. They hailed me, called me in, and said: 

Otf for Washington, Mac? Yes; going at 11.35. Well, good luck to you, boy. God 
speed you. We all hope you'll do good work for us up there. Do what you can 



360 OLEOMARGARINE. 

to keep that bill from passing. You tell tbe Senators up there that if tliey need aiiy 
further proof of the truth of the statements \ou make, we'll all write them a letter. 
We'll block the mails if uecessary. All they've got to do is request it, and we'll 
give them practical proof, in our own handwriting, over our own signatures, what 
our sentiments are. 

And everyone of those men shook hands witli me most cordially, 
most enthusiastically, and expressed an earnest and sincere hope that 
my mission here would be successful. 

I honestly wish it were possible to convey that scene from Columbus 
to the floor of the Senate of the United States when this bill is up 
for discussion — that is, if it ever does come up for discussion, and I 
sincerely trust that it will not. In fact, I am confident thiit it will not. 
I am confident that this committee will take i)ro])er steps in regard to 
it. But if they could only witness that scene it would need no further 
argument on my ])art to convince them of the sincerity of the masses 
of workingmen in demanding its defeat. 

Senator Allen. I think you had better file the papers you have 
there, which you desire to present to the comujittee, without reading 
them. They are too voluminous to read. They will all be printed and 
put in the report. 

Mr. McXamee. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I would like 
to refer to some of the points contained in some of these resolutions, 
and whenever 1 have taken u[> too much of your time, I will very gladly 
yield to a suggestion to quit. But as long as you decide to tolerate me 
I would like to refer to some of the points in these resolutions. 

Here is an ex])ressiou from one of the largest representative labor 
bodies in the United States — the Chicago Federation of Labor, and 
here is what they say relative to the tax: 

We believe the efforts to place a tax of 10 cents per ponnn on colored butterine is 
inspired by selfish motives, so that the nu^nufacturers of butter may charge an 
unreasonable price for their commodity, and enable the large creameries to establish 
surely and securely a butter trust which may raise ]>rices as their cupidity may 
dictate. 

Here is another expression : 

Justice demands equal rights for both manufacturers of butter and butterine, both 
products having equal merit. Any adverse legislation against either must be 
condemned. 

At the present time butter which, in its original state, would be too 
unsightly for use, is being colored continually with impunity by the 
farmers of Ohio. There has never been a protest raised against this 
coloring, although I understand it is illegal. But it would not serve 
the political ])uri)oses of our dairy and food commissioner to enter such 
a i)rotest, although it would be strictly in the line of his duty. Con- 
sequently, that law, if such exists, is not enforced, and if none such 
exist, no attempt has been ever made to enact one, although such col- 
oring is certainly for the purpose of deception. 

I will venture to say that a vast proportion of our urban citizens, if 
compelled by law to use butter as it appears originally, and at the 
same time if forbidden to use oleomargarine, would abstain from its 
use altogether. They would prefer to eat dry bread or to use some 
sort of substitute, in the way of jam, or something of that sort, used 
as a spread, confining themselves, for cooking purposes, to the use of 
lard or something of that kind. That does not api)ly to all butter, 
but it does apply to the larger proportion by far of the butter that is 
placed upon our market for sale. Yet why is it that it is right to color 
butter and to deceive the people into believing that it is good Jersey 
butter, or some other kind that may be desirable, when it is really the 



OLEOMARGARINE. 3(51 

product of a living factory, in the form of a cow, frequently unclean 
and disease infected, and wbicb can not be regulated by health pre- 
cautions, as a butterine tactory can ? 

Here is another specific protest against increasing the tax on 
oleomargarine : 

We believe that the present Federal law taxiuj;- butterlue 2 cents per pound, and 
the additional regulations ini])oseil by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, are 
sufficient to properly regelate tiie manufacture and sale of butterine. 

Here is an expression from some of the gentlemen to whom I referred 
recently as having met in the blacksmith shop. 
This is from the Journeyman Horseshoers' Union: 

We feel that all people having arrived at the age of discretion should be left ta 
exercise their own choice as to whether they sball use butter or oleomargine: 
Therefore, be it 

Jiesolrt'd hy Joiirnei/man Horseshoers Union No. 40, of Colirtnhns, Ohio, That as long 
as butterine is colored with a healthful ingredient said coloring should be encour- 
aged, as it improves the itppearauce of the product; that we do most emphatically 
condemn the persecution being waged against the butterine industry; that we pro- 
test against the attempt to increase the tax thereon, and that copies of this resolu- 
tion be forwarded to every Congressman, with the request that they each and every 
one exert the most strenuous efforts to crushingly defeat once and f(jr all any and all 
measures providing for the further tiixing of butterine. 

Now. gentlemen, 1 know, and so does the average citizen who knows 
anything about the lives of public men and how tiieir time is occupied, 
that it is absolutely imjiossible to bring to the attention of each and 
every Senator or member of Congress eveiy letter and every appeal 
and every communication that is sent them. I myself have a hard 
time in reading and disposing of the mail which I in my hnmble capacity 
receive. And when 1 realize how your time, gentlemen, is taken up 
I can not but come to the ccmclusion that it is absolutely impossible for 
you to read all of these communications or to give very much attention 
to them. In a great many cases I know that they never get past the 
private secretary, i^articularly if the Senator or Congressman is busy^ 
and it must be something of a very important personal nature on those 
occasions to receive his attention. 

The Chairman. We know of the fact that they do ])rotest. These 
labor union iirotests have been coming in for a long time. Now, in 
view of the fact that we have a very short time and are to hear Mr. 
Davis next this afternoon, there being oidy a few minutes left before 
we adjourn, is it not sufficient to file these i)rotests? If you have any 
new facts to present, I want to give you all possible opportunity to 
state them. 

Mr. McXamee. I have already, you know, asked for permission to 
refer to various points in them. 

The Chairman. We should be glad to have you do so as rapidly as 
possible, for we shall have to adjourn very shortly. 

Mr. McNamee. When will you adjourn, Senator? 

The Chairman. We will have to adjourn now in ten minutes, at 12 
o'clock, 

Mr. McNamee. Can I use those ten minutes'? 

The Chairman. Yes. 

Mr. McNamee. That was what I understood when the gentleman 
gave me permission to proceed. 

The Chairman. Yes; I simply wanted to be sure not to cut you off 
short, and to let you know that you only had a few minutes left. 

Mr. McNamee. I appreciate that courtesy on your part. Senator; 1 
do, indeed. 



362 OLEOMAKGARTlSrE. 

Here is something from the Painters and Decorators of Cleveland, 
Ohio. It speaks in very plain language. This is in the form of a letter 
signed by Mr. Peter Hassenpflue, 442 Erie street, Cleveland, president 
of said union. 

I have been instructed by onr union, containing over 400 members, to write and 
inform you that we are unanimously and bitterly opposed to the bills now pending 
in Cong'ress providing for the persecution of the butterine industry. As you doubt- 
less know, there are lawh now that are being carefully enlbrced and lived up to that 
make it impossible for butterine to be manufactured and sold for anything else but 
butterine, and it is the unanimous opinion of our members that butterine made 
according to these laws is better for all uses than three-lburths of the butter that 
can be bought. It won't get strong, and it don't come from feverish cows that are 
full of disease germs, and butter frequently does. 

Now, gentlemen, it may seem to you that this language indicates a 
familiarity with such matters on the part of these workingmen that is 
not consistent with their usual occupation, or with the very limited 
time tbey have to devote to the consideration or study of matters of 
this kind. But I assure you that they are familiar with all these 
points f that they are discussed continually, pro and con, in their 
unions; that tliey are giving deep and continual attention to this whole 
matter, and that the more this question is discussed in the labor 
unions the more and more do they become aware of the advantages of 
using oleomargarine in preference to butter. These points are all con- 
sidered — the points about the feverish cows, the spread of disease, the 
destruction of disease germs by the process by which oleomargarine is 
manufactured, etc. All of these things come up for discussion, and 
organized labor is generally familiar with tlieni. Unorganized labor 
may not be as familiiir with them, and may depend altogether for their 
information on the subject upon what may appear in the daily news- 
papers. But, as I said before, its protest will come, as protests always 
come from men who are not organized, after the damage has beendone, 
after the injury has been inflicted. 

Here is what these men say, and they say it in A^ery plain language: 

We feel this way — that if butterine is wrong, or poison, or liable to injure public 
health, then do away with it altogether; but if it is not (and years of experience in 
, using it have taught us it is not) then why persecute the industry and keep passing 
laws against it? Our belief is that this is kept up just for political reasons, and 
that some people in Congress that are sworn to protect the rights and interests of 
all the people are willing to increase our already too high cost of living aud add to 
our taxes just to catch the farmer vote and increase the business of the butter trust 
or trusts (and if butterine is killed they will soon bo in one), and make them a pres- 
ent of the butter market so they can either rob the people or make them go without 
butter. It is the rankest kind of injustice to kill one industry that is right and 
legitimate in order to accommodate another. We want butterine; we know what 
it is; we would rather have it than butter, aud it is an outrage, in order to gratify 
the people who make butter, that we should have to go without it and pay two 
prices for butter which we are compelled by law to eat, and which, nine cases out of 
ten, is not lit for human use. It is getting to be pretty serious when the Congress 
of the United States is asked to go into the business of booming certaia interests, 
and for their accommodation driving their comi)etitors out of existence, simply 
because they are competitors, and for no other reason on earth. A great deal is 
being said about butterine being a certain color. Now, the only reason that a kick 
is made on that color is because it helps to sell that commodity. If the butterine 
makers were to use red or black or blue, these patriotic statesmen, and others so 
solicitous for the people's protection, would raise no objection, because that would 
make the same point that they want to make by law, and that is to hurt its sale 
and thereby tickle the farmers and advance the interests of the creamery trusts. 
The ingredient used in butterine which gives it its color has been proven by ofdcial 
chemical analysis to be a natural and healthful product. As there is no reason to 
kill butterine'but because it hurts another business, then why not do away with 
these hose painting machines because they hurt our business? 

These are painters, gentlemen. The hose painting machines displace 
a great many painters, and deprive a great number of the men who wield 



OLEOMARGARINE. 363 

the brush for a living of employment. Tbey take a hose and run it up 
and down a wall, and in ten minutes a half day's work is done. But 
these men very wisely say that if Congress will abolish or prohibit the 
manufacture of butterine in order to accommodate the manufacturers 
of butter, then why not, on the same principle, do away with these 
hose painting machines to accommodate the painters, who are in propor- 
tion to the manufacturers of hose painting machines more numerical 
by far than the farmers and creamery people are in the same proportion 
to the manufacturers of oleomargarine. That is precisely the same 
principle upon which is based the Grout bill. It is the only motive for 
its attempted enactment, and can not be concealed. 

Mr. ScHELL. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will permit me, allow 
me to suggest now, before tne time comes for adjournment, since I see 
he is not going to be allowed to say all that he wants to say, that he 
be allowed to tile these resolutions from various people whom he repre- 
sents, marking such parts us he wishes copied into the record, so that 
all he wishes to have appear prominently may appear as part of his 
remarks this morning, and be regularly before the iSenate. 1 see these 
papers which he has are too voluminous to go bodily into the record; 
and it occurs to me that that disposition be made of them, in order 
that the committee may have the advantage of having the important 
portions of them before it. That is merely a suggestion. If it meets 
with no disapproval, I think the gentleman will gladly avail himself 
of it. 

Mr. McNamee. Yes; thank you. I have just a few minutes more, 
gentlemen. ( Reading : ) 

We know it would be unreasonable to ask this, but it would be no more so tlian 
for Vjutter makers to try, as tbey are doing, to drive butterine out of existence 
because it hurts their business. 

I will close by saying that we consider any further legislation by Congress tam- 
pering with the butterine business as a prostitution of that dignified body to the 
greed and avarice of certain corporations and iuuividvials, at our sacrifice and that 
of the people in general who don't own farms or creamery factories; and in the 
name of my union, under its seal, and by its unanimous instruction, I earnestly 
request you do everything you can to defeat all measures that provide for the 
increase in the tax of, or further interference with the manufacture or sale of, but- 
terine. 

When railroads first came into existence, the proprietors of stage 
coaches and otlier methods of conveyance and transportation were very 
much displeased, and they kicked vigorously; but of course their kick 
did not avail them anytliiiig, because i)robab]y their jjolitical intluence 
was defective in some way. Now, if the farmers should have to sur- 
render to the manufacture of that side industry, the making of butter, 
because the manufacture of butterine has been demanded by the 
people in general, they would eventually come to a realization of the 
fact that after all they had not lost much, because in the raising of 
stock they would make as much, or at least, according to my impres- 
sion and the impression of those whom I represent, they would be as 
well off eventually as if this progressive industry were sacrificed now 
for their special benefit. 

Now, gentlemen, as the time is very limited, as I have only one or 
two minutes more, and as you have kindly consented to permit me to 
submit my argument in brief form, as I understand it, Mr. Attorney — 
you are an attorney, are you not? 

Mr. SCHELL. Yes. 

Mr. McNamee (continuing). I will not refer any further to this but- 
terine question. I simply wish to tender to this committee, and its dig- 
nified members individually, the sincere thanks of the Columbus Trades 



364 OLEOMAKGARINE. 

and Labor Assembly, and of the otlier organizations which I represent, 
for the courteous hearing you have given me on this occasion and for 
the patience with which you have borne with me. 

I thank you sincerely, gentlemen ; and 1 trust that it shall be our 
most pleasant duty to tender this committee a sincere vote of thanks 
for that protection of our interests which I feel contident they will 
give us. 

The Chairman. There is very little time left. Is tbere anyone else 
who wishes to be heard in that time? 

Mr. Knight. How much is there — ten minutes? 

Senator Allen. I was going to suggest, Mr. Chairman, that if all 
these gentlemen desire to be heard, some one or two of us can remain 
here and continue the hearing. 

The Chairman. During the session of the Senate? 

Senator Allen. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Is there anybody else ready to go on on this side of 
the question? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Acting under the suggestion of previous days, 
that the committee would adjourn at noon until 2.'M) o'clock, it was 
understood that Mr, Davis would go on at that time. He is not 
present now. 

The Chairman. Mr Knight, i)eiiiaps those men of whom you spoke, 
who are going away, can be heard now on the other side of this 
question? 

Mr. Knight. The gentlemen are here, but there is just one thing to 
be considered, Senator. We do not want to break in or repudiate or 
change in any way the arrangements which were made to permit us to 
have to morrow. 

The Chairman. We will not do that; but as nobody else seems to 
want the time to-day 

Mr. ScHELL, As I understand, it is not arranged that they are to 
have all of to-morrow. I do not think that has been the case. We do 
not want to concede that on the record at all. 

The Chairman. I so understand it, unless there is something very 
special which would require a change in the plan. That was the 
announcement. You have had the floor lo-day. 

Mr. ScHELL. As the question was raised yesterday, I think, it was 
understood that these gentlemen were not to be allowed to really bring 
in their presentation of their case at the close. In other words, they 
are not to l)e allowed to wait until we have concluded, and then bring 
in new arguments or new facts, or new alleged facts, without giving us 
the right to have something to say in reply. 

Senator Allen. Is itnottruethat the whole matter at issue between 
these two sides can be reduced to one or two questions? 

Mr, SCHELL. To two questions, perhaps. 

Senator Allen. Xow, wliy is there any necessity for going on with 
greater elaboration ? 

Mr. ScHELL, I see no necessity at all. 

The Chairman. If you will act on that plan, we can simplify matters 
considerably. 

Mr. ScHELL. The point is this, Mr. Chairman: The gentlemen who, 
as we claim, or as I claim, have the burden of proof, have come in here 
and arraigned us on certain charges, and say we should submit to cer- 
tain things. We put in a plea of not guilty. They claim to present 
their case, and say, "We close;" but they really present no case. It 
is a general charge — not even the statement of a case. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 365 

The Chairman. That is for us to consider. 

Mr. ScHELL. I understand that; but if they have really reserved an 
actual case, or a show of a case, to bring in after we have said what 
we have to say, then we insist upon the right to reply. 

Senator Allen. You will understand that much of what is said here 
is familiar knowledge Co every member of the committee. 

Mr. ScHELL, It is; I understand that. 

The CnAiRMAN. You say that you did not expect a hearing until 
half past 2, so that any time which is taken now by the other side will 
not be taken from you. 

Mr. ScHELL. Oh, we are not objecting to their taking any time the 
committee sees lit to give them under these circumstances. 

Mr. Jelke. Do I understand that Mr. Davis will go on at half 
past 2? 

The Chairman. Y"es. 

Mr. Jelke. I did uot expect Mr. McNamee to speak so long this 
morning and had hoped that I would be heard. 

The Chairman. You will be given time this afternoon. Mr. Davis 
will not be vei y long. 

Senator Allen. One or two of us can stay here and continue the 
hearing. I can stay here, for one. 

The Chairman. Yes; if Senator Allen will stay here, you can go 
right along now. 

Mr. Knight. Then, with the committee's permission, I will intro- 
duce Mr. F. J. H. Kracke, assistant commissioner of agriculture of 
the State of ISTew York, for the metropolitan district. 

(Senator Allen thereupon took the chah- as acting chairman.) 

STATEMENT OF FREDERICK J. H. KRACKE, ASSISTANT COMMIS- 
SIONER OF AGRICULTURE, METROPOLITAN DISTRICT, STATE 
OF NEW YORK. 

Mr. Kracke. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the Committee: 
What I have to say will be very brief. 

I have charge of the enforcement of the dairy law in the State of 
New York, and more particularly the city of New York. It is in that 
line that I will give you a few facts as they appeal to us, as explaining 
why this pending bill is of particular interest to the people of the State 
of New York. 

In New Y'ork State, bordering as it does on New Jersey, we are labor- 
ing under a great disadvantage. The people of our State are pro- 
hibited from selling oleomargarine. The people of New Jersey 

Mr. Knight. Excuse me, Mr. Kracke; qualify that, please. You 
will be misquoted ou that point. Y^ou mean, do you not, that they are 
prohibited from selling oleomargarine in imitation of butter? 

Mr. Kracke. Yes; they are prohibited from selling oleomargarine 
in imitation of yellow butter. 

Mr. Knight. It is well to be specitic ou these points. 

Mr. Schell. I suppose the law itself explains that. 

Mr. Knight. I feared he would be misquoted; that is all. 

Mr. Kracke. Now, from New Jersey these peddlers with wagons come 
over and deliver oleomargarine to private houses and boarding houses 
in this way : 

An agent will come along, calling at the different houses, asking for 
the mistress of the house, and tell her a story about how he can deliver 



366 OLEOMARaARINE. 

her some nice creamery butter for a certain price if she will contract 
with him for a year. Of course, that price will always be from 5 to 10 
cents below the creamery butter price — 5 cents, as a rule. Then, after 
she has seen the cheapness of the tiling-, the savingin the price, believing 
this to be genuine butter, sbe will give the order. Then, a few days 
later, tliese wagons come over from ]Sew Jersey into 2s'ew York to deliver 
these goods. They are bought for and as butter. 

We have uuule a tight there on this matter, but we are handicapped 
by reason of the fact that these wagons come over as express wagons. 
Under the interstate commerce act they ciin come from one State into 
another, carrying this commodity, and we have no jurisdiction over 
them. In other words, the citizens of another State are privileged to 
deal in our State, and given a right which the citizens of our State are 
denied. 

Senator Foster. Do you New York people do the same with New 
Jersey — take your oleomargarine over there and sell it? 

Mr. Kracke. We do not prohibit the manufacture or sale of colored 
oleomargarine in our State at all. 

Mr. Knight. You do not understand the question. He asks if you 
do the .'-arae with the New Jersey people — sell them oleomargarine for 
butter ? 

Senator Foster. Do you send your wagons over to New Jersey with 
oleomaigarine to supply the i^eople over there? 

Mr. Kracke. Well, Senator, there is not any made in the State of 
New York. Consequently they could not take any over there. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Will the gentleman jiermit me a question? 

Mr. Kracke. Yes, sir. 

Mr. TillinctHASt. Do you mean to tell this committee that the New 
Y^ork law is not operative against the citizen of New Jersey who sells 
oleomargarine in New York or who takes an order for oleomargarine in 
New York? 

Mr. Kracke. The law of the State of New York is operative against 
a citizen who takes an order in the way you state, but the point of that 
is this, that he comes from another State into our State, takes this 
order, and returns to his own State, and then has it delivered in this 
way, which makes it next to impossible to stop the traffic. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. But the oleomargarine, when it arrives in the State 
of New York, is subject to the jurisdiction of that State, if the sale 
and delivery take place in New York, is it not"? 

Mr. Kracke. It is not subject to law. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. It is not? 

Mr. Kracke. It is not subject to law. 

Mr. TILLINGHAST. Then you differ with the Supreme Court of the 
United States in the case of Commonwealth v. Plumley? 

Mr. Kracke. No; I do nor. 

The Acting Chairman (Senator Allen). After the article comes 
into the State 

Mr. Kracke. After the article is delivered to the party, then it 
becomes subject to the law of New York, of course. 

Mr. TILLINGHAST. That was my question. 

Mr. Kracke. You did not clearly state it in that form, then. 

The Acting Chairman. Your idea is that the State of New York 
can not prohibit a citizen of New York going into New Jersey and 
making a New Jersey contract for oleomargarine? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. That is right. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 367 

Mr. Kracke. That is the point. 

The Acting Chairman. 1 think that is true. 

JVlr. TiLLiNGHAST. That is true. 

Mr. Kracke. Take the case of delivering oleomargarine to boarding 
houses. Boarding houses in New York are prohibited from using 
colored oleomargarine or serving it to their boarders. But the point is 
this — that it is sold to them as butter by the preliminary process of the 
agent coming there and selling it to them as creamery butter. 

Senator Uolliver. But the law of New Jersey seems to be very 
nearly the same as the law of New York on the subject. 

Mr. Kracke. I believe it is; but I am not speaking for New Jersey. 
The point of my starting out in this way, Senators, is this — simply to 
bring to your minds tlie question of fraud. The question of fraud in 
the whole business is what appeals to me most thoroughly aud posi- 
tively. It was said here by some of the friends of the bill that 75 per 
cent ol" the oleomargarine sold is sold as and for butter. Now, I ratlier 
disagree with them. From my experience in New York, and I have had 
five years' experience there in enforcing the law, I rather disagree with 
that proposition and that statement. Every ounce of it that is sold in 
New York is sold as and for butter, wiihout any question. ;^ 

To give you an illustration: We had reason to suspect a certain 
grocery >tore of selling oleomargarine. I sent the inspectors there to 
look the matter u]), but could not tind any ot the material. There was 
a renewed complaint. I went there myself with the inspectors, aud in 
looking the place over we found some butter on baud; and among the 
emi)ty tubs which 1 looked over the middle hoop of one contained a 
small corner of a revenue stamp, which indicated to me that the grocer 
had been handling oleomargarine. Shortly after that a clerk who had 
formerly been in this man's emi)loy came to my office and told me that 
the goods were kept upstairs in his living rooms; that this man kept 
oleomargarine, but kept it upstairs in his living rooms, and only dealt 
it out discreetly to certain (uistomejs. He said that he would not dare 
keep it in his store for fear of being detected by our inspectors. 

This former clerk said fnrthermore: 

The method is this : The man has a boy there in the store. Next time you go there 
you will 8ee this lioy walking in tlie place. As the men, about 10 or 11 o clock in 
the morniug, get their orders ready and tliey are put in the w^igon for delivery, this 
bny will be walking up and down, watching the orders. He will have on a very 
large co.it. This coat is very heavily lined, and it is interlined and intersewed so 
that it will permit ai number of pound prints of oleomargarine to be placed in the 
lining. I he boy will go with the wagon, an<l when it gets to a certain house where 
he wjints to deliver oleomargarine with the order, whereas l)utter has been ordered, 
he will take one print or two prints out of the lining of his coat pocket, put it in 
the order, and take it in the house. 

That is an illustration of how they sell oleomargarine for butter, gen- 
tlemen. 

Mr. Miller. What do they do on hot days? 

Mr. Kkacke. This was not a hot day. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Miller. How many pounds did this boy carry at once? 
' Mr. Kracke. He carried 2<S pounds. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Now, do you mean to tell the committee that the 
person to whom that oleomargarine was delivered was deceived in the 
purchase? 

Mr. Kracke. Unquestionably. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Do you know that, or is it simply a question of 
opinion ? 



368 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. Kracke. I know it absolutely; because we went there and 
asked them, and after that they testified to it. Moreover, they jjaid 
28 cents a pound for it. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. lu how many instances did you find that to be 
true? 

Mr. Kracke. In every instance. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. How many were there? 

Mr. Kracke. What do you mean? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Of how many cases of that kind have you any 
recollection °? 

Mr. Kracke. One thousand. [Laughter.] 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Do you mean prosecutions? 

Mr. Kracke. One thousand prosecutions. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. What was the prosecution for — selling oleomar- 
garine for butter? 

Mr. Kracke. Selling oleomargarine for butter. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Or was it for selling oleomargarine colored? 

Mr. Kracke. Selling colored oleomargarine for butter. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. That was what the prosecution was for? 

Mr. Kracke. That was what the prosecution was for, and there were 
1,000 convictions, too. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. In how long a time? 

Mr. Kracke. In the last three or four years. Do you want me to 
go back further? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. You Say three or four years? 

Mr. Kracke. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Jelke. And yet the sale of oleomargarine is not stopped in New 
York! Does not that show that the people want it? 

Mr. Kracke. No; I rather think it shows the people do not want it. 
The people do not want it; the consumer does not want it. 

Mr. Knight. It shows that the grocer wants it. 

Mr. Jelke. Mr. Kracke speaks for New York only. 

Mr. Kracke. There is one other point to which I want briefly to 
call attention, and that is the fact that there appeared before this com- 
mittee last week a man from New Y'ork who stated that he was a com- 
mission merchant and a dealer in butter. In making his statement he 
took up an interview of mine in a New York paper and attemjDted to 
distort it so as to have me say something that I did not say. I refer to 
Mr. Lestrade, who came here and made a statement before the committee. 
I wish now to ask the committee if Mr. Lestrade told the committee 
that he was an oleomargarine manufacturer? 

The Acting Chairman. I do not know, Mr. Kracke, what the record 
shows in that respect. It is all printed wherever it may be. 

Mr. Kracke. Mr. Lestrade is a member of this mercantile exchange 
of New York, which is composed of 500 or 600 commission merchants, 
dealers in butter, who passed a unanimous resolution favoring this bill. 
Then he came here representing himself to be (as he is) a merchant in 
New York City, a dealer in butter there. I would not have made this 
reference, however, if it had not been for the fact that he attempted to 
distort a statement of mine so as to construe it as favorable to his side 
of the case. For that reason I raised this question. 

The Acting Chairman. Mr. Knight, you may read the statement 
referred to, if you find it. 

Mr. Knight (after examining printed report of hearings). It has not 
been printed yet. 

Mr. Kracke. I have not anything further to say, gentlemen. I 
simply wanted to call attention to that matter. 



OLEOMAEGAKIlSrE. 369 

Mr. SoHELL. If the gentleman will permit me a question. Your laws 
in New York are considered as being practically enibrced, are they not? 

Mr. Kracke. I think they are. 

Mr. ScHELL. Then your State laws are capable of enforcement, if 
they get competent men like yourself and Mr. Flanders to enforce them? 

Mr. Kracke. I think they are. 

Mr. Knight. Mr. Kracke, about what does the State of New York 
expend per year in the enforcement of those laws"? 

Mr. Kracke. Particularly for this line of work about $140,000 a year. 

Mr. KniGtHT. And how many men are required to cover the State? 

Mr. Kracke. Sixty-odd men. 

Mr. Knight. And how long has it taken y on to organize this depart- 
ment up to its present efficiency? 

Mr. Kracke. Seventeen years. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. You Say you expend $140,000 yearly in this line 
of work. Do you mean jjarticularly adulterations of butter? 

Mr. Kracke. No; dairy products. We have other branches in our 
work, too. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Precisely. How much of that sum, in your judg- 
ment, is used in the prosecution of persons selling oleomargarine as 
butter ? 

Mr. Kracke. Well, I could not tell you that, particularly. There is 
one thing that I will say, and that is that there is very little oleomar- 
garine found in New York outside of the city of New York. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Then, so far as New York is concerned, its citi- 
zens are not deeply interested in this bill? Their own State laws are 
quite sufficient for their protection! 

Mr. Kracke. Well, no; because that would be selfish. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Well, they have a right to be selfish. 

Mr. Kracke. But they are not selfish. A man coming from New 
York would not be selfish. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Knight. Mr. Kracke, about what proportion of the time of your 
department, in your district, is devoted to the oleomargarine question ? 

Mr, Kracke. More than two-thirds of the time. 

Mr. Miller. How much butter is sold in the State of New York in 
a year? 

Mr. Kracke. I can best answer that by referring you to the rei)ort 
given by the Treasury Department, which stated that last year there 
were a little over 200,000 pounds sold there. 

Mr. Knight. But, Mr. Kracke, that does not include the amount 
that may be brought over from New Jersey in these wagons of which 
you speak. 

Mr. Kracke. Well, of course I have no knowledge or record of what 
is brought over. There is some brought over. 

Mr. Knight. Have you ever had any trouble, Mr. Kracke, with any 
Providence concern shipping stuff in through Jersey City? 

Mr. Kracke. Well, there was trouble with this particular one — 
Lestrade Brothers. 

Mr. Knight. Well, are there any others? Have you ever had any 
trouble with any other Providence concern? 

Mr. Kracke. Not that I know of particularly; and we do not make 
a specialty of looking up any particular manufacturer. Oleomargarine 
palmed off in New York is oleomargarine; and we have tried to steer 
clear of making a bee-line for any particular manufacturer. That is 
not our province. Oleomargarine, to us, is oleomargarine, and contra- 
band to the law. 

S. Rep. 2043 24 



370 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. TiLLiNGrHAST. Now, do you know aiiytliiug about the amount of 
butter that there is consumed in the State of ISlew York? 

Mr. Kracke. I could tell you more particularly as to the amount of 
butter that is consumed in the city of New York. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Very well; what is that? 

Mr. Kracke. There was consumed last year in the city of New York 
a little over $18,000,000 worth. 

Mr. Till INGH AST. And that would represent how many pounds"? 

Mr. Kracke. Twenty cents a i)ound. 

Mr. Knight. About 'l 10,000,000 pouuds, then. 

Mr. TiLLiNGiiAST. I make it 00,< 100,000 pounds. 

Mr. Knight. No; 110,000,000 pounds. » 

Mr. TILLINGHAST. Why, you say there is $18,000,000 worth sold? 

Mr. Kracke. About $18,000,000 worth. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Then that would be 90,000,000 pounds of butter 
consumed in the city of New York last year? 

Mr. Kracke. About, as I remember it. 

Mr. Knight. That is in Greater New York? 

Mr. Kracke. Yes. 

Mr. Adams. Mr. Kracke, I would like to ask you a question. I 
understand that you hav^e s|)ent a very large portion of an appropriation 
of $140,( 00 a year in enforcing the dairy laws of New Y'ork with reference 
to the sale of oleomargarine. Would it be necessary to expend that 
amount which you now expend, or any considerable portion of it, if 
oleomargarine were made under its own color, and not colored in imita- 
tion of butter? 

Mr. Kracke. It certainly would not. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. But it would if it were sold for butter. As I 
understand, colored oleomargarine can not be sold in New York at all, 
except in violation of the law. 

Mr. Kracke. That is correct. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. So that if oleomargarine should continue to be 
sold as butter it would be sold colored, and you would have the same 
difficulty in enforcing the law then that you have now, would you not? 

Mr. Kracke. I do not catch your question. In the event that this 
law is passed, you say 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST, If this bill goes into effect, we will say, the cost 
of oleomargarine would be enhanced? 

Mr. Kracke. Yes, sir. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. But even at the enhanced price it would still be 
able to compete with butter, would it not? 

Mr. Kracke. At certain times of the year it would; yes. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. And therefore there would be the same tempta- 
tion then to sell it for butter. there is now? 

Mr. Kracke. Well, not quite. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Not quite; but there would be some temptation? 

Mr. Kracke. Because putting an additional tax of 8 cents per pound 
on it would take away quite a good deal of the profit on it. 

Mr. Schell. Do we understand you to say that the entire annual 
appropriation for your dejiartment is $140,000? 

Mr. Kracke. No. 

Mr. Schell. What is the entire appropriation? 

Mr. Kracke. The entire approi)riation will run up to between three 
and four hundred thousand dollars. 

Mr. Schell. Now, what per cent of this $140,000 that is appro- 
priated for the particular enforcement of the dairy laws is used for the 



OLEOMARGARINE. 371 

purpose of preventing the use of preservatives iu milk, tbe using of poi- 
sonous coloring' matter in butter, and things of that kind? Or do you 
pay any attention to those phases of Llie matter? 

Mr. Kracke. Oh, yes, yes. Just duiiiig this past month we received 
fines amouu'ing to #1,800 for adulterated milk and milk that had pre- 
servatives iu it — that is, in New York City alone. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Just oue more question. As I understood you, 
there are 90,000,000 pounds of butter consumed in the city of New York 
yearly. One per cent of that amount would be 900,000 pounds? 

Mr. Kracke. Y^es. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. So that the amount of oleomargarine consumed 
in your tSrate, assuming it to be 200,000 pounds, is less than one-quarter 
of 1 per cent of the whole amount of butter sold in the city of New York 
alone ? 

Mr. Kracke. Eight you are. 

Mr. TiLLiNGiiAST. Now, assuming that there is quite a large amount 
of butter sold in the State of New York in addition to what there is 
sold in the city of New Y^ork 

Mr. Kracke. Yen. 

Mr. TiLLTNGiiAST (continuing). Can you figure up what possible 
efl'ect the small amount of oleomargarine consumed by your State 
would have upon the farming industry of that State! 

Mr. Kracke. Well, I have not gotten down to figuring just yet. 

Mr. Dillon. Mr. Kracke, is there not some colored oleomargarine 
"which comes into New York from New Jersey and other States, and is 
sold on the markets there as butter that you do not know about, and 
that does not enter into the records at all? 

Mr. Kracke. 1 have so stated, but that does not amount to very 
much. 

Mr. Dillon. And, Mr. Kracke, this gentleman speaks of the effect 
on the New York farmer alone. Is it not true that a good deal of the 
New York product goes out of the State and out of New York City to 
find a market where it meets the competition of this colored oleomar- 
garine, made in imitation of butter, where the States are not so strict 
in enforcing the laws as you are iu New Y^ork State? 

Mr. Kracke. The point is this : Most of the butter made in New 
Y'ork State, especially in the eastern and northeastern sections, goes to 
the Boston market. Only a very little of it (if I remember correctly, 
only 200,000 iiounds) comes into New Y'ork City from New York State. 
Consequently 

Mr. Knight. You mean 200,000 packages, do you not? 

Mr. Kracke. I mean 200,000 packages. Consequently, it is of vital 
interest to the people — the farmers and the dairymen of the State of 
New York — to have a law that will prohibit this fraud all over this 
country. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. But you have the same law in Massachusetts that 
you have in New Y^ork, have you not? 

Mr. ScHELL. And it is enforced ? 

Mr. Kracke. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. 

Mr. Knight. Now, I want to ask Mr. Kracke a question. What 
proportion of the butter which comes to New York City is from the 
State of New Y'ork ! You said about 200,000 packages, did you not, 
out of 2,000,000 ? 

Mr. Kracke. Yes. 

Mr. Knight. About 10 per cent. Is that true? 

Mr. Kracke. Y^esj a little less than 10 per cent. 



372 OLEOMAKGARINE. 

Mr. Knight. Now, why is it that Illinois and Ohio and Michigan and 
Pennsylvania, we will say, are compelled to come to New York to find 
a market for their butter in competition with your New York producers? 

Mr. Kracke Why, very likely for the reason that they find no sale 
for it out there. 

Mr. Knight. Then, as a matter of fact, when a million pounds of 
oleomargarine are sold in Illinois, displacing a million pounds of butter 
in the State of Illinois, that amount of butter has to come to the city of 
New York for a market, because it is crowded out at home, and, so far 
as the farmer is concerned, in the question of supply and demand, it 
might as well be oleomargarine? 

Mr. Kracke. As a matter of equalization, it afiects the farmer of 
New York as well as it does the farmer of Illinois. 

Mr. Knight. And as a matter of fact the State laws of New York, 
M'hich you are ])aying $140,000 a year to enforce, are DO per cent of pro- 
tection to other States where they are 10 per cent of protection to New 
Y^ork. Is not that true? 

Mr. Kracke. Well, that is largely true. 

Mr. Schell. I want to call the attention of the Chair, however, in 
answer to the suggestion a little while ago that these things could be 
boiled down to one or two propositions, to the fact that these statistics 
are in regard to the competition of oleomargarine and butter, and not 
in regard to any fraud whatever in the case. We are getting out of 
the question of fraud. 

The Acting Chairman. Yes; I see that. Of course your time is 
limited to to-day and to-morrow; but if you see fit to fritter it away 

Mr. Schell. You must remember that these are the friends of the 
bill frittering away our time. 

Mr. Knight. Oh, no ; this is not your time. 

The Acting Chairman. Not until half past 2 o'clock. 

Mr. Kracke. In was only for that reason that I went on — because 
it was nobody's time — just lunch time. 

The Acting Chairman. You will understand that this evidence is 
all i)riuted and read over. From time to time everything that occurs 
here comes out in this pamphlet form, and then is printed in book form. 
After it is printed, it is read over thoroughly and carefully by each 
member of the committee; and then the committee comes together 
and determines what to do. So if members are not here to hear you, 
they will hear you by reading your evidence. 

Mr. Knight. Was it intended. Senator, that any other of the dairy 
representatives should take this time at noon? Are you willing to 



The Acting Chairman. You can go on and take this time until 
half past 2. I think, however, that we had possibly better take an 
adjournment of five or ten minutes, after a while, for some lunch. 

Mr. Knight. Mr. Dillon, editor of the Rural New Yorker, is here 
from New Y'ork, and would like to say a few words in behalf of the 
farmers. 

The Acting Chairman. You can select your own order of pre- 
senting your speakers. 

Mr. Knight. Then I will introduce Mr. J. J. Dillon, editor of the 
Eural New Yorker. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 873 

STATEMENT OF J. J. DILLON, ESQ., EDITOR OF THE RURAL NEW 

YORKER. 

Mr. Dillon. Mr. Chairmau and gentlemeu, I will take up very lit- 
tle of your time ou the pending question. 

I am coimected with (and, in fact, am publishing) the publication 
called the Eural Xew Yorker. My duties in that connection bring me 
in contact with a great many ot the farmers throughout the whole coun- 
try, and I am interested in farming and in dairying myself. 

We farmers look at this matter as simply one of right and wrong — a 
matter of fraud. We have been making a product of human consump- 
tion for a great many years. We have been i)utting it up in a certain 
form, under a certain color, and have established a trade for it as a 
healthful and nutritious article of human food. 

Now, there come along these manufacturers. They recognize the 
value of our trade; and they put up a product that costs them to man- 
ufacture something like one-half of tlie cost of the genuine article of 
butter; and by coloring it in imitation of butter, putting it up as we 
put up butter, and putting it on the market just as we put butter on 
the market, they have been able in certain cases to work into our 
trade. 

The majority of the States have said, through their State laws, that 
this should not be. We have endeavored to pnt certain restrictions 
on the manufacture and especially ou the sale of oleomargarine. We 
have tried to get them to sell oleomargarine for just what it is. Our 
State laws have been, for the most part, failures, however We have 
succeeded fairly well in New York State in keeping out a large por- 
tion of what formerly came there; but it is coming in to some extent 
(as jNIr. Kracke has said) from New Jersey nud from other States. 
Some of it is detected and some of it goes undetected. 

Then, some of it comes into comi)etition with our butter in another 
way. If the local laws of other States are not enforced and it goes 
into consumption there, then the butter made in those States enters 
into competition with our butter in our home markets. But for all 
that, it resolves itself into a matter of imitating our product. 

Now, in the absence of State laws that are able to i^rotect us, we 
come to Congress, and say: ''Giv^e us a law which will simply prohibit 
the manufacturer of oleomargarine from imitating our product and from 
selling it as butter." That is all we ask. We do not care how much 
they sell, if they sell it for just what it is. All that we ask Congress 
to do is to simply give us some protection in the product we have been 
making tor years, and for which we have built up a trade. 

Mr. TiLLiNCiHAST. Will the gentleman permit a question? 

Mr. Dillon. Yes, sir. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Do you consider that this law for which you are 
asking is a prohibitive lawf 

Mr. Dillon. We do not consider it a prohibitive law. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. But you said that that was what you wanted. 

Mr. Dillon. A prohibitory law? 

Mr. KoYCE. For seUing it as butter — not for selling it as oleomarga- 
rine? 

Mr, Dillon. Y'es; we want its sale as butter prohibited; that is all. 
We simply want Congress to say to the manufacturer of oleomarga- 
rine, "You must not put up your product in a form that imitates and 
that will enable vou to sell it as butter." That is all we ask. 



374 OLEOMARGARIlSrE. 

Now, we farmers look at iu this way: Our cream has a certain color, 
a certain aj)pearance. It is refrigerated and frozen, and we sell it as 
ice cream ; and as such it has a certain color. Many manufacturers go 
on a little further and give it different colors. They give it a choco- 
late color, they give it a pink color, and they give it various other 
colors. That does not interfere with its use at all. We go on eating 
ice cream just the same; in fact, we often have different colors on our 
XJlate at one time. 

But these gentlemen come in from their oleomargarine factories, and 
they say: "That is all right, but we can't sell our product in its 
natural condition. We must have the same color for it that you have 
for butter, in order to sell it." 

Well, that is true. They must have that color, or they can't sell it. 
But if people will eat ice cream colored pink or given the color of choco- 
late, what is the objection to their eating oleomargarine under those 
same colors'? Why is it that they have to come right iu here and imi- 
tate our product? 

That is all that we ask. 

Mr. MoNamee. Will the gentleman yield to a question? 

Mr. Dillon. Yes, sir. 

Mr, McNamee. If the coloring of oleomargarine is so reprehensible, 
why is it that so many farmers resort to that practice in making their 
butter? 

Mr. Dillon. Coloriug oleomargarine is reprehensible for the reason 
that it imitates another product, and it tries to deceive the consumer 
by making a product that is not butter ai)pear as butter, and tries to 
poke it down the throats and into the stomachs of people who do not 
want it and wJio would not have it if they knew what it was. 

Mr. Tillingiiast, But this bill does not prevent the coloring of oleo- 
margarine. 

Mr. Dillon. No; it does not prevent you from coloring it. 

Mr. MoNamee. Then it is not wrong to color it, is it? 

Mr. Dillon. It is not wrong to color what? 

Mr. McNamee. Oleomargarine. The bill does not say thatitis wrong. 

Mr. Dillon. It does not make any difference to me what the bill 
says. To my mind it is wrong to imitate butter in the manufacture of 
oleomargarine. That is, it is always wrong to take one article and try 
to sell it on the reputation of another. 

Mr. McNamee. Then what do the farmers endeavor to imitate when 
they color butter? 

Mr. Dillon. They do not endeavor to imitate anything. They do 
not imitate anything. Now, let me ask you a question. 1 am a sort of 
a Yankee; and we have a way of answering questions sometimes by 
asking them. Did you ever know a man to be deceived in buying 
butter? 

Mr. McNamee. Did I ever know a man to buy butter and be deceived 
in it? 

Mr. Dillon. Yes; did you ever know a man to be deceived when he 
bought butter? 

Mr. McNamee. In what way ? 

Mr. Jelke. I think it has been stated here that he sometimes got 
oleomargarine. 

Mr. Dillon. That is all right, now. Did you ever know a man to 
be deceived in buying butter by the color of that butter? 

Mr. McNamee. I have often known men to buy butter for good but- 
ter, and after it had been in the house two or three hours they could 
not use it. I have had that kind of experience myself. 



OLEOMAKGARINE. 375 

Mr. Dillon. That does not answer the question at a'll. Mr. Chair- 
man, our point is just this: We make butter. We have made it for 
centuries. We have an honest product, and all that we want these 
people to do is to keep their hands off' and let us alone. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Then you are satisfied with your own State law? 

Mr. Dillon. We are not satisfied with our own State law. Of what 
avail is our own State law to us, when rig^ht over in ]S'ew Jersey and 
Illinois and Ohio and those other States they go right on and ignore 
the laws and consume oleomargarine there, and then send their butter 
into our markets and into other markets where we ought to go, to com- 
pete with us? 

Mr. McNamee. Is it not a fact that there is being manufactured 
very extensively at this time in New York a product known as process 
butter, that is colored and fixed up in imitation of good butter*? 

Mr. Dillon. I do not think there is. I think not; no, sir. 

Mr. McNamee. Now, Mr. Dillon, on that same principle (pardon me 
for being so persistent), would you not do this? You say that you have 
an honest industry, which has been in existence for centuries? 

Mr. Dillon. I do. 

]\lr. MoNamee. Now, would you, on the same grounds, be in favor 
of doing away with the pneumatic tubes or the little cash railways in 
dry-goods stores, simply because the cash boys have been displaced, 
and because there has been an honest method of securing change in 
the stores displaced? 

Mr. Dillon. I would if the manufacturer of those tubes got them 
up as automaton boys, and tried to make the users of them believe that 
they were genuine tlesh and blood. [Laughter.] 

Mr. McNamek. That is reducing the argument to an absurdity. 

Mr. Dillon. Well, sir; you started it, and I hope you will get all 
the benefit there is in it. 

Mr. SCHELL. Just one question, which I think the gentleman will 
take pleasure in answering, and which I think is pertinent, and about 
the only question I have aimed to put during the entire proceedings: 

Your only object, as I understand, is to force oleomargarine on " its 
own side of the fence." Now, if (mark the if) it is i^ossible to get a law 
by which the oleomargarine manufacturer and dealer would be com- 
pelled to sell their product for what it is, you would not object to his 
coloring it with harmless coloring matter, would you? And if it were 
shown to you, as an honest man, that the effect of this bill would be, 
not to regulate the color question, but to practically drive the colored 
product out of existence, whether sold honestly or not, you would be 
with the opponents of the bill rather than with its friends, would you 
not? 

Mr. Dillon. Well, you im})ly quite a good many ifs. 

Mr. ScHELL. It is only conditioned in that way that I want your 
answer. 

Mr. Dillon. In order to answer that question intelligently, let me 
say this: In the first place, we have been trying to do for you for seven- 
teen years what you propose now to do in a certain series of ifs. We 
have been trying to get you to sell oleomargarine for what it is. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. On the contrary, have you not been trying to put 
colored oleomargarine out of your State? That is the law is it not? 
Y^our law is entirely prohibitive as to colored oleomargarine, is it not? 

Mr. Kracke. Just one moment. For seven years it was tried, in our 
State, to compel the sale of oleomargarine for what it really was. 

Mr. Dillon. Mr. Kracke has said what I was about to say. 



376 OLEOMARGARIlSrE. 

• 

Mr. Kracke (continuing). And then it was finally found to be 
absolutely impossible. Hence the law that prohibits the sale of col- 
ored oleomargarine. 

Mr. Dillon. Now, Mr. Chairman, alter we have tried year after 
year and in various ways to get these people to do what they come in 
here now and surround with a lot of " ifs," and after having tried in 
every way that yve could possibly devise, and having failed to find any- 
thing that would restrict this imitation, then they come around here 
now, and get to the last ditch, and ask us if we will agree to a certain 
thing under certain conditions. 

I answer that if it were possible for us to do that, if it were possible 
for it to be done in another way, it would have been done before. We 
have nothing whatever against this product, except to prevent them 
from making it and selling it in imitation of our product. JS^ow, that 
is our whole case. 

Mr. SCHELL. The factories, so far as I am advised, are right with 
the gentleman on that proposition, and they favor to a unit, as I am 
told, the substitute bill in the House, under which they are compelled 
to put up their product in original packages of not to exceed 1 and 2 
pounds, with the word "oleomargarine" stamped therein, and wrap 
them and stamp them with the Government stamp, so that no con- 
sumer can purchase the product except with full knowledge of what 
it is. 

Mr. Dillon. I am familiar with the "substitute bill" of which you 
speak, and I recognize the very able work done by the oleomargarine 
interests in framing that substitute. It will do the work they want 
done, but it would not answer our purpose worth a cent. 

Mr. SCHELL, It would answer your purpose, but it would not answer 
the purpose of the friends of the (J-rout bill. It would answer the pur- 
pose of compelling oleomargarine to be sold on its merits, but it would 
not drive the colored product out of the market. As it has been 
expressed here, it would not "legislate a poor man's poverty on his 
table three times a day." 

Mr. Dillon. Now, my friend, look here. Suppose I were a restau- 
rant keeper in New York or a boarding house keeper, and you were so 
unfortunate as to be obliged to live at my table. What would there 
be to i)revent my going over into New Jersey and (under this bill of 
which you speak) buying oleomargarine, bringing it into my cellar, 
putting it down there in the dark where there was nobody but myself 
and a tallow dip — I might make the tallow from the oleomargarine, I 
suppose — taking off those marks, and bringing it up and putting it on 
my table and giving it to you to eat? What would there be to prevent 
my doing that? 

Mr. ScHELL. It has been conceded by all the opponents of the bill, I 
think, that it would be possible (for the time being, at least) for a 
boarding-house keeper or a hotel proprietor to palm off oleomargarine 
for butter if he wished. But, on the contrary, if a man gets dissatis- 
fied with his boarding house it is a very easy matter to move; and it 
finally comes to the point where these (in some instances) very efficient 
pure-food commissioners- 



Mr. Adams. Mr. Chairman- 



Mr. Schell, One moment; we are both talking. We have observed 
the courtesy of debate all along, and we expect you to do the same. A 
man can change his boarding house and he can change his hotel; and 
it finally drives it to a point where these very efficient pure-food com- 
missioners, such as Mr. Kracke, for instance, know right where to go 
and investigate. 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 377 

Mr. Dillon. That is all I want. You admit that it is possible for 
me, as a boardiug-lionse keeper or as a restaurant keeper, to palm off 
oleomargarine on you as butter. Now, that is the whole scheme of 
your job all the way through, and it has been for the seventeen years 
that I have been watching- you. 

Mr. TillinctHAst. Let me make a suggestion. Have you not a law 
in the State of New York, as in the State of Massachusetts, that where 
oleomargarine is used in restaurants and boarding houses there shall 
be a notification of the fact to the guests'? Have you not such a law 
as that in New York! 

Mr. Kracke. No, sir; we have not. The law of the State of New 
York forbids the manufacture or sale of oleomargarine to any person, 
whether it be in a stall or restaurant or boarding house. You can not 
even feed it to your servant in a private family. 

The Acting Chairman. Now, let us hear this gentleman [Mr. 
Adams J speak. 

Mr. Adams. Mr. Chairman, I would like to say a word if I can have 
permission. The gentlemen on the other side of this question have 
appeared before this committee and made very extended arguments, 
and have been treated with the utmost courtesy. The questions which 
we have asked have been rare in number. Mr. Schell himself appeared 
before this committee and talked for nearly a day and a half. 1 asked 
him one or two questions with the utmost i^oliteness. He did not care 
to answer them. 

Now, a gentleman appears here with limited time, and while the 
representatives of the dairy interests are perfectly willing to be sub- 
mitted to any searching cross examination which is reasonable, we 
do feel that when one of them appears here to conduct a discussion 
upon our side of the question the six or seven or eight attorneys and. 
representatives of the oleomargarine interests should not take up all 
his time in extended questions and in extended arguments. 

The Acting Chairman. It is always within the power of the wit- 
ness to decline to be interrupted. 

Mr. Schell. I was just going to say that. We apologize if we are 
doing what we ought not to do. 

Mr. Dillon. I have just one or two other points to make, and that 
is all I am going to say on this subject. 

The Acting Chairman. You can decline to be interrupted, if you 
wish. 

Mr. Dillon. I will exercise that right now for the remainder of 
what 1 have to say. 

Up in the country where I was born and brought up, and where my 
farm interests are yet, I frequently meet farmers. It is a section of 
country to which people from New York and Philadelphia go in con- 
siderable numbers to spend the summer, and they meet a good many 
of these dealers from New York and adjacent cities. Last summer when 
I was up there one of my old neighbors was telling me of a market 
which he had formerly had for his dairy butter in Paterson, N. J. He 
lost the trade, and he went down there to see what the trouble was, 
why he could not get any more orders from those people to whom he 
had been shipping. He said that they told him confidentially that all 
or many of his competitors around there had been selling oleomargarine f 
that they were making a profit of 8 or 10 cents a pound on it; that if 
they handled dairy butter it was impossible for them to compete with 
these competitors; and consequently they had thrown out dairy butter 
and gone to handling oleomargarine entirely. 



378 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Now, tliose people do not undertake to come in and sell tins oleo- 
margarine as a "poor man's product." We hear a great deal about its 
being a poor man's product, about the labor unions, and all that sort of 
tiling, but they do not sell their oleomargarine at a price that makes it 
any advantage for a laboring man to buy it, even if he were willing to 
be inlluenced by the lower price. The object is, all the time, to sell it 
for butter, as butter, and at butter j)rices. And it all comes right back 
again to the fact that all we ask is something that will protect us in our 
legitimate industry and business. During the last six months I sup- 
pose I have received at least an average of 1,000 letters a day from our 
farmers. I do not say that I have read them all, but I have gone 
through them. And all through those letters, or frequently through 
them, there are references made to this Grout bill. Never in the fif- 
teen years that I have been in the publishing business have I known 
of any question that created so much interest among the farmers as 
this question has, and they have gotten to the point when 

The Acting Chairman. Your farmers iu New York are largely 
dairymen, are they not? 

Mr. Dillon. Well, there are large dairy interests there. 

The Acting Chairman. You do not feed cattle to any extent? 

Mr. Dillon. Not for beef; no, sir. 

The Ac'j ING Chairman. That is what I mean. 

Mr. Dillon. No; not very much. But of course I hear from farm- 
ers outside of the State, and they are very much in earnest about this 
bill, and they are not asking anything unreasonable. Back of all of 
their arguments and their talk is the fact that they do not want any- 
thing unreasonable. They are perfectly willing that oleomargarine 
should stand on its own merits. But they do not want it sold as but- 
ter. They do not want to stand that unjust, dishonest competition. 

That is all that we ask of this committee and all that we ask of Con- 
gress in this matter — to protect us, to protect our trade mark. Let us 
sell butter for what it is, and let them seU oleomargarine for what it is. 
They can give it any other color they wish, so long as they leave us 
butter. 

Mr. Tillinghas'J". I understood you to say, in some part of your 
argument, that it was your opinion that it could not be sold white. Am 
I correct? 

Mr. Dillon. It is my oi)inion, sir, that there are very, very few peo- 
ple who will want to eat it if they know what it is. If it is made white, 
they will i)robably know what it is, and then they will not want it. 

Mr. Tillinghast. Then you believe that this act would be entirely 
prohibitive? 

Mr. Dillon (after a pause). Well, we are willing to let this act work 
out its own course. We do not ask its enactment for the purpose of 
prohibiting the manufacture of oleomargarine; but we ask it simply as 
the only means that we have been able to devise to prevent the oleo- 
margarine interests from imitating our ])roduct and selling their cheap 
product as our genuine product. 

Mr. Tillinghast. And yet you admit that your laws in New York 
are so thoroughly enforced tliat only the small amount of 200,000 pounds 
is sold in your entire State in one year? 

Mr. Dillon. Well, only that much that we know about. The part 
that comes in that we don't know about we are unable to estimate. 

Mr. Tillinghast. There is no oleomargarine manufactured that the 
Government does not know about. 

Mr. Dillon. Still it is manufactured, and it goes into other States. 
How much goes into New Jersey? How much goes into Ohio? How 



OLEOMAR&AKINE. 379 

mncb goes into Illinois? How much goes into the Soutliern States? 
l»I^ow, the butter of all these States which is displaced by oleomargarine 
conies into ('omi)etitiou with the New York i)roduct just exactly the 
same as if the oleoniaigarine itself were sold in New York. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Oh, no. 

Ml'. Dillon. I say that it is the fact, because there is more Western 
butter consumed in New Y'ork City than there is State butter. 

jNIr, Jelke. Then the only interest that you have in this question is 
the protection of the New Y^oik dairy interest? 

Mr. Dillon. The only interest that 1 have is to protect butter from 
a dishonest competition ; and it is the interest of the dairymen through- 
out this whole country and throughout every State in the Union. I do 
not confine myself to New York State at all. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Do you think the price of butter would be any 
higher if oleomargarine were out of the way? 

Mr. Dillon. I know that there are facilities in this country for making 
all the butter at a reasonable price that is required, and that question 
does not cut any figure here, anyway, to my mind. 1 believe, and I 
know from my familiarity with the farming and dairy sections of this 
country, that we could make double the amount of butter that is made 
here to day. But that is not what I am arguing about. I want to con- 
fine myself right to that one point. I do not want to have you make 
your inferior product to imitate mine and sell it as mine. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. But you have no objection to my selling it for 
what it is? 

Mr. Dillon. Not at all; not at all. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. That is the way three-quarters of it is sold. 

Mr. EoYCE. Well, we are after the other quarter. Mr. Chairman, if 
there is any more time now I would just like to occupy two or three 
minutes. I will not be much longer than that. I have not much to say, 
in fact I believe there is not much to be said on this question, anyway. 

STATEMENT OF C. H. ROYCE, ESQ., OF NEW YORK. 

Mr. EoYCE. My name, Mr. Chairman, is C. H. Eoyce. I believe I 
am a representative farmer. I was brought up within a few miles of 
this gentleman here [Mr. Dillon]. We went to school together, and 
while I am a farmer now, he is an editor, and that is the onlj^ respect 
in which we differ. 

I am engaged in making a fancy grade of butter; a butter that sells 
to our customers for over half a dollar a pound net to us. And I want 
to say to you right here and now that I believe that the manufacture 
and sale of oleomargarine as bntter interferes with the sale of our grade 
of butter at ii5 cents a iiound. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Then it is a good thing. [Laughter.] 

Mr. BoYCE. That may appeal to you, sir; but there are plenty of 
men in this country who are perfectly willing to lay down that amount, 
or more, for butter which they consider to be worth the ])rice. 

Now, I want to say one thing that I believe is true, and in which I 
think you will agree with me, that we have the better right to use the 
yellow color for our butter than have the oleomargarine manufacturers, 
because if the Almighty had any designs or plans in reference to this 
thing at all, it was that a cow, given June grass, would make a certain 
color of butter, and that that should be her trade-mark or copyright 
forever. 



3B0 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Now, as has been said liere before, the only thing that we as pro- 
ducers of butter hope to do and want to do is to have a Law, which shall 
be operative throughout the whole country, which shall allow us to sell 
our butter as such, aud prohibit anybody from selling something else 
as butter. 

Now, the only thing that these gentlemen are contending for is the color. 
Why are they contending for it? Simply because they know that that 
is the only method whereby they may be able to put their product on 
the market as butter. If there is an element in this country who want 
to use oleomargarine — and I am satisfied that there is; I am not sure 
that I would not use it if I were in the position of some men— if they 
want to use it as such, we have no objection to their being allowed to 
do it. If they are satisfied that it is a wholesome, healthful product, 
let them use it as such. But let us protect those who do not want to 
use it, either as such or as butter. 

Now, I get around this country quite a good deal — not so much as 
some men, but still considerably — and the question that is asked me is 
this: "How are you able to detect oleomargarine that is not marked?" 

In our section of the country there are very few people who want to 
use oleomargarine. They want to use butter. And we hope, in the 
interest of our trade in our own State, in all the States adjoining it, and 
in all the States of this country, and in fact of the whole world, that 
nobody will be allowed to foist off on the credulous public a product 
which, while it may be pure aud wholesome, imitates and is sold for 
our product. 

Mr. Chairman, that is all I have to say on this subject. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Will the gentleman permit a question! 

Mr. KoYCE. Ask all the questions you wish. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. I would like to have you explain to the com- 
mittee, if you can, how this bill would in any sense protect you from 
competition with butter at 50 cents per pound*? 

Mr. KoYCE. Simply in this way, sir: I sell you butter at 50 cents a 
pound; the next man to you buys creamery butter at 30 cents a pound; 
the next man buys creamery butter at 25 cents a pound, and the next 
man buys oleomargarine at 15 cents a pound. Now, if I move away 
the man who is buying oleomargarine — that is, buying it for butter, I 
mean 

Mr. Jelke. He buys it at 15 cents a pound, you say? 

Mr. RoYOE. Supposing that he does. If I remove him, then the 
man who will conusme my butter is one nearer me, isn't he. Is not that 
logical ? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. But how could you remove that man when there 
is a temptation of his getting 50 cents a pound for his product by pay- 
ing a 10-cent tax on it"? In other words, have you any other protection 
under this bill than your own State laws? 

Mr. RoY^CE. But we need a law which operates in other States as our 
law operates in our State. 

Mr. TiLLiNGUAST. But this law can not operate in other States as 
your law does. You understand that, do you not"? 

Mr. RoYCE. I think it will have that effect, simply because people 
will not use the stuff if it is sold as such. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. But this law does not have anything to do with 
that. This law permits you to sell colored oleomargarine just the same 
as before. 

Mr. RoYCE. Most assuredly. I agree to that, sir. I want to say that 
it is my honest conviction that it interferes with us only inasmuch as it 
is sold for what it is not — for our product. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 381 

Mr. Dillon. My Mend, the trouble with you is just tlie trouble with 
that 

Mr. TiLLiNCiHAST. There is no trouble with me. 

Mr. Dillon. Well, tlieu, the trouble with that dealer to whom 1 
referred when I was in the held. Now, you tempt the dealer by a little 
profit of 8 cents a pound to violate the laws of the State, and to sell this 
product for what it is not. We come in now with this 10-cent tax, and 
we remove that temptation from the dealer, and then you can not bribe 
him in that way. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Well, you would not remove the temptation to 
sell it as butter at 35 and 40 cents a pound, would you ? 

Mr. Dillon. We are talking about the average product of butter. 

The Acting Chairman. Gentlemen, I think we will take a recess 
here until the regular time. 

(The committee thereupon took a recess until 2.30 o'clock p. m.) 

At the exi)iration of the recess the committee resumed its session. 

Mr. ScHELL. ]Mr. Chairman, I would like to state that I have from 
my client, Mr. Seither, of Cleveland, Ohio, a list of 1,083 consumers 
who buy direct from the factory. They want to enter their i^rotest of 
record, and he has sent the names to put in. There is no use of encum- 
bering the record, but I can furnish their letters, if necessary. 

Senator Allen. You may condense it in such form as you want and 
omit the list of names, 

Mr. ScHELL. I will just let a note be taken of the number of con- 
sumers who wish to go on record as opposed to this bill from this one 
particular locality. 

Senator Allen. Are you ready to proceed, Mr. Davis? 

Mr. Davis. Mr. Jelke, who represents one of the Chicago industries, 
desires to be heard by the committee, and suggests that perhaps as 
my argument is to be of a legal character almost exclusively the com- 
mittee might prefer to hear him first and let me follow him this afternoon. 

Mr. Jelke. My address will be short. It will not take much time. 

Senator Allen. I do not think it makes very much dift'erence who 
comes first. Just condense your argument as much as possible. 

Mr. Jelke. I will try to do so. I shall perhaps find it somewhat 
difficult to make myself clearly understood in a matter that is of vital 
importance to me without these memoranda. I am altogether a man 
of detail. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN F. JELKE, REPRESENTING BRAUN & FITTS, 

OF CHICAGO, ILL. 

Senator Allen. You may give your name and place of residence, 
Mr. Jelke. 

Mr. Jelke. John F. Jelke, vice-president of Braun & Fitts, Chicago. 

Senator Allen. What is their business? 

Mr. Jelke. Manufacturers of oleomargarine. 

Senator Allen. You may proceed. 

Mr. Jelke. I am a manufacturer of oleomargarine, and represent a 
lifetime of effort in building up a business which is in the same line of 
progress that all other improvements and developments have been that 
have become necessary by the increasing population of the world. All 
progress, in whatever line, has been stubbornly fought and hindered 
by individuals and associations, who, through selfish motives, opposed 
what ultimately turned out to be for the benefit of the large majority. 
For instance, there was an antifast mail party in England in the time 



382 OLEOMARGA.RINE. 

of Charles the Seooud, and the King and council were petitioned to 
decree that no i)ublic coach should be ])ermitted to have more than 
four horses, to start oftener than once a week, nor to go more than 30 
miles a day. Macaulay's comments on this historical record reads 
like prophesy. We smile at these things he said and predicted. It is 
not impossible that our descendants when they read of the hostility 
offered by cupidity and prejudice to the improvements of the nineteenth 
century may smile in their turn. 

At the outset let me make myself thoroughly understood on one 
point, and that is, I am not hereto try in any way to discourage legiti- 
mate legislation nor any legislation that will result in the identitication 
to the consumer of oleomargarine as oleomargarine. Such legislation 
will have my hearty approval and moral support. But with great 
emphasis I object to class legislation, or legislation on any subject that 
favors one individual at the expense of another. If the Grout bill, 
which I am here to oppose, becomes a law, the result will be the abso- 
lute annihilation of a legitimate industry. The object of this bill is to 
prohibit and exterminate the sale ol oleomargarine, and not to regulate 
it. A tax of 10 cents per pound would place oleomargarine at an aver- 
age prii-e ])er ])ound over that of the best creamery butter for six 
months in every year. The Grout bill is urged by its friends as a pro- 
tection to the dairy interests. It has not been shown that it is for the 
beuelit of the large consuming class of the country, nor what is expe- 
dient, nor what is wise in the way of legislation to protect the interests 
ot the large majority of the people living under the protection of the 
Constitution of the United States. The reduction of tax on uncolored 
oleomargarine is only a subterfuge, the framers of the bill knowing in 
their hearts that such a product can not be sold. The guise under 
which it attacks the oleomargarine interest is that of fraud, and I am 
opposed to fraud in every shape whatever. But because one individual 
may prefer his butter white and another prefer his butter yellow it 
does not mean that the one who prefers the yellow butter is defrauded 
when his taste is catered to in sou.ething that his sight makes palatable 
in his eyes. 

Nothing can be pleasing to the palate and satisfactory to the digest- 
ive organs that is not lirst good to look upon. Xature has provided 
harmless coloring matters for this purpose, and, by universal custom, it 
has been deemed desirable to have a generally yellow tint to butter. 
Oleomargarine, which in foreign countries is abljreviated to the word 
"margarine" (and which I believe would be well for this committee to 
consider in any legislation that might occur, inasmuch as the word "oleo- 
margarine" has thirteen letters and superstitious people believe that 
is the one hodoo that has followed this business thus far), is a natural, 
wholesome, and economical substitute for butter in every sense. I do 
not believe that a single member of this honorable committee believes 
that oleomargarine is more or less wholesome with or without an infin- 
itesimal amount of coloring matter, such as is used by the manufac- 
turers of butter, nor that any single ingredient that enters into the 
X)roduction of oleomargarine is more or less wholesome than butter, 
and particularly to what is the average quality of commercial butter. 
It has been urged that the price of butter has been kept down by the 
production and sale of oleomargarine. Is that a hardship to the wage 
earner and the consumer who, in the colder sections of the United 
States, require a fatty, heat-producing food? 

In the far North of this continent the Eskimo consumes whale 
blubber and tallow for the purpose of maintaining a warmth in their 



OLEOMARGARINE. 383 

bodies to offset the outside cold. It is not uncommon that a bride of 
an Eskimo receive as a briihil present a box of tallow candles. If 
oleomargarine does keep down the price of butter why do we not have 
an export outlet for a large surplus of our butter ? The development of 
the butter business of foreign countries is continually expanding and 
growing, yet our exports are less than before so much oleomargarine 
legislation was enacted, and within the last two years butter has been 
returned from London to Xew York because the price was higher in 
the United States than in England. Tlic United States — tlie greatest 
agricultural country on the globe — bringing back butter from England, 
all on account of the high price in this couiitry, manipulated by the 
dairy union. If we can not produce butter ot a quality and at a i)rice 
that will sui)ply the demand of p]urope with our product is it right to 
urge any legislation tliat will increase the price of a necessary food 
product to the consumers of our own (country ? 

If the dairy union will look to their own business with the idea of 
increasing the commercial greatness of the United States they will 
studj' to improxe the (piality of their butter and reduce the cost of 
manufacture so they may successfully com|tete with any country that 
sends butter into England or other foreign nations.. Notwithstanding' 
the enormous sale of butter in England, England is one of the largest 
consumers of nuirgarine. In this connection I would say that not a 
single country in Europe, not even England with her war expenses, has 
deemed it advisable to i)lace a tax on oleomargarine. The United 
States alone has burdened its people with a tax on a necessary food 
product, the greatest burden of the tax now imposed under the Federal 
law now existing falling on the retail dealers. 

It has been urged by the friends of the Grout bill that the retail 
dealer is the principal violator of the law in selling oleomargarine. If 
this is so it is because he is abused and his rights as a citizen of the 
United States unjustly interfered with by an outrageous tax. 

Just think, $iS per annum for selling- oleomargarine. The tax on 
food being greater than on whisky. Is it not an outrage that a little 
corner grocer has to either pay this exorbitant tax or supply his patrons 
with a cheap quality of butter at a high i)rice? Will the increase of 
the tax to 10 cents per jDound on oleomargarine stop all frauds in the 
sales of butter and protect the consumer from getting rancid, impure, 
and unwholesome butter at high prices? Does the Dairymen's Union 
expect to increase the prestige of the United States among nations by 
stunting the growth of the oleomargarine industry, or do they desire to 
increase manufactures and industries by enlarging the outlet for all 
agricultural products of the United States? liemember that every 
article entering into the production of oleomargarine originates and is 
a product of the farm. 

We, as manufacturers, have always recognized the fact that oleo- 
margarine in itself has sufticient merit to stand on its own bottom for 
Avhat it is — a substitute for butter; but at the same time oleomargarine 
must not be robbed of one of the ingredients that is absolutely the same 
as is contained in butter, and which adds the first recommendation to 
its palatableness — that of pleasing the sight. We have always sold and 
advertised our product and endeavored to educate the consumer to the 
use of our brands of oleomargarine as oleomargarine, evidenced by the 
statements of the Chicago daily papers, herewith j^resented. 

These statements are from the leading Chicago newspapers. I will 
not weary you with reading them, but I would like to have them 
entered in the record. I will simply call off the names of the news- 



384 OLEOMARGARINE. 

papers : The Chicago Eecord, the Chicago Daily News, the Inter Ocean, 
Chicago; the Chicago Tribuue, the Chicago Journal, the Illinois 
Staats-Zeitung, Chicago; the Chicago Times-Herald, the Chicago 
Evening Post, and the Chicago Chronicle. It might be well for me to 
read one of these. 

The Acting Chairman. You might make a brief statement as to 
what they contain. 

Mr. Jelke. These statements all go to show that Braun & Fitts 
advertise their goods as oleomargarine under their brand. They want 
the goods sold as oleomargarine with their name on them. We believe 
that by presenting our goods to the consumer we can not only increase 
our business, but by our superior knowledge and by our attention to 
detail of manufacture in every way we believe we can remain what we 
are now, the largest manufacturers of oleomargarine in the United 
States. 

The above statements are as follows : 

December 19, 1900. 
Gentlemen: Referring to your communication of recent date, we 
would say that during the past two years we have published a number 
of advertisements of your oleomargarine in the Chicago Eecord and 
Daily News. These advertisements have stated plainly that your prod- 
uct — Holstein oleomargarine — is put up in packages and every i)ack- 
age is plainly marked. 

Very truly, yours, Victor F. Lawson. 

Messrs. Braun & Fitts, 

187 No. Union St., Chicago. 



The Inter-Ocean, 
Chicago, December 18, 1900. 
Gentlemen: In reply to your letter of inquiry would say that you 
have advertised with us quite a little your " oleomargarine." The pack- 
ages have been plainly marked and the advertisement so specified. 
Yours, respectfully, 

Fri^dk. C. Pierce, 
Advertising Manager, 
Messrs. Braun & Fitts, City. 



The Chicago Tribune, 
Chicago, December 18, 1900. 
To tvhom it may concern: This is to certify that Messrs. Braun & 
Fitts, 187 North Union street, Chicago, have during the past three or 
four years extensively advertised their Holstein brand of oleomargarine 
in the Chicago Tribune, in which the statement was made that every 
package is plainly marked. 

Respectfully, Tribune Company, 

Hugh W. Montgomery, 

Business Manager. \ 



oleomargarine. 385 

Chicago Journal, 
Chicago, December 1!>, 1900. 
Dear Sirs: In compliance with your request we are pleased to state 
that the Chicago Journal has been favored with your business during 
the past three years, running your advertisements of Holstein oleomar- 
garine. The last order was for 55 lines, to be run Mondays and Wed- 
nesdays, ending April 30, 1900. 

We attach copy of your advertisement herewith. 
Very truly, yours, 

Joseph H. Booth, Publisher. 
Messrs. Braun & Fitts. 

Nutritious, delicious, economical. 

BRAUN & FiTTS'S 

HOLSTEIN. 

The only high grade 

oleomargarine. 

Every package plainly marked. 



Office of Illinois Staats-Zeitung Co., 

Chicago, December 19, 1900. 
Gentlemen: In reply to your inquiry we beg to state that our files 
show that you have advertised for some time an article under the name 
of oleomargarine, and further that the advertisement stated every 
package was plainly marked as such. 
Yours, respectfully, 

Illinois Staats Zeitung Co., 
E. C Walle, Receicer. 
By Phil H. Dilg, Manager. 
Messrs. Braun & Fitts, Chicago. 



The Chicago Times-Herald, 

Chicago, December 19, 1900. 
Gentlemen : At your request we are pleased to certify that you 
have published your Holstein brand as "oleomargarine" in the col- 
umns of the Times Herald. 

Yours, very truly. Grant Pierce, 

Business Manager. 
Messrs. Braun & Fitts, Chicago. 



The Chicago Evening Post, 

Chicago, December 19, 1900. 
Gentlemen : At your request we are pleased to certify that you 
have published your Holstein brand as "oleomargarine" in the columns 
of the Post. 

Yours, very truly, Gerald Pierce, 

JBusiness Manager. 
Messrs. Braun & Fitts, Chicago, III. 

S. Rep. 2043 25 



386 oleomargarine. 

The Chicago Chronicle, 

Chicago, December 19, 1900. 
To wJi07n it may concern: 

Messrs. Braun & Fitts, of Chicago, manufacturers of high <iTade oleo- 
margarine, have advertised their product extensively in the Clironicle 
for several years. Be it said to their credit and honor that they have 
advertised the exact article which they manufacture, under its proper 
name. There has been no deception in their advertising, and they 
have given the public exactly what they claimed to do in their adver- 
tising, so that anyone buying: their advertised product did so with the 
full knowledge of the character of the goods he would receive. 
Yours, truly, 

H. W. Seymour, Publisher. 
Lester L. Jones, Business Manager. 



Mr. Jelke. In connection herewith we present some of our printed 
wrap])ers, which go direct to the consnmer wrapped around the oleo- 
margarine. The word " Oleomargarine " is conspicuously placed, and 
I will say that the sale of our Holstein brand would make probably 
25 per cent of our entire business. 

The wrajjper referred to, which was handed to members of the com- 
mittee for examinatiouj is as follows: 

Braun A: Fitts, 

the only high (jrade 

HOLSTEIN. 

Trade-mark. 

OLEOMARGARINE 

Mr. Jelke. We also put up many other brands. Here is one that 
we put up for one of the retail dealers in oleomargarine. 

The wrapper above referred to, which was handed to members of the 
committee for examination, is as follows: 

W. G. Putnam's 

222-224 South Adams St. 

"PEERLESS." 

Strictly High Grade. 

CHURNED BY BRAUN & FITTS. 

oleomargarine. 

Mr. Jelke. The reason the ink is put on in this manner is because 
it is almost impossible — Mr. Knight will understand this — to get these 
inks that will not blur if they are put on in a heavier way; and when 
it is wrapped around the butter it brings out these points very j^romi- 
nently. This parchment paper does not take the ink well. 

We put up very many brands similarly branded with the word 
"Oleomargarine" in as large type as the largest letter on the brand, 
and, as a rule, not less than a one-half inch letter. The reason we do 
not put up all our goods in the same manner is because many of the 



OLEOMAKGARINE. 387 

retailers object to advertising a manufacturer, and it is absolutely neces- 
sary, according- to the internal-revenue regulations, that the manufac- 
turer put his name on in connection with the word oleomargarine iu 
connection with any wrapper he uses. Some of the retailers object. 
Then, again, in certain sections of the country people have been accus- 
tomed to buying their butter or oleomargarine in cloth, and if we put 
the ink on the cloth it goes through and stains the butter. 

The honorable Commissioner of Internal Revenue, George W. Wilson 
(now deceased), plainly stated before the House Agricultural Contmit- 
tee that in his judgment not 5 i)er cent of the oleomargarine manufac- 
tured is illegally sold, and I believe his statements were made accord- 
ing to the facts in the case. Gentlemen, can this be said of butter, or 
of vinegar, spices, baking powder, and one hundred other food products, 
all of which are not only mixed and adulterated, but in a harmful man- 
ner f Butter, for instance, as shown by patents in the United States 
Patent Oftice, is not only adulterated with harmless ingredients, but 
with poisonous ingredients. I would herewith call attention to some of 
the patents that have been issued by the United States Patent Office 
on the subject of improvement in the manufacture of butter, in the 
process of treating butter, in the process of making butter, and for 
increasing the yield of butter from milk. 

I will not take the time of the committee in reading the full speci- 
fications. I will simply submit them and call attention to a few little 
remarks like that that I have ])enciled. 

Senator Allen. What is the substance? You have one of them 
there. What patent is that? 

Mr. Jelke. That is a specification of a process of treating butter — 
Letters Patent No. 505137, dated September 19, 1893. 

Senator Allen. What is the process of treatments 

Mr.. Jelke. This is one of the improvements. I will read it and the 
others. 

3. The process of improving butter which consists in removing the solid impari- 
ties therefrom and treating the residue with an air blast, an alkaline solution, and 
then washing in pure water aided by an air blast, maintaining the mixture in a 
liquid state by heat during the operation, substantially as set forth. 

[Process of treating butter. Spe<ificatiou formin!: part of Letters Patent No. 327036. dated October 6, 
1885. Application tiled August 17, 1885. Serial No. 174671. Ko 8pecimeu.s.] 

To each gallon of milk used I add certain ingredients, in about the proportions 
named, as follows : One gallon of milk, 1 teaspoonful of white wine rennet, 1 teaspoon- 
ful of sugar, 1 teaspoonful of salt, one-fourth teaspoonful bicarbonate of soda, 5 
grains of bicarbonate potassium, 10 grains of alum, 4 pounds of good butter. These 
ingredients, in about the proi)ortions herein stated, are placed in a churn of any usual 
or desired construction, and agitated iu the usual manner, and the butter will be 
produced in much less time than usual, and all the solid matter withdrawn from the 
fluid, leaving only a thin water as a residue. 

[Process of making butter. Specitication forming part of Letters Patent No. 335084, dated January 
26, 1886. Application filed August 5, 1885. Serial No. 173674. No specimens.] 

1. An improvement in the art of making butter, which consists in mixing 1 gallon 
of sweet milk with 1 ounce of liquid rennet. 25 grains (troy) of nitrate of potash, 
1 ounce granulated sugar, half teaspoonful of butter coloring, and 8 pounds of but- 
ter, churned together and worked, in the manner substautially as described. 

[Improvement in the manufacture of butter. Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 71)417, 
dated November .5, 1867; antedated October 29, 1867.] 

To 1 gallon of sweet milk is added 8 pounds (avoirdupois) of butter, 1 ounce of 
loaf sugar, 20 grains (troy) of nitrate of potash, 1 lluid ounce of li(|uid rennet, and 
10 grains (troy) of annetto. These are mixed and churned together in the same 
manner as cream in the common process of making butter. After the butter is sepa- 
rated from the milk by the process of churning, it is gathered and worked in the 
usual manner. The chemicals and butter added to the milk cause a speedy separa- 



388 OLEOMARGARINE. 

tion of the butter j^lobnles from it, causing it to yield all or nearly all that it contains 
and ])ro(lncing- an article of good quality and flavor. The annetto simply gives the 
butter a yellowish color, and having heretofore been useil lor a similar purpose no 
claim is made to it separately considered. 

[Process of treating butter. Specification forminjr p:irt of Letters Paten' No. 253820, dated February 
14, 1882. Application filed Noveinber 17, 1881. Ko specimens.] 

We take, say, about 100 pounds of rancid butter and melt it in a suitable vessel. 
To this we add about 30 pounds of vegetable oil, ]»referably the crude or the refined 
cotton-seed oil, for "cutting" the butter and to facilitate filtration, and after being 
thoroughly stirred the mixture is filtered through boneblack oi- animal charcoal. 
After filtration the mixture is run off into a settling tank and allowed to cool, but 
still in a liquid state, when the coloring matter is added, and about 20 pounds of 
fresh, sweet, and finely flavored dairy butter added to the mixture for the purpose 
of flavoring the same. After the mixture has been colored and flavored as described, 
broken ice is put into the tank with the mixture and all stirred together, and when 
partly congealed salt is added to suit the taste. When in a proper condition for 
packing and scoring, the butter is transferred to suitable vessels of the desired 
sizes, and is then ready for sale, transportation, and nse, and will stand any and all 
changes of climate without deterioration in quality. 

[Compound for increasing the yield of butter from milk. Specitication forming part of Letters Patent 
No. 489775, dated January 10, 1893. Application tiled June 7, 1892. Serial No. 435915. No speci- 
mens.] 

The compound consists of the following ingredients: Sixty grains of pepsin, 125 
grains of pulverized gum arabic, 3+ ounces of powdered alum. These ingredients 
are thoroughly mixed and kept tightly stopped in a l)ottle, to be used before the 
milk is churned. The ingredients when mixed in the above proportions are mixed 
with the milk beiore it is churned, about from 1 to 3 teaspoonfuls to a quart of 
milk, according to the richness of the milk. 

The alum sours the milk, the pepsin (Mgests or separates the cream globules from 
the milk, and the gum arabic collects theglid>ule8 and causes them to stick together. 

By mixing the above compound with milk before it is churned the yield of butter 
therefrom is greatly increased and the churning thereof facilitated. 

Senator Dolliver. Are those patents in use, (tr are tbey simply 
patents? 

Mr. Jelke. These are patents, and the first one I read is, I under- 
stand, the process under which most process butter, this impure butter 
that has been discussed before the committee, is handled. In connec- 
tion with that it would be well, according to my standpoint as an oleo 
manufacturer as well as an experienced dealer in butter, that processes 
for the manipulation of butter should be investigated before any legis- 
lation is enacted. 

Oleomargarine has been for the last fourteen years the subject of 
the most careful scrutiny and inspection on the i^art of the Internal- 
Revenue Department of the United States. Before passing an opinion 
on the merits of the Grout bill, would it not be desirable to inform the 
public on the so-called processes for treating butter, and call for an inves- 
tigation by your servants (the Internal-Revenue Department) as to the 
manner and method of treating so called pure butter? I know posi- 
tively that the developments would be such as would astound the pub- 
lic: that the most rancid, impure, and unwholesome butter is rechurned, 
revamped, and nmde into a presentable article by the use of chemicals 
and drugs of various kinds, some of which are absolutely poisonous, 
and that the principal backers of the Grout bill are the makers of this 
vile concoction known as process or reboiled butter. The creamery 
men and makers of pure butter in the United States have nothing to 
fear. It is only the speculators and manipulators of the rancid butter 
that is unfit for food who have anything to cover up. Why would it 
not be to the interest of the consumer, as well as to the interest of the 
maker of pure putter, to impose a tax on all butter that was artificially 
colored after leaving the farm, or all butter colored with mythl, orange, 
or coal tar derivatives ? 



OLEOMARGARINE. 389 

I desire to call attention to some of the proceedings during the con- 
sideration of the present internal-revenue regulation in the Senate or 
the United States. This is from Mr. Ingalls: 

Mr. Ingalls. I hold in my hand a vial of "Wells, Richardson & Co.'s perfected 
butter color," which, the envelope assures us, "gives to wiiite butter a beautiful 
dau<lelion color; price, 25 cents," and, as a comiueutai'.v on the sugge.stious made by 
the Senator ironi Vermont this afternoou that tliis bill was intended to prevent one 
man from cheating another, I will state that this preparation pretends to be manu- 
factured by "Wells, Richardson & Co., proprietors, Burlington, Vt." [Laughter.] 

Open this end. 

Keep the 

bottle 

in this box at all times 

to protect from 

the 

action of the light — 

says the label. This vial, so the manufacturers assure ns, put up in Burlington, Vt. 
[laughter], for dairy purposes, is — 

Warranted to color 

300 lbs. 

winter butter. 

"In using our perfected butter color it must be borne in mind that no two dairies 
will often require the same amount of color. Cows fed on poor hay. and kept with 
only ordinary care, will make winter butter than when well cared for and fed on 
tine hay and grain; also young cows give less color than old. 

"Different seasons also make nuicli difference. Care should be taken," say these 
friends of the dairymen, "to get just the right amount, and never overcolor. 

"Coloring butter nicely is an art, and one must expect to learn something by 
practice and experience. Caution!" — In large letters with an interjection point after 
it — "This preparation is made by a process entirely new and original with us. No 
other process can produce so pure and harmless nor so uniform and reliable a color, 
and consumers should be ciireful to use only the yenuiue, which is always put up in 
bottles, and each bottle in a box bearing our dandelion trade-mark. Beware of prep- 
arations sold in bulk or under similar names, for you will lind them but i)oor 
imitations.' 

This is somewhat protracted, but the advice to the dairymen of America is so 
important and they liave been presented in the light of a long suffering class of 
afflicted people, engaged in their bucolic honesty in Vermont and elsewhere in a 
struggle with the herculean efforts of the manufacturers of oleomargarine to put a 
spurious article on the market, that I feel that perhaps the Senate will bear with 
me, and the Senator from South Carolina also, while 1 continue to give the country 
information as to the methods in which butter color is prepared aud the purposes 
for which it is employed. 

Mr. BuTLKR. I shall be delighted. 

Mr. Ingalls. " We take jtleasure in offering to the dairymen of America" — not to 
the oleomargarine men — "this preparation as the perfect result of our long-con- 
tinued experiments in the i)reparation of an artificial color for their use. In our 
perlected butter color we have succeeded in combining the same bright-yellow color- 
ing principle found in the dandelion blossom with our previously well-known 
•Golden Extract'" — 

Now notice this — 
"thereby securing a bright golden tint so exactly like the highest grade of Jersey 
butter that no expert can detect it [laughter], even by actual comparison of the 
artificial color with the natural. 

" We claim for it every point wanted in a perfect butter color, namely : 

" First. I 'erfect color. The butter never turns to a I'eddish tinge, but always keeps 
the bright golden color. 

"Second. Perfect freedom from any taste or smell that can be imparted to the butter. 

"Third. Perfect keeping finalities. It does not mold, sour, or spoil in any way. 
Heat or cold have no effect on it." 

It is apparently one of the unchangeable elements of nature — 

"It has a decided tendency to preserve butter, whereas butter colored with car- 
rots, annatto, etc., will often spoil" — 

Notwithstanding the statement of the Senator from New York, who is supposed 
to be an expert in these matters — 
"will often spoil or turn to a dull reddish tint. 

" Fourth — 



390 OLEOMARGARINE. 

And here comes the nut of this whole matter. The Senate is now about to learn 
why this bntter color is used, the purpose for which it is employed, the reasons why 
it is put onto the market, and why these innocent, unsophisticated countrymen in 
the valleys of the streams of New England, thiit have no knowledgf- whatever of 
the ]»lumet, whose products have become synonymous with purity and excellence — 
why it is tluit manufMctories turn out bnrrels of butter color, and why it is, as the 
Senator from IS'ew York says, "from time immemorial, so long that the memory of 
man runneth not back to the contrary," the innocent dairyman has colored his butter. 

'' Fourth. Perlect ecimomy in use. It reijuires no labor, as it is a duid that is put 
in with the cream in the churn. It is cheaper than any other coloring, being put 
up in three sizes, selling at 25 cents, 50 cents, and $1 each, which color, respectively, 
300, 750, and 2,000 pounds of butter." 

1 almost hesitate to read the last paragraph : 

" We warrant it to add at least 5 cents per pound to the value of white bntter, a 
return of ^1 for every cent it costs." 

lu conuection with this, I can say that 1 recommeod Wells, Richard- 
son & Co.'s butter color as a first-class color. 

Mr. Knight. I thought so. 

Mr. Jelke. It is a very good color. 

Senator Allen. What is the composition of the color? 

Mr. Jelke. I do not know; but if you desire, I can write to Wells, 
Eichardson «S: Co. for it. 

Senator Heitp'eld. I do not think they will give it away. 

Senator Allen. I did not know but that it had been analyzed and 
that you had the analysis. 

Mr. Jelke. No; we have never had it analyzed. Wells, Kichardson 
& Co. are a rehable firm, and they guarantee the color to be i)nre and 
harmless. 1 think i)robably the chairman will bear me out in the fact 
that Wells, Ificliardson & Co. are a reputable concern. 

There is a sincere need for legislation against process, renovated, and 
boiled butter. 

The reports of the Internal Revenue Department will show that by 
far the largest number of comi^laints made by consumers have been on 
samples of so-called pure butter that they were deceived into buying, 
believing it to be fresh-made creamery butter, which was in reality 
nothing more than tliis remixed stuff. I repeat, have the Internal- 
Revenne Uei)artnient investigate the dairy and process butter manufac- 
turers before deciding on what is best, most wise, and expedient in this 
legislation. The Grout bill is cleverly drawn. It purports to increase 
the tax on the well-known commercial oleomargarine to 10 cents per 
pound, and at the same time tiie promoters of this legislation say that 
32 States prohibit the sale of colored oleomargarine. Yet the bill also 
provides that colored oleomargarine becomes amenable to the State 
law as soon as it crosses the boundary of these States. How many 
States do the butter dealers expect us to vsell colored oleomargarine in? 
If they believe we can sell nncolored oleomargarine, give us just one 
year to try, by reducing the tax on nncolored oleomargarine to one- 
fourth of a cent per pound, as proi)Osed in the Grout bill, leaving the 
tax on colored oleomargarine at 2 cents ])er pound. 

If you pass the Grout bill to more eftectually identify the goods to 
the consumer, add to it the provisions of the Wadsworth bill, viz: 

Provided, That when such packages are packed in prints, bricks, rolls, or lumps, 
the word ' Oleomaigarine" shall be impressed in sunken letters, the size to be pre- 
scribed by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and approved by the Secretary of 
the Treasury, on all prints, bricks, rolls, and luuips so packed. 

We want our goods known to the purchaser, but rechristen the child 
and call the goods margarine. 

Then your committee, the House of Representatives, and the Senate 
of the United States can plainly see what the advantage is in having 



J 



OLEOMARGARINE. 391 

an article pleasing to the sight. By increasing the sale of uncolored 
oleomargarine the farmer loses nothing, because he stands his share of 
the burdensome tax that is now imposed. He gets that much less for 
the ])roducts that enter into the production of oleomargarine. 

Ex-President Cleveland, in August, 188G, stated in his message to 
Congress: 

It has beeu urged that while purporting to be legislation for revenue its real 
purpose is to destroy, by the use of the taxing power, one industry of onr people 
for the protection and benefit of another. If entitled to indulge in such a suspicion 
as a basis of otticial action in this case, and if entirely satisfied that the conse- 
quences indicated would ensue, I should doubtless feel constrained to interpose 
Executive dissent. 

This was on a tax of 2 cents per pound on commercial oleomargarine, 
and if such a levy imposed raised a question of class legislation, what 
about a tax of 10 cents per pound? If it is fair to crush our industry, 
if it is fair to the population of this country to deprive them of what 
they want, if it is fair to enhance the price of butter in favor of the 
butter specuhttors at the expense of those in ordinary circumstances, 
then it is right to pass this bill; but I believe if the Grout bill becomes 
a law the day will come when every man who goes on record in this 
legislation as favoring this destructive measure will be called upon to 
express themselves in further legislation of the same character, viz, to 
relegate to the States their police power, and to tax one class at the 
expense of another. I would suggest that a commission be appointed, 
made up of experienced business men, together with ofticers of the 
Internal-Eevenue Department, together with representatives of organ- 
ized labor, to frame a law that will identity oleomargarine to the con- 
sumer; at the same time investigate the butter maker, particularly the 
process-butter maker, and have a bill introduced in the next session of 
Congress, and it will have our hearty approval and support. 

Anything to identify oleomargarine as oleomargarine. Protect the 
consumer, but do not rob oleomargarine of one of its tirst qualities. 

Senator Proctor. What was your extract from President Cleve- 
land. Was it a veto message? 

Mr. .Ielke. No, sir ; it was when he signed the bill. He did not veto 
the bill. 

Senator Proctor. But sent a special message? 

Mr. Jelke. Yes, sir. 

Senator Proctor. I notice that you do not all pronounce this word 
the same. How is it pronounced? 

Mr. Jelke. In Europe, it is everywhere called "margarine,'' with 
the haid "g." In Germany I have been m the principal factories, and 
in Holland; and, by the way, in both Germany and Holland there are 
single manufacturers who produce as much oleomargarine as all the 
manufacturers of oleomargarine in the United States. 

Senator Allen. The standard dictionaries give it as "oleomar- 
garine," with the hard "g." 

Senator Dolliver. Is the number of oleomargarine factories increas- 
ing in the United States? 

Mr. .Jelke. Yes, sir; they have been increasing recently. In Ger- 
many they have increased to a wonderful extent. In fact, in the old 
city of Nuremberg there are two margarine factories. I visited one 
of them. 

Gentlemen, I thank you very much for your attention. 



392 OLEOMAEGARINE. 



STATEMENT OF MR. HENRY E. DAVIS. 

Mr. Davis. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I would 
not have troubled you with appearing before you were it not that my 
relation to this question is peculiar, growing out of the fact that I rep- 
resent the only concern engaged in this industry or interested in it over 
which the Congress of the United States has direct and exclusive juris- 
diction. There is no oleomargarine factory in any Territory of the United 
States. There is an oleomargarine factory in process of erection here 
by the Standard Butterine Company, which is a company organized 
with a capital of $1,000,()()(> and which has staited the erection of a 
building to cost $300,000, which, if it goes into operation, will employ 
several hundred persons, who it is estimated will have depending upon 
them, including themselves, a population of 1,500 people right in the 
District of Columbia, within the shadow of this Capitol — almost within 
the shadow, and surely within sight of the Capitol. 

In presenting the interests of this concern to your attention, it will 
of course be necessary for me to s;iy something a little outside of the 
special establishment itself, but I have read with a great deal of care 
and interest the entire proceedings before the House Committee on 
Agriculture, and I have also read so much of the proceedings before 
this committee as have been accessible to me, including the very able 
and thorough argument of Judge Springer. As a result, I will spare 
the committee a great deal that I had intended to say, because the 
ground has been to an extent occupied before me. But there are cer- 
tain considerations that I have failed to observe as having been brought 
to the attention of the committee, and it is to get these before the com- 
mittee principally that I have asked this privilege. 

This bill, as you know quite by heart, is entitled "A bill to make 
oleomargarine and other imitation dairy products subject to the laws 
of the State or Territory in which they are transported, and to change 
the tax on oleomargarine." 

The first section of the bill provides that when oleomargarine or any 
similar product shall arrive in a State from another it shall be subject 
to the police power of the State in which it arrives, just as any other 
similar product within the State itself, with a proviso, to the pecul- 
iarity of which I wish to ask your attention — 

tliat notbing in this act shall be constrned to permit any Stato to forbid the manu- 
facture or sale of oleomargarine in a separate and distinct form and in such manner 
as will apprise the consumer of its real character, free from coloration or ingredi- 
ent that causes it to look like butter. 

I shall presently call your attention to the fact that that proviso by 
implication authorizes every State in this Union to forbid the sale of 
colored oleomargarine, even though the color be due to an ingredient 
of the oleomargarine, which in the case of cotton seed oil is unavoida- 
ble. The next section of the act simply provides for a change in the 
tax as to oleomargarine, making it one fourth of a cent per pound when 
the same is not colored, and when it is colored then it is to pay 10 cents. 

I submit, gentlemen, that the first section of this bill can not be 
defended upon the ground that it intends to submit oleomargarine to 
the taxing powers of the States for revenue purposes, for it is not open 
to argument that a State has such power as to an article of interstate 
commerce. The only taxing power which a State has as to such arti- 
cles — that is, articles of interstate commerce — is to make laws impos- 
ing taxes to the extent of what may be absolutely necessary for 
executing its inspection laws; and even as to those, the net profits of 



OLEOMARGARINE. 393 

all duties and imposts laid bj any State on exports or imports shall be 
for the use of the Treasury of the United States, and all such laws 
shall be subject to the revision and control of Congress. That is a 
provision of the eighth article of the Constitution of tlie United 
States. 

So that it would uselessly consume your time and waste words to add 
to the statement that a State has no power of taxation upon any arti- 
cle of interstate commerce, except such as is involved in an iiisi)ection, 
and the net proceeds ot all taxes laid for such purposes belong to the 
United States. 

The section can not be defended upon that ground, nor can it be 
defended upon the ground that it involves a delegation by Congress to 
the States «.f any portion of the police power, for a double reason. In 
the tirst place, if Congress has the police i)ower, it can not delegate it, 
and, in the second place, it has no police i)ower as respects the States. 

Senator Ali.en. Let me ask you a question there. 

Mr. Davis. Yes, sir. 

Senator Allen. Did not the Supreuie Court in the Iowa liquor cases 
hold that Congress could delegate the power f 

Mr. Davis. I am coming to that, Senator. I have that in mind and 
I want to point out what seems to have been overlooked in all this dis- 
cussion as to that very question. I say, in the first place, Congress 
can not delegate any power, and in those cases to which you refer, and 
which 1 will come to i)resently, the court vindicates its conclusions by 
a distinct declaration that the act of Congress does not involve such a 
delegation, as 1 will show you. 

This tirst reason — that is, that Congress can not delegate the police 
power, assuming it to have it — is aptly illustrated by the cases cite<l by 
Mr. Justice Shiras in his dissenting ()i>inion, concurred in by Chief 
Justice Fuller and Justice McKenna, in the case of Vance v. W. A. 
Vandercook Company, No. 1, in 170 U. S., 438, and notably in the case 
of Stoutenburgh v. Henning, which is in llii) U. S., 141. 

That case came up from the District of Columbia and involved this 
proj^osition. The Constitution of the United States, in this same eighth 
article, gives Congress exclusive jurisdiction over such territory as 
should be selected for the seat of government, that is to say, the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, and Congress enacted a law creating a Territorial 
form of government, i)roviding for a legislature and giving the legisla- 
ture general legislative i)owers. The Sujjreme Court said that a certain 
law of the local legislature, although it was within the giant of Con- 
gress, according to the language of the act of Congiess, was void, 
because Congress had undertaken to delegate something that the Con- 
stitution committed to itself, and that therefore this local legislation, 
although within the line of the grant of Congress, was unconstitutional 
and void. 

Now, in this very same opinion, this dissenting opinion to which first 
I want to call attention — that is, the dissenting opinion of Justice Shiras 
in Vance r. The W A. Vandercook Company — Justice Shiras con- 
vincingly maintains that Congress can not delegate to a State any of 
its powers over interstate commerce and points out — and this comes to 
your question. Senator Allen — what is as yet unanswered, that in none 
of the preceding cases decided by the Supreme Court was this question 
necessary to be decided, or, in fact, decided, for the reason that intoxi- 
cating liquors, from their very nature, were conceded to threaten the 
public safety, the public morals, and the public health, to which mat- 
ters the police power extends, and that as to such articles the right of 
self protection in the States was obvious and proper to be preserved. 



394 OLEOMAKGARINE. 

I doubt if there is a parallel to these decisions in the whole of the 
reports of the Supreme Court of the United States, a case in which the 
niouthi)iece of the court in the main opinion — that is, the South Caro- 
lina case following the Iowa case to which you refer — in which the 
mouthpiece of the court in the main opinion in a subsequent dissent 
protested to his fellows that they did not mean to say what they claim 
in their subsequent majority was the effect of the decision, and pro- 
claiming that had that been the intention of the court at the time he 
would iiave been on the dissenting side instead of on the majority side. 

Seiuitor DoLLiVER. But in the Iowa case the court hinted at that 
legislation, anil Congress followed the hint of the court and did com- 
mit to the States an absolute control over original packages of liquor. 

Mr. Davis. That is exactly what 1 am considering now. 

Senator Dolliver. Has the validity of that act of Congress ever 
been brought into dispute! 

Mr, Davis. That is exactly the point to which I am addressing my- 
self, Senator Dolliver. In the case of Scott v. Donald (105 U. S,, .58), in 
general terms, without qualification, speaking of the intoxicating- 
liquors law, the Supreme Court did decide that that was a constitutional 
exercise of the powers of Congress. That was the first of the dis- 
pensary cases from South Carolina. Judge Shiras delivered the opinion 
in that case. In a subsequent case, when the court sought to nuike it 
ap})ear that that was a broad decision as to the validity of that act of 
Congress, so as to make it applicable to all subjects of interstate com- 
merce, he ])rotested that that was not the meaning of the decision; 
that it never was in his mind to say so when lie delivered the oi)inion, 
and I am going to quote you his words to show you that he distin- 
guishes that case very clearly and shows that what the court meant to 
say was that in respect to such a thing as intoxicating liquors it was 
a valid exercise of the constitutional ]»owers of Congress, but that as 
to any other wholesome subject of commerce Congress had no right so 
to do. I will read you his words in a few moments, and that is the 
point, if I may say so, which has not been observed in any of the dis- 
cussions, either before the other committee or before this one; and to 
me it presents the real point in connection with the consideration of 
the question of the constitutionality of this section. 

In support of .Judge Shiras's opinion in the later case, he quotes from 
the initial case, this case of Scott v. Donald, in the Supreme Court of 
the United States, under that act of 18!K). Tliat is the act you speak 
of, Senator Dolliver, as having been passed on the hint of the decision 
in the Iowa case. This law subjects intoxicating liquors to the effect 
of State laws upon their arrival in the States. In that case .ludge 
Shiras delivered the oj)inion himself, and, speaking of the original 
South Carolina dispensary law, which was then under consideration, 
he said, in 1G5 U. S., 100: 

It is not a law purporting to forbid the importation, manufacture, sale, and use of 
intoxicating liquors as detrimental to the welfare of the State and to the health of 
the inhabitants, and hence it is not within the scope and operation of the act of Con- 
gress of August, 1890. Tliat law was not intended to confer upon any State the 
power to discriininate injuriously against the products of other States in articles 
whose manufacture and use are not forbidden, and which are therefore the subjects 
of legitimate commerce. 

He distinctly put his opinion, which was the majority opinion, in 
Scott V. Donald, upon tlie proposition that the act of ISiM) was confined 
in its operation to intoxicating liquors, because, to use the language of 
the court in another case, they are confessedly conducive to pauperism, 
idleness, and crime, and recognized as having such a tendency. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 395 

You will observe that in this Scott v. Donald case the Supreme 
Court had before it for consideration and construction the act u]>on 
which the first section of this act is framed. It related to intoxicating 
liquors. Justice Shiras cini)hatically piotests that he was confining 
himself in decidiTig the case, which had been cited as a precedent, to 
the fact that it was intoxicating lirjuors that were dealt with, and he 
said it was never intended to rcacli the manufacture and sale of arti- 
cles the manufacture and sale of which were not injurious, and which 
were therefore the legitimate subject of commerce. 

Now, in the Schollenberger case, which has already been cited to you 
in 171 U. S.. the Supreme Court distinctly declared oleomargarine to be 
a healthful and nutritions article of food and a proper subject of com- 
merce, and in his concurring o]>inion in the case of Mugler v. Kansas, 
123 U. S., 623, at page 676, Justice Field states this unanswerable 
proposition: 

If one State can forbid the sale within its limits of an imported article, so may 
all tlie States, each selecting a different article. Tliere wonld then be little uni- 
formity of regulations with respectto articles of foreign commerce carried into dif- 
ferent States, and the same may also be said of regulations in respect to articles of 
interstate commerce, and we know it was one of the objects of the formation of the 
Federal Constitution to secure uniformity of commercial regulations against dis- 
criminating State legislation. 

Mr. Justice Shiras, in this case I have already referred to, the case 
of Vance against the Vandercook Company, vigorously ])rotests 
against any suggestion that in delivering the opinion of the court in 
the case of Scott r. Donald he was assenting to the validity of the act 
of August 8, ISOO, as to all articles of commerce. I read you his exact 
words: 

I am altogether unwilling to attribute to Congress an intention to abandon the 
protection of interstate commerce in articles of food or drink, whether for personal 
use or for sale, where similar articles are treated by a State as lawful subjects of 
domestic commerce. If sn(di were the inti'ution of Congress in the act of August, 
189(1. 1 shonld be compelled to regard such legislation as invalid. The control and 
regulation of foreign and interstate connnercd are among the most important powers 
possessed by the National Legislature, and, as has often been said by this court, 
were among the most y)otent causes which led to the establisliment of the Constitu- 
tion. The conceded inrpose of protecting commerce from hostile action between 
the States would be defeated if Congress Cf)uld withdraw from the exercise of its 
powers in such matters and turn tiiem over to the legislatures of the States, but 
there is no reason to suppose tiiat Congress intended any such act of abnegation in 
the ]iresent instance. Reasonable meaning and effect can be given to the act of 
August 8, ISitO, without giving it such a cf)nstrnction as would raise the serious 
question of its constitutionality. 

I have not time to read the rest of this opinion, but Judge Shiras 
goes into this act over again, and he points out how the act can be 
sustained without any reference to its constitutionnlity, and he makes 
his vigorous i)rotest against being counted among those who at any 
time would be sui)poscd to believe this act constitutional if it had ref- 
erence to anything else but intoxicating liquors. 

I commend this opinion to your most careful consideration. Of 
course in ordinary I would not cite from a dissenting opinion: but, as 
I say, this is a unique case. Here is a case in which the justice, deliv- 
ering the o]nnion of the majority of thecourt, finds that opinion turned 
to a meaning which he never entertained when delivering it, and in 
justice to his intelligeiu'e and his own constitutiomil views he puts his 
protest on record at the first 0])]iortnnity. 

Senator Dollivek. Who would be the judge whether the article 
interdicted was properly subject to the police powers of the State in 
relation to public health"? 



396 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. Davis. I am very glad you asked that question. I freely con- 
cede that the State would; but I wish to ask your attention to the fact 
that Congress here is proposing to submit to the tender mercies of the 
States an article which the Supreme Court of the United States has 
said that Congress itself has recognized as wholesome and nutritious 
and not a fit subject of prohibition. I will show you that to a demon- 
stration I concede that the police power of the State can touch arti- 
cles of food, but it must touch them for a reason. 

Justice Peckham, delivering the opinion of the court in the Schollen- 
barger case, says, in effect: 

Congress has, l)y the iict of 1886, recoguizeil this as a fit subject of commerce. We 
say, as tiie Supreme Court of this land, as matter of judicial notice, without any wit- 
ness having appeared before us, that this article is wholesouie and nutritious, and 
that stays the hand of the United Statea from authorizing the police power of any 
State to interfere with it. 

Mr. DoLLiVER. The legislation of 18SG, I suppose, is what the 
Supreme Court bases that statement on, that Congress has recognized 
the article as not a fit subject for the State to exercise the police power 
upon. 

Mr. Davis. As a legitimate object of commerce; yes, sir. 

Senator Dolliveb. At the time, I recollect, that law was not sup- 
posed to be a certificate of high moral character. 

Mr. Davis. That is exactly right; and I only regret that my time 
has not enabled me to unearth an extremely clever thing that was pub- 
lished in the Washington Postjustthedayafter Mr. Cleveland signed this 
bill. It was a most interesting account of a barnyard convention in 
the lot back of the White House. It described the sensati(nis through 
whicli the President went as he listened to the cackle of the hens and 
the lowing of the cows and overheard their discussions and their threats 
of political punishment if he did not sign the oleomaigarine bill. 
[Laughter.] It was intensely entertaining, but I did not have time to 
recover it. 

You have come right to the point, Senator Dolliver, and I am coming 
back to it. I have that noted in the subsequent part of my mem )randum 
here, and I am coming back to it, but I will stick a pin in it right now. 
The Supreme Court in that Schollenbarger case, speaking by Mr. Justice 
Peckham, said, in effect: 

There has not one witness appeared to testify about the wholesomeness or the 
nutritiousness of this article. There has not a witness appeared to tell ue about the 
constituents of it, but we take judicial notice of the fact that it has been a known 
article of commerce for a quarter of a century. We take ju<licial notice of the fact 
that in all the reports of the chemists, and in all reports of the departments of agri- 
culture of the States and of the United States, this thing has been probed, and we 
are bound to say, as the court of last resort and the highest judicial authority of this 
land, that the stamp of wholesomeness and of nutritiousness is on this article, and it 
is a tit subject of commerce. 

Senator Dolliver. Do you mean that by the mere act of taxing it 
it puts a stamp of that kind on it! 

Mr. Davis. No; I beg your pardon. You do not take me, Senator. 
He did not say that. He said that the act of making it a source of 
revenue recognized it as a fit subject of commerce. Then he abided: 
"Moreover, in addition to that, we do take judicial notice of the act that 
it is wholesome and nutritious." 

Senator Dolliver. I believe that same opinion was given by one 
justice on the subject of tobacco the other day. 

Mr. Davis. No; that was a speech in the House of Representatives 
by Hon. Peter J. Otey. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 397 

Senator Dolliver, No; I think Mr. Justice Harlan made the same 
proposition in the cijjarette case. 

Mr. Davis. I am perfectly ready to tulniit that. 

Senator Dolliver. In other word-i, I want to get at how far the act 
of 188(5 concludes Congress upon the question of wholesonieness. 

.Mr. Davis. Excuse nie, sir; I do not say it does. I leave that alto- 
gether. I care nothing about it. What I do say is this, that the power 
that has the largest office in declaring the law of this land, namely, the 
Supreme Court of the Tnited States, has said that this is an article that 
ought not to be touched by the i)(>lice power because it is wholesome 
aud nutritious; that it ought not to be given over. 

Senator Dolliver. That was in the nature, then, of mere admonitory 
advice to the legislatures of the States. 

Senator Allen. Is not that carryings the doctrine of judicial notice 
to quite an extent? 

Mr. Davts. I can only answer you by saying, Senator, that they have 
carried it to that extent; and until the Supreme Court changes its 
view that stands as its opinion in regard to the wholesomeness of this 
article. 

Senator Dolliver. Does not the i)rinciple you have stated collide 
with the proposition that the State is the su])reme judge of the welfare 
and convenience of its inhabitants as regards the exercising of its 
police i)ower? 

Mr. Davis. On the contrary, .]usti<;e Shiras said that in delivering 
that main oi)inion he thought he was guarding that very proposition. 
I am very glad of this interruption, because it gives me a chance to 
refer to the matter twice. Inasmuch as the Supreme Court of the 
United States has said that this is a wholesome and a nutritious arti- 
cle of food, it will not lie in the mouth of the legislative branch of the 
Government to throw the glove in the face of the Supreme Court and 
say, " Here, we are going to pass laws subjecting to exclusion from the 
States the very thing that you say is wholesome and nutritious or to 
subject it to unreasonable regulations in the States;" and I submit 
that this committee will not re<'ommend to the Senate of the United 
States that it put itself into the position of being rebuked by the 
Supreme Court of the United States. 

Senator Dolliver. We want to avoid that, and yet we do not want 
to be constrained by the opinions of the court on a question of law. 

Mr. Davis. I recognize the distinction between the legislature and 
the judiciary, I take it, quite fully ; but in the subsequent part of this 
memorandum I make the suggestion that when we are making law we 
are entitled to take into account those considerations which we might 
not take into account after a law has been placed upon the statute 
books, for then we look at the letter of it. 

Senator Allen. I do not know that I am wholly prepared to accept 
the doctrine that the Sui)reme Court can bind the legislative depart- 
ment of the Government in determining the desirability or the qualifi- 
cation of any food product. In other words, is it not a legislative 
question rather than a judicial one ? 

Mr. Davis. May I put a question to j^ou in return, Yankee fashion, 
if Senator Proctor will excuse me"? 

Senator Allen. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Davis. What would you think of any legislature attempting to 
regulate the size and shape of hats? I say that the legislature has no 
more right to deal with this subjectof oleomargarine, except within the 
limits of the Constitution — that is, to inspect it and see that it is pure 



398 OLEOMARGARINE. 

when it comes into the State — than it has to pass a law requiring every 
man who crosses the State to wear a i)hig hat. 

Senator Allen. Suppose there was something entering into the com- 
position of the hat whicli was deleterious, which would make it inju- 
rious, or suppose it was believed to be so, to the extent that the legis- 
lative department should pass a law that that material should not be 
used in a hat. Is not that a legislative question ? 

Mr. Davis. I grant it. That is not this case. iS^obody says that 
oleomargarine coloring is deleterious. 

Senator Allen. It seems to me it covers this case pretty closely. 

Mr. Davis. I grant you that a State has the right to pass any inspec- 
tion law to see that articles that contain deleterious substances are 
not imposed upon its citizens; but beyond that it has not the right to 
go. 1 agree with the gentlemen here who are willing to have this sub- 
stitute bill pass. Pass the most stringent insi)ection laws you please, 
but let us sell oleomargarine as oleom.irgarine, and do not tell us that 
we can not sell it at all. 

Mr. Knight. Will you pardon an interruption f 

Mr. Davis. Certainly. 

Mr. Knight. 1 think I can throw a good deal of'light on the decision 
in the Schollenbarger case. 

Mr. Davis. Excuse me. If you are going into that, I decline to be 
interrupted. I thought you wanted to ask me a question, and I am 
prepared to answer that. 

Mr. Knight. I will ask you a question, then. 

Mr. Davis. What is it ? ' 

Mr. Knight. What was the Schollenbarger case? 

Mr. Davis. An original ])ackage case. 

Mr. Knight. What kind of oleomargarine was it, colored or uncolored ? 

Mr. Davis. It is immaterial whether it was colored or uncolored. 

Mr. Knight. I think it is quite material. 

Mr. Davis. Excuse me. The Sui)reme Court decision was point 
blank that the Pennsylvania law which had been previously sustained 
in the Powell case, so far as it affected interstate commerce and oleo- 
margarine in the original package, was an invasion of the interstate- 
commerce powers of Congress, and therefore to that extent unconstitu- 
tional. It does not make any difference whether it was colored or 
uncolored. Their decision flatly was that an attempt to deal with oleo- 
margarine coming from an outside State in an original package was an 
invasion of the constitutional powers of Congress. 

Mr. Knight. But did not the Schollenbarger case distinguish between 
colored and uncolored margarine? 

Mr. Davis. No, sir; it did not, and you gentlemen have but to read 
that opinion to see that it is a plump decision against that much of the 
Pennsylvania law as interfered with oleomargarine in original pack- 
ages. Since then Pennsylvania has changed its law. It no longer 
prevents the manufacture of oleomargarine; and it only prohibits the 
manufacture of oleomargarine that is colored or contains ingredients 
making it look like butter. I had the pleasure of defending a num- 
ber of gentlemen engaged in this enterprise in the western part of 
Pennsylvania last fall, and the very intelligent judge who presided 
ruled to the jury that if the coloring was incident to an ingredient 
that entered into it, that provision of the Pennsylvania law was incon- 
sistent with itself, unreasonable, and not to be observed, and the men 
were acquitted, as they should have been. 

Mr. Knight. How about the ui^per courts'? 



OLEOMARGARINE. 399 

Mr. Davis. It could not go to the upper courts. Tbe men were 
acquitted. 

Mr. Knight. Has not that question been decided in some other case 
in Pennsylvania in the upper courts? 

Mr. Davis. Not that 1 know. It had not been decided, unfortu- 
nately for me, last September when I was out there. 

In addition, although it is not essential to the argument, I want to 
say this: Assume that you have the ijower to pass this law, the first 
section of this act. I do say it would be a most unwise and a most 
unjust exercise of the legislative power. It would be unwise for the 
reasons that have been so fully stated by Justice Shiras and Justice 
Field; and the Supreme Court reports are alight with observations of 
the same kind. Assume a man in the State of Virginia to make oleo- 
margarine. If this bill becomes a law, he has to run the chances of 44 
varying sets of reguhitions in order to get that into the commerce of the 
United States. He not only has to deal with ihe sister State of Mary- 
land and the sister State of Kentucky, or of Tennessee, but he has to 
reckon with Pennsylvania, and New York, and the Western States, or 
the far Southern States; and it is a prohibition of the manufacture of 
oleomargarine by sheer necessity, for the man who makes oleomargarine 
will have to know the regulations of every State, which are the subject 
of constant change. He has to know the laws of every State, Mdiich 
are the subject of constant change; and he may shape his enterprise 
today for next spring's market, only to find that that market has been 
destroyed by a legislature that has sat in the meantime. It is most 
unwise legislation. It is most unpractical legislation. It is most 
impracticable legislation. Not only is it unwise, but it is unjust. It is 
grossly unjust. 

I perhaps speak with a little more warmth about this than is essen- 
tial to the argument; but I have been engaged in rej^resenting these 
interests for a number of years. I have seen this industry grow — 
although I have had nothing to do with it except as a lawyer — I have 
seen from time to time the extension of the industry; I have seen the 
prejudice against this article when it was at its height, and I am happy 
to say that I have seen its gradual disappearance, until presently the 
man who votes for this oleomargarine bill, if he lives long enough, will 
be able to say what the late Senator Harris said of himself when the 
bill was before Congress to give Morse the money to build a telegraph 
line from Baltimore to Washington. Senator Harris said: "Why, I 
would just as soon think of voting the Government money to open 
communication with the moon?" He always said, in after life, that he 
did not like anybody to remind him of that fact. But when this preju- 
dice shall have entirely passed away, some of us who are discussing this 
subject will wonder at the feeling that has been got up over it. 

Now, apart from its being unwise, as I say, it is unjust. Here are, 
throughout this country, numberless factories making this product and 
putting it on the market. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are invested 
In the enterprise. Thousands on thousands of men are employed. Tens 
of thousands of families are supported by it. This industry is turning 
out a product that the poor man wants — not only wants, but is anxious 
to have — that he knows is wholesome and nutritious. He does not want 
to be deprived of it, and there is no reason that he should be deprived 
of it, it having the stamp of the leading chemists of the world and of 
the highest legal tribunal of the world as to its wholesomeness and 
nutritiousness. 



400 OLEOMARGAKINE. 

But this belongs a little farther down, more i)roperly, and I will pass 
from that to the second main proposition that I wish to lay before you, 
and that is that Congress has no i)olice power to delegate, and never 
did have. In the case of Rahrer, which is in I-IO U. S., the Supreme 
Court disposes of that matter in a very few words at page 155: 

It is not to be doubted that the power to make the ordinary regulations of police 
remaius with the individual States and can not be assumed by tlie National Govern- 
ment. 

The clear and weighty language of Mr. Justice Catron in the license 
cases in 5 Howard, quoted at some length at pages 557 to 559 of this 
Eahrer case, has already been read to you by Judge Springer, so I will 
not trouble you with it again; but I ask your special attention to the 
case of Plumley r. Massachusetts, which is the case upon which our 
friends, the enemy, piincipally rely as to the attitude of the Supreme 
Court. In that case the Supreme Court distinctly held, at page 471, 
that the grant to Congress of authority to regulate foreign and inter- 
state commerce did not involve a surrender by the States of their 
police powers; and such has been the uniform holding of the Supreme 
Court as far back as Prigg r. The Commonwealth, 16 Peters, 529, 
which was decided at the January term, 1842, in which Mr. Justice 
Story, speaking for the entire court, says that the — 

police power extends over all subjects within the territorial limits of the States, and 
has never been conceded to tbe United States. 

So I say that not only can Congress not delegate any police power to 
a State, but also that it lias not any to delegate. But Just suppose, 
now, for the purposes of argument, that Congress has the power — and I 
am obliged to concede that as to my particular client Congress has the 
power in the District of Columbia — suppose that Congress has the full 
police power over the subject, I still contend that this bill, as to neither 
its first nor second sections, proposes an exercise of the police power. 

That we may inquire into this, notwithstanding the title and language 
of the act, is too clear for argument. I wish to read you from the lan- 
guage of the court, speaking by Mr. Justice Harlan, in the case of 
Mugler V. Kansas, 123 U. S., 623. I read first from page 661: 

It belongs to that de])artmeut [speaking of the Legislative Department] to exert 
what are known as the police powers of the State, and to determine primarily what 
measures are appropriate or needful for the protection of the ])ublic morals, the 
public health, or the public safety. It does not at all follow that every statute 
enacted ostensibly for tlie promotion of these ends is to be accepted as a legitimate 
exertion of the police power of the State. There are limits beyond which legisla- 
tion can not rightfully go. 

Then, a little farther down the page: 

The courts are not bound by mere forms, nor are they to be misled by mere pre- 
tenses. They are at liberty, indeed are under a solemn duty, to look at tlie sub- 
stance of things whenever they enter upon an inquiry whether the legislature has 
transcended the limits of its authority. If, therefore, a statute purporting to have 
been enacted to protect the public health, the public morals, or the public safety 
has no real or substantial relation to those objects, or is a palpable invasion of 
rights secured by a fundamental law, it is the duty of the courts to so adjudge and, 
therefore, give effect to the Constitution. 

And in delivering this opinion the court quoted at large from cases 
in New York and a number of other States in which the identical lan- 
guage in some instances, and in others the substance of it, has been 
used. In any event, that is the clear language of the Supreme Court. 

Again, on on page 663 of this same report, the opinion proceeds: 

Undoubtedly the State, when providing by legislation for the protection of the 
public health, public morals, or the public safety, is subject to the parmount 



OLEOMARGARINE. 401 

authority of the Constitution of the United States and may not violate rii^hts 
secured or guaranteed by that instrument, or interfere with the execution of the 
powers confided to the General Government. 

Moreover, in the very late case of the Uuitecl States v. Collins, in 171 
U. S., to which also Judge Springer called your attention, the case in 
which the pink color law of Xew Hampshire was declared unconstitu- 
tional as to oleomargarine, the Supreme Court held that law unconsti- 
tutional because, in its own words: 

"It was, in necessary effect, prohibitory" — not from its language, 
but in necessary effect prohibitory 5 and the court further declared 
that — 

In whatever language a statute may be framed, its purpose must be determined 
by its natural and reasonable effect. 

Now, as the Supreme Court says, and as the courts of this land with- 
out exception say, we have the right to look behind the language of 
an act to find what its meaning is and what its purpose. Let us see. 
In the first place, I say the title of this bill shows its purpose. Its 
title is "A bill to make oleomargarine and other imitation dairy 
l)roducts subject to the laws of the State or Territory into which they 
are transported, and to change the tax on oleomargarine." 

It is the judgment of the highest court of this land, and it is the 
common knowledge of everybody who has ever given this subject as 
much as a day's attention, that oleomargarine is. not an imitation of 
butter; that it is a substitute for butter; confessedly so, professedly so, 
advertised as such, manufactured and sold as such. It is not an imita- 
tion of butter. It is merely a wholesome and nutritious substitute for 
butter. So I say that this act starts out in its very title with a mis- 
description, which, whatever its purpose, has the effect of discrediting 
this article and thereby putting a stigma upon its manufacture and use, 
whichclearly reveals the object of this bill. 

In the next place, I say there is no pretense in this title of any object 
in changing the tax on oleomargarine. It is not described as a bill to 
increase or even to raise revenue, but only as a bill to change, for some 
unstated reason, which is the same as no reason, an existing tax. 

And again, in neither the title nor the body of the bill is any reason 
given or even hinted at for the extraordinary action proposed by the 
Congress of the United States in singling out of the myriad of nutri- 
tious and wholesome products of the land a single class, which, by a 
coincidence, which of course is purely accidental, conflicts with the per- 
sonal interests of the promoters of this bill. 

Now, in ordinary, as I said a while ago, when a statute has become 
the law of the land, is on the statute books, we can not go back to the 
debates of Congress or the arguments of counsel before conimittees, 
or the reports of committees, to find what the law means; but the 
Supreme Court says, notwithstanding, that you may probe a law and 
find if it is honest in its declared purpose, and if not, and it ought not 
to stand, you may strike it down. Furthermore, while we are in the 
act of making law it is eminently proper that we should take due 
account of these considerations before oversight of them leads us into 
making objectionable and regretable laws. 

I say, therefore, that we may look into this bill and we may find what 
it means; and we have the right to do it notwithstanding its language. 
We have the right to do it notwithstanding the interests that are back 
of it. We have the right to do it, and turn the search light of honest 
purpose on it and see what it is meant to do. I say that it has but one 
object, and that is to crush the oleomargarine industry; and whether 

S. Rep. 2013 26 



402 OLEOMARGAKINE. 

that is expressed or not, it is so plain that he who runs may read, and 
the Congress of the United States is now asked to pass a law to suppress 
and strike down an industry in which thousands on thousands of dol- 
lars are invested and which is supporting thousands on thousands of 
people, in respect of an industry which the highest court in the land has 
set its api)roval upon as being wholesome and nutritious in its product. 

Suppose you call this a bill to raise revenue or to increase revenue. 
It would not stand the scrutiny of a minute. VVhyl Because I would 
send to the document room and bring you the pending bill to reduce 
the revenue, because you have too much of it. I would call to your 
attention the indubitable fact that if you want to collect revenue in the 
face of what these geutlemen have told you here you are going to cut 
off revenue instead of collecting it, because you are going to put a tax 
on it so high that the manufacture will be stopped and your source of 
supply will be stopped. 

I do not speak too strongly when I say that the object of this bill is 
perfectly plain to any man who can use his eyes and will indulge in a 
moment's retiectiou. It is not an honest bill in the sense that it means 
what it appears to show upon its face — that it is for tlie regulation of 
an industry. It is intended to destroy an industry; and 1 ask you if 
that be not so what is the meaning in this second section of this very 
great discrimination between colored and uncolored oleomargarine. 

You are doing what? You are putting this tax on colored oleomar- 
garine, if you do it, only in order that the butter industry may not be 
trespassed upon. You are not doing it to collect revenues, because 
the higher the revenue you exact the less of it you collect. You are 
not doing it to prevent fraud, because the greater profit you hold out 
to the man who commits fraud the more you tempt him to do it. 
Tested from every moral point of view, the bill will not stand a 
moment's scrutiny; and, as I have already said, this proviso that has 
been put in here, " Provided, That nothing herein contained shall pre- 
vent the prohibition of the sale of oleomargarine that is in a separate 
and distinct form, and in such manner as will advise the consumer of 
its real character, free from coloration or ingredient that causes it to 
look like butter," enables the States, by implication, to forbid the manu- 
facture of oleomargarine into which cotton-seed oil enters, because — I 
say this on my own responsibility, and as a fact — when I was trying 
these cases in western Pennsylvania I demonstrated to the jury and to 
the court that the reason for the color in the product then under con- 
sideration was the use of cottonseed oil, and they put upon the stand — 
I can not give you the name, but I can furnish it — the chemist of the 
Western University of Pennsylvania, who, under my cross-examina- 
tion, admitted that to be true, that cotton-seed oil inevitably causes a 
yellowish color to the product. 

If you pass this bill with that proviso, you destroy the manufacture 
of oleomargarine with cotton-seed oil throughout the United States. 
I know that by my own experience in trying these cases. It is a fact 
that I have not seen adverted to in any statements that have been made 
before either committee. 

Senator Dolliver. On the contrary, Mr. Davis, the statements have 
been quite numerous here that the natural color of oleomargarine with 
cotton-seed oil was not the color of butter, but a white color. 

Mr. Davis. I will tell you that the State chemist, whose name I can 
furnish you, so stated under oath to me in the presence of that jury 
and trial judge. 

Senator Dolliver. Then there has been a good deal of misinforma- 
tion unloaded on us here. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 403 

Mr. Davis. I caa tell you the name of the trial judge, the judge at 
Unioutown, Pa. He told the jury that if they believed that was so 
they should acquit, aud they did it. 

Senator Dolliver, That would not be conclusive. 

Mr. Davis. ISTo; but he said so, and the jury found it as a fact that 
the coloring in that particular article which was said to be improperly 
colored was due to the cotton-seed oil in it, and that struck nie when I 
read this bill. You are going to say to the States, " We give up our 
interstate-commerce regulations so far as this thing is concerned, but 
you njust not prohibit the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine that 
has not any ingredient in it that will make it look like butter." But 
the State of Pennsylvania has passed a law, and other States have 
passed laws, forbidding the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine 
that has any ingredient in it that makes it look like butter. That is 
as much as to say that while you forbid prohibition of the one kind you 
by implication permit the other, and the State may suppress the man- 
ufacture of oleomargarine into which cotton seed oil enters. It was 
entirely new to me. 

Senator Dolliver, I do not think that the verdict of that jury 
should be taken as conclusive upon that point. 

Mr. Davis. Ko; I agree with you about that, because we know there 
are three things that Providence, it is said, can not foretell, and one of 
them is the verdict of a jury; but the State chemist so testified under 
the State's examination in part, and in part under mine. 

Senator Dolliver. These cotton-seed oil men, who talked very 
intelligently to us yesterday, did not seem to have heard of that. 

Mr. Davis. Probably they have not heard of it. They do not know 
all about oleomargarine. 

Mr. ScHELL. It is possible that the cotton seed oil contained color 
before it went into the oloemargarine. 

Mr. Davis. The chemist testified that he was familiar with the formula 
of oleomargarine; that he knew about the manufacture and all that 
sort of thing; that he himself was familiar with the ingredients. When 
I asked him about the formula according to which it was testified in 
this case this oleomargarine was made, one of the ingredients being 
cotton-seed oil, he had to admit that it would give it a yellowish, but- 
terish color traceable only to the cotton-seed oil. But the point of it is, 
whether that be true or be not true, you are excepting the prohibition 
by the States of the manufacture of a certain kind of oleomargarine 
and leaving it open to them to suppress absolutely the manufacture of 
any other kind; and that is "neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, nor good red 
herring." 

Then, furthermore, it is said in support of this bill that this coloring 
is put in for purposes of fraud. I am not going to take your time by 
going over the question of the coloring of butter. You have heard all 
about that until probably you do not want to hear any more; but I 
protest that oleomargarine is not colored with fraudulent intent. I say 
that the reason oleomargarine is colored was given by Mr. Wilson, 
unfortunately now dead, when he was before the House committee. It 
is because the eye assists the palate in respect to palatability ; and, as 
he said, the poor man has a right to have his eye tickled by the color 
of his butter just as well as the rich man; and I call your attention 
especially to what Professor Wiley, who has been so often misquoted 
about this matter, has to say on that subject, as reported on pages 190 
and 191 of the proceedings before the House committee. He is a most 
intelligent man. I do not know whether he has been before this com- 



404 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

mittee or not. He needs no encomium from me. Professor Wiley is too 
well known the world over. Says he: 

Now, the value of a food is measured solely by two standards. First, its palata- 
bility; and second, its nutritive properties. You need not try to convince human 
beings that palatability is not an ele.nent in nutrition, because it is, and yet you get 
a great deal more out of a food if it is palatable in its taste and attractive in its 
appearance, because the attitude of the digestive organs changes absolutely with 
the appearance of the food. If you were to put butter up in the form of ink, it 
might be just as digestible, and all that, and yet it wouhl not l)e so useful as a food. 
The appearnnce of the food has a great deal to do with tlie attitude of the digestive 
organs toward it. 

A Member. It is simply a reaction from it? 

Dr. Wiley (continuing). Yes; because the mind, tlie mental attitude, influences 
the secretion of the ferments which produce the digestion, and hence we must have 
some regard to that appearance. 

Senator Dolliver. Would you regard it is a matter altogether free 
from criticism for a new business like the manufacture of oleomargarine 
to attempt to get the advantage of the mental attitude that has been 
created toward butter through the centuries that it has been in use? 

Mr. Davis. I will come to that with another quotation from Judge 
Peckham in a few minutes. You have put in a nutshell the whole 
argument on the other side, that because a thing is tirst in the field it 
has the right to keep everything else out of the field, and I propose to 
show you tliat that has not the sanction of the highest court of this 
land. VH 3011(19 

Now, I give another ])ersonal experience. I have a number of farmer 
friends here within striking distance of Washington, among whom I 
spend a great deal of my time. One of them, a most prosperous farmer, 
for years was the maker of his own butter. Insteadof making it now he 
furnishes it to a neighbor, because he finds it more profitable to sell his 
milk and cream than to take the time to churn, but the same cream 
comes back to him on his table as the same butter he has been eating 
since he was a boy, and that I have been eating at his table for years. 
The other day when I was at his table his good wife asked him, please, 
to caution the man to whom he was furnishing his cream to do the 
mixing of the butter a little better, because, she said, "when it looks 
that way I can't eat it" — a perfectly natural experience. The very 
thing that had gone from her own farm, and which she had been eating 
for years and years, was made into butter by exactly the same ])roc- 
esses she had been used to, but it did not look like it, and so it was 
unpalatable. What Dr. Wiley says is a perfectly plain and intelligent 
remark, a perfectly sage remark. The appeara))ce to the eye is a part 
of palatability. You hear people say they can not eat calf's brains 
because they make them think of certain things that are not altogether 
proper to mention to ears polite, especially in mixed company. And 
so with other articles of diet. The eye is offended and the palate 
rebels, and the object of putting this color into the butter is to avoid 
that. ,1 will come presently to the other aspect of it. 

Now then, it is said, in the next place, as to the coloring of butter. 
Why is it that we can not enforce the State laws? You have plenty 
State laws. Why are they not enforced ? That is the reason we have 
to come to Congress. I want to ask our friends on the other side why 
they are not enforced? That is not for us to answer; it is for them to 
answer; but I will answer it. There are several reasons why those 
State laws are not enforced. The first reason is because they are 
unpopular; the second reason is because they are against the poor 
man; the third reason is because the public approval is not behind 
them, which is the same thing as to say they are not popular; and never 



OLEOMARGARINE. 405 

since Solon himself could any law make its way in administration 
through a community that did not have the community back of it. 

I was considering the i)roposition that is advanced on the other side, 
that the coloring of oleomargarine is for the purpose of fraud, and that 
the State laws are ineffectual to protect against this fraud. 1 had 
called attention to the fact, as 1 had believed it to be a fact, that the 
coloring of oleomargarine is for the same reason that there is coloring 
of butter, namely, that it adds to the palatability of the article. 1 had 
read from what Commissioner Wilson stated before the House com- 
mittee, and what Prof. Wiley stated before the House committee, as to 
the eye assisting the palate, and the mental attitude of the consumer 
toward that which he was eating, and so on. I had passed on to point 
out the fact that complaint is made here that the State laws are inef- 
fectual, and that the reason that they are ineffectual is that the public 
opinion is not behind them. They are not popular. The poor man 
feels that they are bearing unduly on him. He is being compelled to 
pay 25 cents for what he can get for 15 cents, and he does not see the 
reason why. It is an unpopular law. The public heart is not in it, and 
so long as that is true of any law it never will be enforced. 

Eeferring to the matter of color, we are not driven to mere inference 
as to what is the object ot this proposed legislation. The purpose of it 
is avowed. I have been following the proceedings of this committee, 
and I have observed that two or three gentlemen complained that they 
were misrepresented before the House committee. One gentleman, I 
believe, did claim that something was put into his mouth at a time when 
he said there was no stenographer there, and another gentleman cor- 
rects something that he is reported to have said. I am going to give 
another one an opportunity to correct and convict the stenographer. 
Mr. James Hewes, president of the Produce Exchange of Baltimoreand 
vice-president of the National Dairy Union of the State of Maryland, 
when he was before that committee on the 24th day of last March, said 
in so many words, as he is reported, that the object of this legislation 
is " to tax that yellow color;" and in reply to an interruption, he wound 
up by saying: 

If you will put it under your close supervision, such and sucli will be the result. 
We will give you a million and a half dollars of revenue, and we ask you simply to 
act as policemen. 

That is the appeal that the promoters of this bill are making to this 
committee and to the Congress of the United States, avowedly, leav- 
ing all the others out of the account. This man, who is at the head of 
the produce exchange in Baltimore and the vice-president of the 
National Dairj^ Union of the State of Maryland, comes before the 
House committee and avows that the object of this bill is to tax the 
yellow color and make the United States their jjolicemen to see that 
the butter industry is not invaded. 

Now, a xdainer, more open appeal for class legislation I never heard. 
A plainer, more open appeal for the violation of all the fundamental 
principles of our institutions, by giving protection to one local industry 
over another local industry, 1 never heard: and I say, apart from what 
is to be got here by reading this law and analyzing it, we have here 
the avowed purpose, which is to suppress this industry and to tax the 
color, as they say. 

Now, in reply to your question, Senator Dolliver, about the color, 
whether the butterine men or oleomargarine men have any right to 
appropriate what the buttermen having been using for so long. I 
have read these proceedings before the House Comnnttee on Agri- 



406 OLEOMAKGARINE. 

culture — I do not know bow far they have been repeated before this 
committee — and I call your attention to the fact that it is demonstrated 
by the testimony of all concerned that artificial coloring was an inven- 
tion of the oleomargarine men; that is, in the manner in which it is 
now done. It is true that butter, at one time and another, took on this 
color, and carrots and the like were resorted to to give the winter but- 
ter something of the appearance of summer butter. It yet remained, 
however, for the discoverers of oleomargarine and its promoters to give 
rise to this standard butter color which is now in general use, so that 
if there is any borrowing, the butteriuen have done the borrowing. 

Senator Dolliver. They borrowed the ingredients, but I doubt if 
it may be said they borrowed the color. 

Mr. Davis. They did not borrow the jjrinciple of trying to make but- 
ter ill winter look like what it was not. They are the initial sinners, I 
will concede, so far as that is concerned; but they could not do it. 
They did not have the natural means at hand, and they did not know 
how to do it, and it remained for the oleomargarine men to show them 
how to make butter look like what it was not in order that they might 
work it oft' on the public. Let us take our full share of blame — butter- 
men and oleomargarine men alike. I come back to the proposition by 
answering your question that the buttermen have no vested interest 
in color and that they never had, for while they were on the way, if you 
please, to gettiog that device so well advanced as to be commercial, the 
oleomargarine men came upon the scene and made perfect what they 
were tinkering with; and if anybody is entitled to the credit of being 
in the field first, and having his device protected, it is the manufacturer 
of oleomargarine. 

But I go furtlier and say that it makes no dift'erence which was in the 
field first. The Congress of the United States has not any right to tax 
a color, which this bill asks them to do, and confessedly by your own 
question, your object is to protect the buttermen. If you say it is 
not, then I ask you what is the object? If the object is to prevent 
fraud, I have answered it already. The people are not behind this kind 
of legislation, and you can not administer it until they are and unless 
they are. 

Senator Hansbrough. You say the people are not behind this leg- 
islation ? 

Mr. Davis. I say that is the reason tlie State laws are inefficient — 
because it is not popular. 

Senator Hansbrough. Then why are not these State laws repealed, 
a portion of them ? Instead of that there is an increased number. 

Mr. Davis. Do you want me to answer that question plainly and 
bluntly? 

Senator Hansbrough. Yes. 

Mr. Davis. It is too much money. That is why they are not repealed. 
The dairy interest is too big. 

Senator Hansbrough. Too much money on the butter side? 

Mr. Davis. Yes; the butter side, and the butter trust; and the but- 
ter interests are too extensive to permit of a repeal of these laws, 
because you know better than I do, as you live in a State and are in 
politics, that the farmer or the laborer has not time to leave his work 
and go tagging after legislators. 

Senator Dolliver. The farmers come mighty near it in some cases. 
[Laughter.] 

Mr. Davis. Yes; I know that about certain times they are numerous, 
more than convenient altogether. But how do you account for the 
unanimous opposition of the federations of labor to this bill? 



<)lp:omargarine. 407 

Senator Dolliver. The federations of labor that I have heard here 
tell a very curious story. They state that in western Pennsylvania, 
where the cases that you refer to were tried, invariably everybody who 
goes into these stores calls for butter and invariably gets oleomargarine; 
that there seems to be a sort of free masonry between the merchant 
and the customer. 

Mr. Davis. That is exactly in accord with what I am saying. It is 
the customer that will not let the law be enforced. It is exactly that; 
and I thank you for recalling that to me. These people go there and 
" wink the other eye." They want butterine and they ask for butter. 

Senator Hansbrough. Is it not true that the companies' stores in 
the State of Pennsylvania prefer to sell oleomargarine for butter? 

Mr. Davis. I am not informed about that, sir. 

Senator Hansbrough. Because of the greater profit. 

Mr. Davis. I am not informed on that point. That is a matter that 
can be settled. But what Senator Dolliver is talking about is not the 
companies' stores. He is talking about the stores that are scattered 
all throughout the western part of Pennsylvania, where a great deal of 
its product is sold. You have hit it exactly, and the man who told you 
that has hit it. The customers do not want this legislation made. 
They go and ask for butter, and, as I say, they wink their eye and they 
know they are going to get oleomargarine. 

Mr. Jelke. If Senator Hansbrough will permit me, the company 
stores in Pennsylvania would like to handle oleomargarine, but they 
do not. They do not want to be annoyed with the regulations and the 
lawsuits ; and I understand there is also a State tax upon retail deal- 
ers of $100 in Pennsylvania, $500 for the wholesale dealer, and $1,000 
for a manufacturer, in addition to all this regulation of the internal 
revenue. 

Mr. Davis. Now, I do say that it is an open insult to the adminis- 
tration of justice in the States for men to come here before the Senate 
of the United States and ask the Senate to make the United States act 
as policemen, because they can not get their own laws enforced by 
their own home people; and, notoriously, the States are more jealous 
of the enforcement of the United States laws than they are of laws of 
their own. This very appeal turns on itself and makes a demonstra- 
tion that we can not hope to enforce a law like this, and that the more 
stringent your regulations are in point of money penalty the greater 
temptation you are holding out to frauds and violations of the law. It 
is not a matter of mere conjecture or opinion on my i)art. 

Senator Hansbrough. Of course, the States can not tax an article 
of commerce. 

Mr. Davis. No. But, Senator, it is conceded by the men themselves 
that the States liave enacted laws which are as yet untouched by any 
constitutional decision as to prohibiting the manufacture and sale of 
colored oleomargarine, and yet they say it is being manufactured and 
sold colored. You can not stop it. That is the point. You can not 
stop it. You can not stop it any more — as has been shown by the 
history of the world — than you can stop anything that the public is 
determined to have. 

Senator Dolliver. Do you not think the United States could not 
collect a tax of 10 cents a pound? 

Mr. Davis. What have these gentlemen told you about that? Have 
they not told you that the United States internal-revenue agents are 
not doing their duty? 

Senator Dolliver. Is there any complaint that the 2-cent tax is not 
collected? 



408 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. Dayis. Plenty of it, but without fouudatiou. 

Senator Hansbrough. The advocates of oleomargarine here have 
said that the internal-revenue officers, in the matter of inspection at 
the several factories, are doing their duty. 1 myself very much ques- 
tion whether they do their whole duty. 

Mr. Davis. Senator Hansbrough, read what Mr, Hewes says about 
the United States attorney in the city of Baltimore. If he does not 
come right to the edge of accusing him of shutting his eyes I do not 
know the English language. 

Senator Dolliver. I have rather understood these gentlemen to 
boast of their law-abiding disposition in respect to the present internal- 
revenue laws. 

Mr. Davis. I tell you, sir, as was said before the House Committee, 
there are violations of this law. That is not to be denied. Nobody 
denies it, aud the violations of this law are induced by the consumers. 
They are perpetrated by the little dealers, and they can not be perpe- 
trated without some sort of laxness. 

Senator Dolliver. 1 notice that there is a factory proposed to be 
capitalized in the district here for $1,000,000. 

Mr. Davis. Yes. 

Senator Dolliver. You do not believe, since these factories are large 
institutions, that they could escape the internal-revenue agents in the 
mere matter of the collection of the tax? 

Mr, Davis. There is not a wholesaler in the country that escapes; 
not one. That is not the point. You get your tax all right. The vio- 
lations are made in the sales, as they say, under circumstances making 
oleomargarine a competitor with butter. You get the tax all right. 
The tax is paid at the factory. Nobody makes any complaint about 
that. They are law abiding, and the Internal Revenue Commissioners 
will tell you so. Their factories are open to inspection. They pay their 
tax, but they are not going to pay any 10 cents a pound and keep alive, 
I say you are going to invite a violation of the law where it never has 
been violated, and that is among the wholesalers, and you are going to 
invite a further violation down among the retailers, because the profit 
is so much greater when the tax is 10 cents and not paid. The profit is 
very much greater, and the temptation is very much greater. 

But, gentlemen, I take these gentlemen on the other side, if I may 
use the term, on their own dunghill. What do they mean when they 
tell you tliese State laws are not enforced, and what do they mean when 
they say they want the United States to act as policemen? They must 
give some explanation of it. If these laws are on the books, why don't 
they repeal them, you say. What is the use of repealing them when 
they are as dead as Julius Cfesar, and that is their own cry. Are they 
dead ? There is only one of two answers. One is that there is a deliber- 
ate blinking at the violation of the law, and the other is that the public 
sentiment is too strong. How is your State anticolor law enforced in 
Iowa? 

Senator Dolliver. I do not think there is much oleomargarine sold 
out there, though probably 

Mr. Davis. You have had a law on the books since 1873, and how 
many prosecutions have you heard of, or how many convictions have 
you heard of under it? 

Senator Dolliver. I think our State dairy commission out there does 
not believe there is much sold of any color. You see we are in the heart 
of the butter belt. 

Senator Heitfeld. I think there is a document giving the number 
of i)ounds sold in Iowa, 



OLEOMARGARINE. 409 

Mr. Davis. Yes; there is a statement of Judge Springer here, I 
believe, as to the quantity that is sold out there. There are three deal- 
ers, and there are 79,000 pounds sold. 

Mr. Jelke, If Senator Dolliver will permit me, I will say that before 
the anticolor law was passed in Iowa there was quite a large business 
done; but we can not sell uncolored oleomargarine in Iowa, and there 
is a rigid enforcement of the law against colored oleomargarine there. 

Mr. Dolliver. I never met anyone in Iowa who wanted to ])urchase 
the article, because there would be very little difference in the i)rice there. 

Mr. Jelke. I will say we have some customers who buy it for their 
own use in some of the towns in Iowa. 

Mr. Davis. I will try to relieve the committee in a few minutes. I 
want to know if the United States officials are going to do any better 
for these people than the States' officials do, except in the one particular 
in which the United States can help; that is, the collection of the tax. 
If you say yes to that, and that that is the only way, you concede at once 
that the object of this bill is to suppress the industry. There is no 
other outcome to it. I put it to you thus: If the laws restricting the 
fraudulent sale of oleomargarine can not be enforced by the States, 
they can not be enforced by the United States; and if for the reason 
that they are not enforced and can not be enforced by the States this 
legislation is desired, its object exclusively is to reach above the State 
laws and above the laws which have merely to do with the fraudulent 
violation of the act and stop the sale and manufacture of oleomargarine; 
and I protest that Congress has no right to do that in the face of the 
decisions to which I have asked the attention of the committee. 

As to your question a while ago about the color, which I have already 
answered in part, I protest that no interest, no matter how long it has 
lived, has a right to protection against a newer and a better industry. 
It is the fate of all commerce and of all business that new things come 
in and push out the old; and it would be a most interesting thing, 
indeed, if Congress or a State legislature were to attempt to close down 
a shoe factory where shoes are made by machinery in order to save the 
village shoemaker. Why, I do not know of anything that has impressed 
me more in my life than the experience that I have been through, and 
that you have been through, and every man here of my years or older 
has been through, and that is the painful experience of seeing the 
gradual destruction of the country village. I have gone through Mary- 
land, around this city, all my life. I can recall one village after another 
through which as a boy I went and through which I have passed only 
lately. There was the village blacksmith, the village tinker, and the 
village carpenter, and the village tailor — name them all. Who is left? 
Only the village blacksmith, because as yet God in his providence has 
not endowed the human mind with sufficient intelligence to shoe a horse 
by machinery; but the carpenter is gone, because the manufacturers of 
doors, sashes, and blinds have taken his place. The tailor is gone, 
because the manufacturer of clothing and the sellers of them b}' whole- 
sale have taken his place. The tinker is gone, for the same reason ; and 
so through the list. 

Now, what would have been thought of any man introducing in his 
legislature a bill to suppress the manufacture of shoes at Lynn, Mass., 
because the village cobblers were going to be put out of business? 
That will not do. A very apt expression on that subject is to be found 
in the language of Mr, Justice Peckham, in the case of The United 
States V. The Freight Association, reported in 106 U. S. I read from 
page 323. This is one of the trust cases. The argument was i)ressed 



410 OLEOMARGARINE. 

on the court that every trust in the country is an octopus, reaching out 
its tentacles and strangling industries, and all that sort of business; 
and after stating the business very plainly and bluntly, the court says 
this: 

In any great and extended change in the manner or method of doing business it 
seems to be an inevitable necessity that distress and perhaps ruin shall be its accom- 
paniment in regard to some of those who were engaged in the old methods. A change 
from stagecoaches and canal boats to railroads threw at once a large number of men 
out of employment; changes from hand labor to that of machinery, and from opera- 
ting machinery by hand to the application of steam for such purposes, leave behind 
them for the time a number of men who must seek other avenues of livelihood. 
These are misfortunes which seem to be the necessary accompaniment of all great 
industrial changes. It takes time to effect a readjustment of industrial life, so that 
those who are thrown out of their old employment by reason of such changes as we 
have spoken of may find opportunities for labor in other departments than those to 
which they have been accustomed. j;;;;::;^::^33UfieBIJ0CE:^;. 300a8 BOUflO "-'•"^ 

The same thing exactly is true of industries. When an industry 
comes in it takes the place of another. When the cotton seersucker 
was invented, the silk seersucker had to step aside. When the Paisley 
shawl came into the market the camel's hair shawl had to take a 
back seat. It is the same old story. It has been so ever since the 
beginning of industries. It is simply a repetition of the old cry that 
this wholesome and nutritious product, wliich is the poor man's butter, 
is to be kept out of the market and its manufacture to be suppressed 
because a part of that same market has been preempted by the butter 
men. I protest that that is not within the legislative power. Certainly 
it is not within the legislative wisdom, and I think it is not within its 
power at all. 

So far as my paiticular clients are concerned — these people here in 
the District of Columbia — if you are going to put out your hands in 
exercise of the revenue power, siiy so: but you do not say so; this bill 
does not say so, and it does not x)retend to say so, and it does not mean 
so, because, as I have already said, if you say that I will show you in a 
minute that you have more money than you can spend. You do not 
need this money. You are now engaged in the very act and effort of 
reducing the Government revenues. That is not what you want. If 
you say you are going to stop this particular industry here, which 
will be the one most nearly affected, because you are exercising the 
police power, I ask you. Why? Is this thing detrimental to the public 
safety? That is one of the things that the ijolice power has to do with. 
Is it detrimental to the public health? The Supreme Court tells you 
that it is not; the chemists the world over tell you that it is not. Is it 
detrimental to the public morals? How? The manufacturer here has 
to pay the tax like everybody else. And if you tell me, as these gentle- 
men say, that it is detrimental to the i)ublic morals in that it puts a 
temptation before a man to sell something for what it is not, I say to 
you in perfect earnestness that your increasing the tax is increasing 
that temptation instead of diminishing it, and instead of helping the 
public morals you are simply doing the opposite. 

Now, gentlemen, I am thankful to you for the very patient attention 
you have given to me. I have taken a longer time, perhaps, than you 
thought was necessary, but I could not be too earnest in my endeavor 
to get before you my attitude toward this matter. I could not be too 
earnest in my endeavor to convince you, as I believe in my heart, that 
this is a very vicious piece of class legislation that is being attempted 
here. I do not believe it to be constitutional, for the reasons that I 
have stated. If it were constitutional I would believe it to be a very 
unvyise act, and certainly a very unjust one; and with respect to the 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 411 

industry at large, and certainly with respect to this industry which I 
represent here, it means absolute destruction ; and that means not 
merely the forfeiture, the practical confiscation, of large sums of money, 
but also the deprivation of employment and means of support of thou- 
sands of people; and at the bottom of it all it means the denial to the 
poorer and the more moderate classes of an article of food that they 
want ; that they have a right, before God and the laws of this land, to 
have, and from which they can not be kept except by what I am con- 
strained to characterize as an abuse of legislative power. 

I thank you very kindly. 

Senator Dolliver. The committee is very much obliged to you for 
your statements, and to all others who have addressed the committee 
to-day, and if nothing further is to be suggested the committee will now 
adjourn, 

Mr. Davis. Senator, some mention was made about Mr. Tompkins. 
Mr. Jelke will state that. 

Mr. Jelke. A gentlemen from Texas, Mr. Peters, came 1,500 miles to 
address the committee, and he thought he would be heard this after- 
noon; but on account of Mr. Davis and myself occupying the time he 
has gone, and he would like to be heard for a short time in the morn- 
ing. Mr. Tompkins would also like to be heard. 

Senator Dolliver. Let them report here in the morning and we will 
determine that question. 

Senator Hansbrough. Is it understood that the advocates of the 
Grout bill are to occupy to-morrow'? 

Senator Dolliver. I think that is the understanding. 

Senator Hansbrough. And that the meetings will end then? 

Mr. Knight. That was the understanding with Senator Proctor. 

Senator Dolli\^er. Will you require all of to-morrow? 

Mr. Knight. Yes, sir; we certainly shall, and that will be very short. 

Mr. Culberson. Mr. Tompkins wants to conclude what he started 
to say to the committee. 

Senator Dolliver. That question may be determined to-morrow; 
but in the meantime it may be said that written arguments can be filed 
with the stenographer and printed. 

Senator Hansbrougii. I understand that the Secretary of Agricul- 
ture is to be before the committee to morrow morning for a short time, and 
I make the suggestion that if this gentleman from Texas has any addi- 
tional information to lay before the committee he might put it in writ- 
ing, because, as you understand, there are only from two to three 
members of the committee present at any one time, and it will be nec- 
essary before we can consider this bill to have all the committee have 
these proceedings on their desks and examine them. 

Mr. ScHELL. The gentleman from Texas has not been before the 
committee at all. It was Mr. Tompkins who started his remarks and 
who did not finish. 

Senator Dolliver. I think it would be well to advise Mr. Tompkins 
that he can have leave to file a supplemental argument, as if it were 
delivered before the committee. 

Senator Hbitfeld. Are those the men who came here from Texas, 
whom Senator Culberson spoke to the Chair about? 

Mr. Culberson. Yes, sir; Mr. Peters is, 1 am quite sure. 

Senator Heitfeld. They have come all the way from Texas on the 
assurance that they will be heard. 

Senator Hansbrough. They have all been heard except one, as I 
understand. 



412 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. Culberson. Mr. Peters has not been heard at all. 

Mr. Knight. There were two gentlemen here who staj'ed almost a 
week, but did not have an opportunity to be heard, and they have left 
their statements, which they ask to be tiled. 

Senator Dolliver. They may be tiled with the stenographer and 
printed with the proceedings. 

The statements referred to are as follows : 

Washington, D. C, January 5, 1901. 

Gentlemen: I hereby respectfully request to be permitted to file 
with your honorable body, to be printed in the records, the indorse- 
ment of the Watertown Produce Exchange, of the State of New York, 
of the so-called "Grout bill." That board, composed of a large num- 
ber of representative citizens of the State of New York, through me, as 
their delegate, request your honorable committee to report the said 
bill favorably, to the end that the fraudulent practices now in vogue 
in the sale and use of oleomargarine by the retailers and its use in 
hotels and restaurants fraudulently represented as butter may be 
stopped. 

This board would not favor the bill if its only object were to drive 
competitors out of the market. It believes firmly in giving free scope 
to honest competition, but it believes that no fraud should be the 
vehicle or avenue of commerce whatsoever, and it therefore believes 
that this is a question worthy the notice of the Congress of the United 
States, and asks that your honorable body provide against such fraud 
by the enactment of this measure into a law. 

Eespectfully, W. A. Rogers. 

The Committee on Agriculture and Forestry 

OF the United States Senate, 

Washington, D. G. 



Chairman Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, 

United States Senate, 

Washington, D. C. 

Mr. Chairman: On account of the pressure for time in your com- 
mittee by those conducting the oleomargarine side of the questions 
involved in the Grout bill, 1 have been unable to be heard, although I 
have been present here for nearly a week. The press of business at 
home demands that I return. I therefore beg leave to lay this written 
communication before you, to the end that a few facts may be placed 
upon record relative to the attitude of the National Grange and of the 
State Grange of the State of New York in the matter of the so called 
"Grout bill." 

It has been stated by those opposed to this bill that the farmers of 
this country are not interested in the measure and do not want it. 
The National Grange represents over three hundred thousand agri- 
culturists of the United States, and the State Grange of the State of 
New York represents over sixty thousand, and yet both of these bodies, 
after due consideration of all the questions involved, passed resolutions 
indorsing the said bill and requesting the Congress of the United 
States to enact it into a law. 

I am master of the State Grange of the State of New York and a 
member of the executive and legislative committees of the National 
Grange, and come here in such official capacity as the representative of 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 413 

both these bodies to iiro^e your committee iu their interest to report 
favorably the said bill to the Senate of the United States for its con- 
sideration, without amendment in any respect whatever. 

The G-ranges of the United States, aside from any financial consider- 
ations in their own interest, believe this bill should be enacted into a 
law, because they believe : 

First. That oleomargarine is relatively, if not entirely, an unhealthy 
product; and 

Second. That it is a fact so notorious as to need little argument that, 
while producers of oleomargarine in the first instance sell it for such, 
hardly a ]>ound of it reaches the consumer under its true name and in 
its true guise. It is almost invariably sold as and for butter, and in 
the hotels, restaurants, and boarding houses where it is used it is always 
served as butter. 

If this condition of things is allowed to continue the consuming public 
will be forced to use the commodity, whether they desire to do so or 
not. Plainly, this state of things ought not to be. In the isterests ot 
mutual integrity in commerce and justice between man and man these 
goods ought to be placed upon the market in such guise as that the 
consumer may be notified in their appearance of their true nature. 

Respectfully submitted. 

E. B. :Norkis, 
Master of the State Grange of the State of New YorTc. 

Mr. Ada-MS. I ask permission to file the statement of Governor Hoard 
at this time. 

Senator Dolliver. That may be done. 

The statement above referred to is as follows : 

STATEMENT OF W. D. HOARD. 

This law is demanded in the interest of a broad public policy, for 
the protection of legitimate industry against illegitimate counterfeiting 
and fraud. Compare the policy pursued by the United States with that 
of Canada. The Dominion government guards the purity and honesty 
of her dairy products to the extent of absolute prohibition of any adul- 
teration or counterfeiting of the same. As a result her export of 
cheese to England alone has grown in twenty years from $3,000,000 to 
$20,000,000, while ours has declined nearly the same amount, because 
we did not place the strong hand of the law on the adulterated product, 
filled cheese, until we had lost the confidence of the foreign consumer. 

Denmark sells $30,000,000 of butter abroad annually. Do you think 
that Government would allow her commerce in butter to be endangered 
by the shipment to foreign consumers of a counterfeit butter? Not so. 
The Danish Government rigorously prohibits the exportation of oleo- 
margarine. Here are two conspicuous examples of two nations who 
have guarded well the reputation of their dairy products and exports, 
and well have they thrived by it. 

This law is needed in the interest of the promotion of honesty and 
fair dealing in our own home markets. This is a policy of taxing 
heavily a traffic which flourishes by deception. Two benefits will 
accrue to American society by the passage of this law. Cheating, both 
of the producer and consumer of butter, will be lessened, and the burden 
of taxation correspondingly shifted from the shoulders of honest and 
legitimate industry. It is time the Federal Government instituted a 
vigorous policy in this direction. It has no right to stand before the 



414 OLEOMARGARINE. 

conscience of the people and excuse itself for not distinguishing between 
legitimate and illegitimate industry and enterprise in the burden of 
taxation which is laid. The Government has the power in this way to 
discourage wrongdoing and encourage honest industry, and the people 
will hold it responsible for the exercise of that power wlien the oppor- 
tunity comes, as in the present case. I ask, can the Senate of the 
United State, can any Senator, aflbrd to deny to the great dairy interests 
of this country this prayer for relief from competition with an acknowl- 
edged counterfeit and fraud? 

The committee (at 5 o'clock p. m.) adjourned until Thursday, January 
10, 1901, at 10.30 a. m. 



li 



Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, 

United States Senate, 
Washington, D. C, January 10, 1001. 
The committee met at 10.30 a. m. 

Present: Senators Proctor (chairman), Allen, Dolliver, and Money; 
also, Hon. William M. Springer, Charles Y. Knight, Mr. H. E. Adams, 
Mr. Schell, Mr. Tillinghast, Mr. Culberson, Mr. Miller, and others. 

The Chairman. The Secretary of Agriculture is here this morning, 
and we shall be glad now to have him proceed, if he will. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES WILSON, SECRETARY OF AGRI- 
CULTURE. 

Gentlemen: In response to the courteous invitation of your chair- 
man, I have the honor to submit the following comments upon the 
so-called "Grout bill," now under consideration by your committee 
(being H. R. 3717, entitled "An act to make oleomargarine and other 
imitation dairy products subject to the laws of the State or Territory 
into which they are transported, and to change the tax on oleomar- 
garine"). 

From my examination of this bill and the attention I have been able 
to give it, I understand the proposition to be to apply the powers of the 
Government in regulating interstate commerce and taxation for the 
purpose of preventing counterfeiting and fraud in an important article 
of food and for assisting the several States in the exercise of their 
police powers to the same end. This object of promoting and enforc- 
ing honesty and purity in food products has my full sympathy. It 
seems to furnish the main argument, and a sufficient one, for the enact- 
ment of the proposed law. 

Although the act aproved August 2, 1886, has served well to identify 
oleomargarine and i^revent deception on the part of merchants gen- 
erally, it has not furnished adequate protection to producers and con- 
sumers. It must be admitted that for the latter State laws have been 
far more effective. In States which have not only stringent laws, but 
which have provided efficient machinery, the element of fraud in but- 
ter and its substitutes has been reduced to a minimum. In all the States 
which have made earnest efforts to protect consumers the most serious 
obstacle has been the introduction of colored oleomargarine in original 
packages. Hence, I deem the first section of this bill of pressing impor- 
tance. There ought to be no question of its propriety, expediency, and 
strict justice, and there seems to me every reason to believe that such a 
law will be \uost salutary in its result. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 415 

The increase in the inauufacture and sale of oleomargarine in this 
country during the past twenty years has been very rapid. The latest 
reports show a total production of 83,000,000 pounds, and as only about 
3,000,000 pounds are exported, the domestic consumption is in excess 
of 1 pound per capita, as against an estimated consumption of 18^ 
pounds of butter. These figures are in marked contrast with those of 
some foreign countries. For example, the ])er capita consumption per 
annum in Great Britain is supposed to be 3J pounds of oleomargarine, 
and 15 pounds of butter, and in Denmark the consumption is 15^ i^ouuds 
of oleomagarine and 20 pounds of butter. But while in these foreign 
countries the element of substitution and fraud has been largely elimi- 
nated, and margarine is generally bought and consumed knowingly 
and under its right name, it is understood that in this country a very 
large part of the oleomargarine used is believed by the consumers to 
be genuine butter. This deception is made ])ossible by the custom of 
coloring the substitute in imitation of yellow butter. Without this col- 
oring feature it would be impossible to deceive consumers to such an 
extent. Hence, it is the purpose of this bill to so exercise the taxing 
power of the Government as to render the counterfeit product unprofit- 
able, and thus protect genuine butter and prevent existing fraud. 

While generally believed that nearly all the oleomargarine used in 
the United States is artificially colored and that a very large part of 
it is actually consumed under the belief that it is butter, statistics 
upon these interesting points aie not available. It appears, however, 
from official reports that in States where numerous prosecutions have 
been made under the so called oleo laws the great majority of cases 
have included proof of oleo sales as and for butter. In compliance 
with a resolution of Congress the Secretary of the Treasury has fur- 
nished a statement showing the quantity of oleomargarine shipped 
into the respective States during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1899. 
From this it appears that nearly four-fifths of the product went into 
States which are known to have laws prohibiting the sale of the col- 
ored article. If this oleomargarine was sold in compliance with the 
State laws, it was not artificially colored, and hence the proposed dis- 
criminating tax upon colored oleo could be no hardship upon the manu- 
facture, so far as this large proportion of the trade is concerned. And 
if this 78 per cent was sold without color, it seems reasonable to 
assume that the consumers of the remaining 22 per cent (or the col- 
ored part of it) could easily be educated to use the uncolored product. 
But if the 78 per cent of the domestic trade was largely colored, it 
was manifestly sold in direct violation of State laws, and this fact fur- 
nishes sufiflcient evidence of the need of further action to aid in the 
enforcement of these salutary laws. 

Considering the provisions of the second section of the bill as a whole, 
I do not see why it should be opposed by oleomargarine manufacturers 
and merchants. If the higher tax upon the product when colored in 
imitation of yellow butter serves, as it is hoped, to prevent decejition 
and fraud, that must be a satisfaction to all who believe in honesty in 
production and trade, as well as among consumers. This discriminat- 
ing tax may interfere for a time with the market for oleo by diminishing 
the sales of^ the colored article. 

The dairy cow is the most valuable agent of the producer, and her 
milk is one of nature's perfect rations. She gives profitable employ- 
ment to all who care for her or her products. She gathers her food 
from the fields without intervening help in summer, and turns cheap 
forage into high selling products in winter. The grasses that grow for 



41H 



OLEOMARGARINE. 



her in her pasture return humus to worn-out lands, enabling them to 
retain moisture and resist droughts, in addition to inviting nitrogen 
from the atmosphere through the agency of the legumes upon which 
she grazes. She is the mother of the steer that manufactures beef 
from grasses, grains, and the by-products of the mills. 

******* 

The farmer who keeps a herd of dairy cows returns through the herd 
to the soil all the crops he gathers from it, except the products of skill 
that take little plant food from the soil. The lint of cotton and the fine 
flour of wheat are among our leading exports, and take little from the 
soil; the fats of the cow and the plants take nothing whatever. The 
cow and her calf are prime necessities in reclaiming worn out land. 
The cotton-growing States that have reduced fertility by too much 
cropping can bring back the strength of the soil by growing the graz- 
ing plants and feeding the meal of cotton seed to the dairy cow and 
her calf, but the farmers of no part of our country can afford to keep 
cows for the sole purj^ose of raising calves, except free commoners on 
the public domains, whose privileges are being contracted to such an 
extent by injudi(;ious grazing that every year fewer cattle are found 
on the ranges of the semiarid States. 

Tiie meats to feed our people in future must come, in large measure, 

from the liigh-priced farms east of the one hundredth meridian of west 

longitude. The feeding steers will be bred on those farms from the 

dairy cows that are now, and will become more and more, a necessity. 

* * * * * * * 

Population is increasing faster than cattle in the United States, as 
the following table will show: 



Censua year. 


Number of 
all cattle. 


Population. 


Number of 

cattle per 

100 of popu- 

latioji. 


1850 


17, 778, 907 
25, B20, 019 
23, 820. 608 
35,925,511 
51, 363, 572 
43, 902, 414 


23, 191, 876 
31, 443, 321 


76.7 


1860 


81.5 


1870 


38,558 371 


61. P 


1880 


50,155,783 i 71.6 


1890 


62,622,250 1 82 


1900 


76, 295, 220 57. 5 









Demand in our island possessions for meats will increase, and 
demand abroad will call for more of the product of the cow that is 
only profitable when ijlaced in the dairy. Dairying will increase in the 
mountain States as homesteaders take jjossession of lands on which to 
raise families, and it will increase in the cotton-growing States as 
farmers realize the necessity of rotation of crops, and the increase of 
grazers and feeders that come througli this industry. The benefit that 
comes to the cotton grower through the sale of a little oil to be used in 
making oleomargarine is very small compared with the dairying and 
feeding that must be increased to use the by-product of the cotton- 
seed mills, and the consequent return to the soil of this most valuable 
of all mill feeds and fertilizers. The best interests of the cotton-seed 
belt lie in increasing its dairy and feeding interests, rather than in 
contributing a little oil toward the serious injury of dairying and feed- 
ing, that should use all the cotton-seed meal produced there. 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 41 7 

A 10,000,000-bale crop of cotton gives 5,000,000 tons of seed. Two 
hundred and twenty-five million gallons of oil from this seed may V)e 
sold vrithoiit injury to the soil upon which the plaut grows, but the 
residue should not be exported. The sale from the land of this nitrog- 
enous by product results in shorter cro[)S and ultimate sterility, which, 
however, may be arrested by encouraging dairying and feeding for 
meats. 

There is an impression abroad that the oleomargarine industry is as 
legitimate and praiseworthy as making butter from the cow. As far as 
the making of oleo oil, to be sold as such, is concerned, there is no con- 
troversy, but that the mixture of ingredients that compose oleomargarine 
is as healthy as the butter from milk of the cow nobody who has in(]uired 
into both can believe. The flavor of butter, a prime eLment iu palatabil- 
ity and digestibility, comes from bacteria universally present whenever 
milk is exijosed to the atmosphere. Fine butter has a fine flavor, one 
of its principal characteristics. Bacteria feed upon casein, an element 
not found in vegetable fats nor in the tallow of animals. The imitation 
of butter known as oleomargarine is washed in milk in order that some 
of tbe casein may be present as the basis of the flavor. The imitation, 
in as far as it varies from genuine butter, lacks both the flavor that 
comes from a full complement of casein and the digestibility natural to 
the cow's product. It is well known that the scalding of milk kills the 
bacterial growth, after which it will keep longer, but its digestibility 
is greatly impaired. Butter for immediate consumption is but slightly 
worked, so that the leaving within it of a considerable amount of casein 
will grow bacteria and develop flavor. If it is to be consumed in a 
week it is worked over more, and if within two weeks still more. If it 
is to be kept for months the buttermilk with the casein is thoroughly 
worked out, unless it is to be put in cold storage and kept at a tem- 
perature at which bacteria will not multiply. 

Milk contains a ferment that changes casein into a digestible nutri- 
ent. The imitation of butter made by the chemist is a mixture of fats 
that should be sold for wbat it is. It is not as palatable nor as digesti- 
ble nor asgrateful tothehumau system. Thedigestible juices flowfreely. 
When palatable food is eaten, the mouth waters. Oils and fats as 
such have their uses, but the coloring of them deceives the people and 
induces a consumption as liberal as with butter, which, while not so 
injurious to people in full vigor as to children and invalids, is nevertheless 
undoubtedly harmful. The yellow coloring of butter iu winter, when 
it has a light shade, if green cured hay or roots are not used, deceives 
nobody. The yellow coloring of a mixture of fats is with intent to 
deceive. 

The i^resent law is not well enforced ; it is evidently difficult of enforce- 
ment. The effacement of marks and brands is easily done. The great- 
est sufferers are the poorer classes and consumers who have not the 
opportunity to select their food. If there were no coloring there would 
be no fraud. The most intelligent are deceived, however,, with good 
imitations, and from careful intjuiry I am satisfied that most of us are 
using the bogus product at greatly increased expense over the price of 
the oils of commerce, and with danger to health from the less digest- 
ible and less palatable imitation. 

Mr. SCHELL. If the Secretary will allow me, I would like to ask him 
just one question. You speak of the majority of oleomargarine that 
is produced being sold and palmed off upon the consummer for butter. 
1 would like to know upon what basis you reason out that conclusion. 

S. Rep. 2043 27 



418 OLEOMAKGARINE, 

Secretary Wilson. Did you listen to my readiug? 

Mr. SOHELL. Yes. 

Secretarj^ Wilson. You will find it in tliere. 

Mr. ScHELL. I would like to ask further, if you know from your 
own experience or from the reports that have come to you of a single 
case where the consumer has ever been prosecuted because of being 
defrauded by the dealer? 

Secretary Wilson. I can find plenty of such cases in tliis very city. 
The great ditficulty comes in a i)rovision of the internal-revenue law 
tliat permits comi)romising. The more compromising there is done by 
the Internal Revenue Bureau the more money they have for use in their 
Bureau. I have inquired very carefully into the behavior of people of 
this District, and it lias been exceedingly diflicult to get revenue peo- 
ple to take cases through the courts. There is no question about the 
everyday deception of us people who have to buy butter. 

Senator Allen. Were you through answering the question, Mr. 
Secretary ? 

Secretary Wilson, Yes, sir. 

Senator Allen. Will you permit me a questiou? 

Secretary Wilson. Yes', certainly. 

Senator Allen. Have you inc^uired into the effect the passage of 
this bill will have upon the value of animals raised for food purposes, 
not for dairy purposes. 

Secretary Wilson. Very carefully. 

Senator Allen. What will be the effect of the passage of this bill 
on that class of animals? 

Secretary W^ilson. 1 tried to reason that in my short paper which 
I have read. There is a little oil furuished by cotton seed people, and 
a little by the people who grow steers; but the old fashioned steer that 
had lots of fat in him is not the steer that is used to day. The young- 
beef, under '2 years of age, put into the market and prepared for the 
shambles, is not an animal that produces much body or intestinal fat. 
That is the animal that is wanted to-day. 

The ohl-fashioned steer that was3i years old before he got to market 
had a large amount of fat, running up in some cases to 150 and as high 
as 180 pounds. 

Now, then, the tendency in the South, where they have destroyed 
the lands by perpetual cropping, and the tendency west of the Missouri, 
in the semidry belt, where they are destroying the grazing lands by 
injudicious overgrazing, is to take greater interest in the dairy cow 
than in the steer, and in the case of settlers who want to raise families 
out west of the one hundredth meridian the interest grows every day on 
behalf of the dairy cow, and with regard to the production of steers east 
of the Missouri Elver on the farms there is no comparison whatever. 
The small amount of cattle that commerce calls for in making oleomar- 
garine is infinitesimal in value compared with the injury that the growth 
of this bogus industry will inflict upon legitimate agriculture that 
requires a dairy cow. 

Senator Allen. The meat-growing country of this section of the 
country is west of the Missouri, is it not? 

Secretary Wilson. Oh, no. I made careful inquiry into the condi- 
tion of the ranges and their capacity to support animals a year ago last 
summer, and 1 found in two States, where I made particular iu(iuiry, 
Wyoming and Nevada, high lying, dry States, that they do not support 
now more than 50 per cent of the animals thej' supported ten years ago. 
The ranges are being destroyed by injudicious overgrazing with sheep, 



OLEOMARGARINE. 419 

and the meat products of the country are beiug prepared in the Missis- 
sippi Valley, east of the Missouri River, more aud more. A dairy is an 
absolute necessity on the farms now. because while the man who is a 
free connuoner on the ranges could afford to keep a cow for a calf, those 
east of the Missouri can not. 

Senator Allen. But the great herds of tliis country are west of the 
Missouri, are they not? 

Secretary Wilson. They were west of the Missouri, but the decrease 
in the number of cattle is due, to a great extent, to the destruction of 
the grazing west of the Missouri liiver and the contraction of the num- 
ber of stock there. 

Senator Money. Will you allow me to ask a question, Mr. Secretary? 

Secretary W^ilson. Yes, sir. 

Senator Money. You express yourself favorably in your paper to the 
provision that prevents the coloring of oleomargarine. Would you also 
favor a provision in the bill that wikild prevent the coloring of butter! 

Secretary Wilson. I have had that question asked me before and 
have thought a great deal about it. The reply is simply this : The col- 
oring of butter in the winter time deceives nobody. The coloring of 
the fats of commerce to make an imitation deceives everybody. 

Senator Money. The testimony here has been that there are several 
grades of butter, as well as of oleomargarine, aud there is a grade of 
butter which is denominated by some "renovated'' and by some '' res- 
urrected"' butter, and they said that it was white, sour, rancid, aud had 
a great many other obnoxious features to it; that it had gone through 
a certain process of ladling; tbat a little oil was added to it, and differ- 
ent things that go into the composition of oleomargarine were added to 
it, aud then the coloring. Does that deceive anybody? 

Secretary Wilson. It does. 

Senator Money. You then favor putting in a clause here that will 
prevent everybody from coloring butter? 

Secretary W' ilson. No, I would not. 1 would have no objection to a 
clause which would prevent the coloring of renovated butter. Cow 
butter is naturally yellow. 

Senator Money. This manufacture of oleomargarine, as I under- 
stand, is a lawful industry, is it not? 

Secretary Wilson. Oh, there is no doubt about that. 

Senator Money. Kow, the testimony of ex])erts here has been that 
it is nutritious and wholesome. 

Secretary Wilson. Yes; I know what your testimony has been here. 
That is the testimony of the chemists. 

Senator Money. And also the physicians. 

Secretary Wilson. I am giving you the testimony of practical 
knowledge. 

Senator Money. That is what the manufacturers said also. The 
testimony has also been that there has been no deception on the part 
of the manufacturer toward the wholesale dealer, and no deception on 
the part of the wholesale dealer toward the retail dealer, but the 
deception comes or is i)racticed upon the consumer to some extent by 
the retail dealer. In view of that, are you justified in calling it a bogus 
industry ? 

Secretary Wilson. I am. You and I need protection. Senator, and 
we ought to have it. 

Senator M<jney. W"e do not. We need letting alone. 

Secretary Wilson. We are eating that bogus article on our tables 
every day unless we are sure w^e send to a creamery and get the genuine 
article. 



420 OLEOMAKGARINE. 

Senator Money. I never know that I have got the genuine article 
except when 1 go home. 

Secretary Wilson. After living a winter in Washington and eating 
bogus butter our taste becomes vitiated. Some of the first chiss hotels 
and tlrst-class restaurants here do get first class butter from reputable 
dealers, but the majority of them use oleomargarine. 

Senatdr Money. If we are all eating bogus butter and we can not tell 
it by the taste and we can not tell it by the color and we can not tell it 
by the effect, what harm has happened to anybody"? 

Secretary Wilson. The bogus butter deceives you in your pocket- 
book. It costs you far more than it should. There is where the trouble 
comes. It costs you too much. 

Senator Money. Would I get the fine-grade butter any cheaper if we 
abolish oleomargarine? 

Secretary Wilson, If you abolish the coloring proposition, I would 
not abolish oleomargarine. The manufacture ot that is legitimate, but 
the moment you buy it you are deceived by somebody. We are not 
the men who select the buttei' that we eat if we board at a hotel or 
boardinghouse, and the boarding-house man can deceive us and he does. 

Senator Money. I am afraid he does sometimes, and I am also afraid 
we are deceived in a great many other things. I think in the bread 
we eat we get a fair amount of terra alba. 

Secretary Wilson. That may be, but we are dealing with butter 
just now. 

Senator Money. I know, but there is not a solitary thing we eat or 
drink, including the whisky that some of us drink — 1 do not — that is 
not poisoned in some way. We get cabbage leaves in bright wrai)pers 
for cigars; and a young man traveling on the train with me, who intro- 
duced himself to me last March, said that in a great manufacturing 
establishment in Cleveland, Ohio, manufacturing all kinds ot table 
delicacies — pickles, marmalades, flavoring extracts, etc, — there was only 
one genuine thing in the whole line that could not be imitated, and 
they had been trying to imitate that. 

Secretary Wilson. If the commerce among the States regarding 
foods is not regulated, we will become like some nations in Europe by 
and by. We will be unable to reproduce ourselves. 

Senator Money. The next thing we know we will not be able to eat 
anything without getting sick from it. 

Secretary Wilson. That is not the proposition. Senator Money. It 
is illustrated by a story in one of Sir Walter Scott's novels, where a 
fellow built a castle on an island in the middle of a lake. Everybody 
said that the man that built that castle was a thief in his heart. The 
man who manufactures oleomargarine and colors it intends to deceive. 

Senator IMoney. What about the man who colors the poor butter; 
is he a thief also? 

Secretary Wilson. The renovated butter is as much of a swindle 
as oleomargarine. 

Senator Money. What about the butter man that takes the color 
that is used in oleomargarine and puts it in his butter, high grade or 
low grade? 

Secretary Wilson. I can not admit your premises there. 

Senator Money. That is what I am told. 

Secretary Wilson, The cow made yellow butter before chemistry 
•was discovered. 

Senator Money. I know that some cows do. 

Secretary Wilson. All cows do. 



OLEOMARGARTlSrE. 421 

Senator Money. Tbat is uot my experience, though. 

Secretary Wilson. If you feed cows in the wiuter time green cured 
hay, or sugar beets, or mangles, or carrots, you color your butter. 

Senator Monet. I believe they u.sed to color butter with carrots 
after it was made, after the cow had ceased to perform her part of the 
function. 

Secretary Wilson. There is no difScnlty about having naturally 
colored butter. It is colored by the grass in summer. That is nature's 
way, and when yon imitate nature you are probably not going very 
far wrong; but we do not know enough about milk, any of us yet, to be 
able to lorm a substitute that will stay on the stomach the same as 
butter. 

Senator Money. Did I understand you correctly awhile ago — I do 
uot know that I did — in the reading of your very clear paper, to say 
that you favor bacteria as an agent for producing digestible food? 

Secretary Wilson. No; the position I take is this: When you draw 
milk from the cow, the moment you expose it nature has bacteria germs 
falling into it. 

Senator Money. Exactly. 

Secretary Wilson. That is the flavoring agent. 

Senator Money. You want to maintain that flavoring agent, do you? 
In other words, do you want the bacteria in the milk*? 

Secretary Wilson. iSTature has arranged that. Without that you 
can not get any flavor, and the oleomargarine men, knowing that, wash 
their product in skim milk. 

Senator Money. That is true; but do they not heat that product to 
such a degree that it is absolutely fatal to all sorts of germs'? 

Secretary Wilson. I do not know what they always do. 

Senator Money. That is what they do. 

Secretary Wilson. If they do, then there is no element to make a 
flavor, and without a tine flavor digestibility is not as good. 

Senator Money. I do not want any germ flavor in my butter, or in 
my oleomargarine, either. 

Secretary Wilson. You can not get cows' butter without it. 

Senator Money. That may be true, but you can get oleomargarine 
without it. 

Secretary Wilson. Well, you have a perfect right to buy oleomar- 
garine, but I do not want you to be deceived and pay 10 cents a pound 
too much. The poor people are being robbed by this deception to the 
extent of 10 cents a pound; and you and I, who have to take butter 
from second or third hands in this city, are deceived legularly. If you 
will send me samples of the butter you are eating between now and 
spring I will tell you the percentage of it that is oleomargarine. I will 
have it analyzed. In fact, we have been analyzing it for members of 
Congress who have sent samples to us. 

Senator Money. I will send you some over. 

Secretary Wilson. I sent a reply yesterday' to Congressman Dahle, 
who had sent us a sample. 

Senator Heitfeld. You spoke about paying 10 cents a pound too 
much. What price ought it to sell at? 

Secretary Wilson. I suppose fats vary in value ou the markets the 
same as butter does, but you will always find that the fats of commerce 
are cheaper than the fats of the cow. 

Senator Dolliyer. A prospectus of the great butterine corporation 
which is about to i)ut up a plant here, with a capital of a million dollars, 
as an inducement to an investment, states that the aggregate value of 



422 OLEOMARGARINE. 

the materials and manufacture of a pound of oleomargarine is a frac- 
tion more than 11 cents. 

Senator Heitfeld. It sells here on the market for 18 cents i^er 
pound. 

Senator IMoney. We have here an advertisement from a grocer in 
Cincinnati, I believe, who advertises three grades of oleomargarine, 
and my recollection is that the prices were 11^, 1-!^, and 13 cents. 
Then he advertises his butter at about 25 cents. He may bean excep- 
tional trader, and I think honest traders are generally exceptional. 

Secretary Wilson. A gentleman has handed me a table of prices 
here showing that it costs live and a fraction cents a pound. I do not 
know how that is. 

The Chairman. Mr. Secretary, in regard to this process butter, 
would not the self-interest of the tarmer gradually tend to cure that 
evil — the manufacture of i>oor butter, rancid butter 1 

Secretary Wilson. The education at agricultural colleges is doing 
that. Process butter, or renovated butter, as we understand it, is the 
butter picked up through the grocery stores throughout the country 
where they have no creameries and ship[)ed to central points. 

The Chairman. Where they have no iiroper training and do not know 
how to make good butter? 

Secretary Wilson. Exactly. It is shipped by these people to the 
markets and sold for wliat they can get; and generally the merchant 
handles it without a protit, because he sells goods by it. 

The Chairman. So that self-interest would tend to 

Secretary Wilson. Yes. They take a mass of this stuff with as 
many colors as Jacob's coat and reduce it to one color, and they use 
chemicals. 1 have known lime to be used for that purpose. That kind 
of butter gets a bacteria, the bacteriai of decomposition, and they have 
to use strong chemicals in order to destroy and kill that bacteria. Then 
they put the thing on the market, and if we hai)pen to eat it we have 
to take ciiances on those chemicals. 

The Chairman. I want to ask one more question in that connec- 
tion. On account of self-interest — that is what governs the human race 
usually — would not the tendency be in the manufacture of oleomarga- 
rine more and more to use cheaper and imprt)i)er materials as compe- 
tition grew greater! 

Secretary Wilson. Oh, there is no limit. They will take the cheap- 
est materials, no matter where they find them. Without any question 
self-interest will recjuire them to do that. 

Senator Allen. The country groceryman all over the United States 
receives butter from his customers in exchange for goods'? 

Secretary Wilson. Yes. 

Senator Allen. Very much of which is not salable even in the county 
where it is manufactured? 

Secretary Wilson. Yes, sir. 

Senator Allen. It is put into barrels and kept sometimes for weeks. 
Where is that butter shipped'? 

Secretary Wilson. That butter is shi^jped to centers, where it is 
renovated. 

Senator Allen. And that goes in process butter? 

Secretary Wilson. That is the foundation of process butter; but in 
our country, in the W^est, where the creameries are extended, it is not 
known any more. There are whole counties in your State and mine 
where no such butter originates at all, because they sell the milk to the 
creamery, and it makes tine Elgin butter. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 423 

Senator Allen. Almost every little town has some butter dealer^ 
and lie has a little machine by whicli he takes much of this butter and 
renovates it, as he calls it. This is true in little towns of 800 or l,o(K> 
people. What kind of butter is that, and where does it go? 

Secretary Wilson. The best of it — a great deal of it — is good but- 
ter. The best of it is put on the market as second or third grade butter. 
The very poorest of it, that is beginning to become rancid, is shipped 
to centers where they manufacture the process article. 

Senator Allen. In these little towns and the country surrounding 
them there is about one good butter maker out of a dozen. 

Secretary Wilson. That is right. 

Senator Allen. That good butter is always sold at home — sold to 
private fanulies. 

Senator Money. At a big price f 

Senator Allen. At a big price. For instance, in my State, where 
butter in June is only 8 or 9 cents a pound, I pay 20 cents a pound for 
it the year round. 

Secretary Wilson. Well, factories are established in your State, and 
they make a tine Elgin brand, nsing that name as rejiresentative, and 
they get just what it is worth in Elgin, minus the transportation. 

Senator Allen. The thing I wanted to call your attention to particu- 
larly was this: This fine-grade country butter made by the farmer's 
wife or daughter is all consumed in the little villages where it is made. 
The great bulk of butter that is shipjied out of these little villages 
either goes through a process of renovation at home — I have seen them 
work it myself; small, cheap concerns — or else they are put in barrels 
and shipped somewhere else. 

Secretary Wilson. That is correct. 

Senator Allen. What 1 want to know is, what becomes of that 
butter? 

Secretary Wilson. Oh, that is made into renovated butter. Con- 
gress, in its wisdom, in 1862 provided for experimental agricultural 
colleges, and in 1887 provided for experiment stations. There is an 
admirable one started in your State, and there is one in mj^ State which 
is very near the forefront of anything of its kind in the world. There 
they train from 100 to 200 young men every winter to make first-rate 
batter, so that the training of people is overcoming the renovating 
feature. 

The Chairman. In our State years ago the country merchants took 
in a large amount of butter, more than his village trade would take. 
He then sent the best of it to commission merchants in Boston and 
New York to be sold. The cracker manufacturers and others would 
pick up the cheapest of it and dump it into a barrel and treat it in some 
way, 1 suppose. 

Secretary Wilson. Yes. 

The Chairman, ^ow, that is almost a thing of the past. There is 
no store that I know of that takes in butter enough for its own cus- 
tomers. It is very rare that they take any of a farmer. They have to 
buy good butter of a creamery or of first-class dairies. 

Secretary Wilson. Yes. 

The Chairman. That change has taken place. Dairying has become 
profitable there, and the only profit is in nuiking a nice article. 

Secretary Wilson. The education of the people along these lines will 
do away very soon with the renovated feature of butter. The great 
danger does not come from that. It comes from the iniitation of the 
genuine cows' butter by coloring, so as to deceive the consumer. 



424 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. Springer. Will you allow me to ask you a question, Mr. Secre- 
tary? 

Secretary Wilson. Surely. 

Mr. Springer. You stated, 1 believe, that the consumption of butter 
in the United States amounted to about 83 pounds per capita. Was 
that your statement f 

Secretary Wilson. Ko ; I think not. 

Mr. Springer. What was the statement you made? 

Secretary Wilson. The eighty-three you have in mind was 83,000,000 
pounds of oleomargarine. My statement was 18| pounds per capita, if 
I remember correctly. 

Senator Money. Yes; 18i pounds of butter. 

Mr. Springer. How many pounds of butter were consumed last year 
in the United States'? Was that stated by you to day ? 

Secretary Wilson. No; I dealt with oleomargarine, but if you will 
multiply l.s.^ by 76,000,000 you will get it very closely. 

Mr. Springer. You stated, however, that the consumption of oleo- 
n»argarine amounted to but a little over 1 pound per capita. 

Secretary Wilson. A little over 1 pound per capita in the United 
States; yes. 

Mr. Springer. Then you did state what the consumption of butter 
was, and it seemed to me it was 80 pounds per capita. 

Secretary Wilson. Eighteen and a half pounds. 

Mr. Springer. If the consumption of oleomargarine is only 4 per 
cent of the consumption of butter, do you think that the competition 
up to this time has been such as to enter into all of these hotels and 
that we are all eating more oleomargarine than butter. 

Secretary Wilson. Without any question, all over this District of 
Columbia. I have looked into it with the utmost care. I have had 
my experts go and inquire, and there is not the least doubt. Judge, but 
that you and I are eating it right along all the time when we buy here. 

Mr. Springer. What has become of the butter that is made, then? 

Secretary Wilson. That is used also. 

Senator Hettfeld. Is not one reason we are consuming so much 
oleomargarine in this country because we get such a poor lot of butter 
here? 1 have been here four years, and I have not yet been successful 
in finding a dealer who keeps good butter all the time. 

Secretary Wilson. jSTo, Senator; that is not the reason. The reason 
is there is such a great profit in oleomargarine. 

Senator Heitfeld. A Senator told me the other day that his wife 
went to the market and deceived him with oleomargarine. He said it 
was the best butter that has been on his table. He had tried for three 
years to get the best butter, and he said now he was against oleomar- 
garine because he did not want to get deceived any longer. 

Secretary Wilson. This was a bad place to try that experiment. I 
get my butter direct from the creamery, and I will furnish you a sam- 
ple, at any time, of genuine butter. 

Senator Money. You say the best butter has a generic name — Elgin 
butter? 

Secretary Wilson. Yes, sir; we call fine creamery butter Elgin 
butter. 

Senator Money. Is it true or not — because it has been stated to me 
that it was true — that these tine Elgin creameries that make fine butter 
are very great consumers of oleomargarine? 

Secretary Wilson. No; I tl)ink not. 

Senator Money. I have been told so by a gentleman here who said 



OLEOMARGARINE. 425 

he was a^eut for Armour & Co., and that his largest customer was one 
of the most celebrated creameries at Elgiu, 111. 

Secretary Wilson. Elgin butter is made all over the country. There 
may be one scoundrel living at Elgin. 

Senator Money. I suppose there might be. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. I desire to ask you, Mr. Secretary, if I may, if 
there is not quite a large amount of the best creamery butter that does 
filially become rancid and poor! 

Secretary Wilson. If you do not take care of butter it will become 
rancid. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. 1 am asking you if it is not a fact that a large 
part of it does become in that condition? 

Secretary Wilson, Oh, no. 

Mr. Till iNGH AST. So that there will always be quite a quantity of 
butter to be renovated ! 

Secretary Wilson. No, sir. Fine butters are handled so as to be 
kept in cold condition to prevent the development of bacteria until they 
are sold. jSTow, let me illustrate that point. If you make butter this 
morning and want it coiisumed this evening, you press a very little 
buttermdk out, so as to leave the casein there in order to develop bac- 
teria rapidly and bring up your flavor at once. If you are going to ship 
it, so that it will not be consumed for a week, you must work it over 
and get nearly all the buttermilk and casein out, because the casein is 
the element in which the bacteria multiplies. If you send it from here 
to Great Britain, you must work it twice over; and the habit in old 
times with the Dutch women when they wanted to furnish butter for 
the Dutch navy was to work it twelve times. They worked in those 
days with their hands, and when they had worked it twelve times they 
had all the casein washed out. Then they put it into a keg, put it in 
the hold of a Dutch man-of-war, and it crossed the Tropics twice and 
came back sweet, because all the opportunity for multiplying bacteria 
had been taken out of that butter. That was the old way, and butter 
is worked now so as to suit the times intervening when it will be 
consumed. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Then, you say by the improved methods of 
handling butter in time the renovated butter will go out of existence? 

Secretary Wilson. I think so. We had a letter yesterday from the 
Iowa Agricultural College in which they told me they had four stu- 
dents there in the short course. Every year they turn out hundreds of 
educated dairymen. Out in Nebraska there is a fine school doing that 
very work; and the time will come when you will not find a bit of 
renovated bntter in Iowa or Nebraska; and in Vermont and many other 
dairy States I do not believe there is any now. 

Mr. Springer. I see that in your statement, Mr. Secretary, you say 
the domestic consumption of oleomargarine is in excess of 1 pound per 
capita as against the estimated consumption of 18h pounds of butter. 
I was mistaken about the amount. It is 18i pounds. Is 1 pound in 
18 a serious competition? 

Secretary Wilson. Very serious. 

Senator Dolliver. I received a telegram from a cattle dealer in 
Iowa stating that this bill was likely to very greatly damage the value 
of beef cattle. 

Secretary Wilson. Yes; he does not know what he is talking about, 
that same cattle dealer. 

Senator Dolliver. 1 would like a little fuller statement from you as 
to the relation of the cattle industry and the dairy farm. 



426 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Secretary Wilson. Well, take Iowa, where I am personally 
acquainted. We have been getting our feeders from beyond the Mis- 
souri and they are getting scarcer and scarcer, and it is becoming evi- 
dent that we must produce the feeders on our own grounds. We can 
not keep a cow to raise a calf only in the Mississippi V^alley. We must 
milk our cow to make a profit. The great feeder in Iowa will become 
a thing of the past. It has not existed for centuries in European 
countries. The feeding steer in European countries is raised on the 
farm and finished on the fiirm, and that will be the case in Iowa. We 
Western farmers like to farm on horseback, and the man who feeds 
steers likes to buy them and buy corn to feed them, or feed them his 
own corn: buc the day is coming wlien he can not buy tliem, because 
the dairy farmer will tind it profitable to raise his own calves and finish 
his own calves on his own farm with his own products. 

Senator Dolliver. Then, you hold that the destruction or fatal 
injury of the dairy farm would destroy the whole cattle business? 

Secretary Wilson. Yes; for this reason. I have discussed the South- 
ern question here. I am very much interested in those people. I go 
down there often, and tind theui a lovable people; but I tind they 
have grown crops and oxidized the humus out of their soil until in 
many cases they do not get more than a quarter of a bale of cotton to 
the acre. If it had not been for the cotton crop of the great State of 
Texas, the world would have been suffering for cotton now. There is no 
way by which they can ever bring tlie soil bac\ to full fertility except by 
putting the humus back, and that will be done by letting the cow and 
her calf graze. What little interest they have now in selling a little 
bit of cotton-seed oil is intinitesimal compared with the great benefit 
that will come to them from correct farming, and a well-organized farm 
means the dairy cow present every time. 

Senator Money. You are not going to have it with the increase in 
po])ulation. 

Secretary Wilson. Let me tell you something on that point. There 
is a man who lives out here about 2.5 miles in Maryland, named Boyd. 
He keeps 200 or 300 cows, if I remember correctly, and he sends in 
excellent milk into this city. He has colored people to milk them. I 
do not say that every colored man or colored woman is fit to milk a 
cow. The dairy cow should be treated as delicately as you would treat 
a fine lady when you take her out to dinner. The negroes will not all 
do that, but some of them will, and you can make a success in the 
South of the dairy with colored people for milkers. 

Mr. WA-dsworth. They have never been made a success, have they, 
Mr. Secretary! 

Secretary Wilson. It has. I have given you one case where a man 
has 200 or 300 cows and milks them with colored people. He sends 
the milk into this city. 

Mr. Miller. Is it not a fact that the beef cattle of the West do not 
go in the dairy herds, and is it not a fact that the large herds of the 
West are inbred Herefords, which are not dairy cows! 

Secretary Wilson. Oh, bless your soul, no. 

Mr. Miller. Is it not a fact that all Western herds are headed by 
Hereford bulls! 

Secretary Wilson. No; not exclusively. Y'ou ask Senator Harris, 
who is a Kansas stockman, and he will tell you that men who have 
been using the Hereford blood find that they have gotten them too 
small. 

Mr. Miller. My dear sir, the Hereford are large cattle ; that is why 



OLEOMARGARINE. 427 

tliey liave tbem. Mr. Armour, of Kansas City, owns the largest Here- 
fore herd in the worhl, and he sells them on the Western ranges. 

Secretary Wilson, How many does be sell? 

Mr. Miller. Generally from 40,000 to 50,000 four times a year. 

Secretary Wilson. How many head does he own ? 

Mr. Miller. 1 don't know. 

Secretary Wilson. I guess you will find that others own as large 
nerds. 

Mr. Miller. He has the reputation of owning the largest herd in 
the West. He holds a sale three or four times a year at Kansas City, 
and all these bulls go to the Western herds. 

Secretary Wilson. H' you will examine the reports of the exiieri- 
ment station, you will tind my report on that subject. They make excel- 
lent feeders, but the difficulty with them is they are not good milkers. 
They can not be used in the dairy. The man who originated them is 
oil record as saying that he could have made good dairy cattle of them 
if he had turned his attention that way, but he did not. He turned 
his attention to beef making, and he repressed the tendency to give 
milk. The result is that they can be used for beef cattle, but the 
demand today is for cattle that will give milk as well as raise calves, 
and the people in the West who are grazing on the free commons could 
not afford to keep a cow for the calf if they had to pay rent for those 
lands. 

Senator Allen. I think this gentleman is mistaken, Secretary. The 
four beef producing herds are the Shorthorn, Hereford, the Angus 
Borden, and the Galloway. 

Secretary Wilson. That is right. 

Senator Allen. You can not sell anything else for beef ])roducing. 

Secretary Wilson. That is right; but you can develop milk giving 
in any of those breeds if you feed for milk. The Shorthorn is a famous 
milker. You can make the Angus or the Galway or the Hereford milch 
cattle if you will feed for milk and milk them. The difficulty has been 
with the Herefords that tliey have been bred away from milk. That is 
where the trouble is. Are there any other questions, gentlemen? 

Senator Dolliver. One more question, Mr. Secretary. Is it possible 
to produce this-oleomargarine, according to your scientific report, of the 
butter color, without coloring it artificially? 

Secretary Wilson. Oh, no. You can get the dairy cow's butter yel- 
low, if you feed right; but the chemist can not put in any other color 
without using the coal-tar dyes. 

Senator Money. If you put in enough cotton-seed oil, you can give 
it a good color, and that is the best thing that goes into it, anyway. 

Secretary Wilson. I think there is only a very light shade of yellow 
in the tine cotton seed oil. 

Senator Money. They do refine it, and we eat it on our table every 
day. 

Secretary Wilson. There is no possible direction in which the South 
can renovate its worn-out lands so fast as to feed that cotton seed to 
stock. It is the finest feed on earth. 

Senator Money. I know that. I am a farmer. I raise cotton. 

Secretary Wilson. And you can not do it without the dairy cow. 

Senator Money. I raise cows, too. 

Secretary Wilson. The dairy cow is the only instrumentality. You 
can not do it by commercial fertilizers, because it will not put the humus 
in the soil. 

Senator Money. You are right about that. 



428 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Senator I^olliver. We bad a merchant here from New Jersey, where 
the law forbids the sale of colored oleomargarine, who stated that he 
obtained his oleomargarine under special order from the manufacturer 
with the butter color— the yellow color — produced, not by artificial 
coloring, but by a careful and judicious collection of the ingredients 
entering into the manufacture of the article. 

Secretary Wilson. I am not familiar with any process of that kind. 
That may be. We can not limit the cai)acity of a chemist, but I do not 
want the chemist to produce an article that will cost me 10 cents more a 
pound than it is worth, without coloring it. 

The Chairman. Mr. Secretary, oleomargarine is manufactured and 
sold abroad, is it not*? 

Secretary Wilson. Oh, yes; my paper shows that. 

The Chairman. Yes; I noticed it. Is it colored there? 

Secretary Wilson. Oh, no; we are the only people on earth who do 
not take care of what our people consume and what they eat, and the 
purity of our food. 

The Chairman. It has a sale there for what it is? 

Secretary Wilson. Yes; it is a legitimate business, if they do not 
deceive somebody — entirely so. 

Mr. Miller. IMr. Chairman, we are exporters of butterine and we 
color every pound we send out. In some of the West Indies we color 
it red. 

Secretary Wilson. Have they laws down in the West Indies on 
that subject? 

Mr. Miller. Some of the countries have laws; yes, sir. 

Secretary Wilson. I presume you do not sell oleomargarine to Great 
Britain and color it, do you? 

Mr. Miller. We have no export trade to Great Britain, but that is 
because they manufacture their own product. 

Secretary Wilson. Do you ship oleomargarine to foreign countries? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. 

Secretary Wilson. Where do you send it? 

Mr. Miller. We send it to a number of countries. We do not send 
it to Great Britain and some other countries. The little country of 
Holland has 19 factories as against 27 in the United States, and it is 
not bigger than the State of Missouri. 

Mr. Chairman. And yet they sell it as white, do they? 

Mr. Miller, ^o, sir ; they sell it colored. 

Secretary Wilson. You are only telling what Armour & Co. do; but 
the United States does ship butter to foreign countries. 

Mr. Miller. We ship oleomargarine: we do not ship butter. 

Secretary Wilson. You do not ship it to any foreign country where 
they have got laws and sell it for butter. 

Mr. Miller. We do not sell it for butter at all. We sell it for oleo- 
margarine in this country and in other countries. 

Secretary Wilson. But the people down in these countries where 
you send it do not happen to have any laws, and if they did have laws 
we know the character of people they are down there, 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Do I understand the Secretary to say that in Hol- 
land they do not color the oleomargarine? 

Secretary Wilson. You understood him to say that. 

Mr. TiLLiNOHAST. I ask if the Secretary says that. 

Secretary Wilson. No; you did not understand me to say that. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. How did I understand you? 



OLEOMARGAEINE, 429 

Secretary Wilson. That is a fact 1 am not possessed of. The gentle- 
man representing- Armour & Co. made a remark along that line. 

Mr. Wadsworth. But the Secretary did assert that no oleomarga- 
rine abroad was colored. He did not touch Holland or any one coun- 
try, but he said that, and I thought it was a mistake when he uttered it. 

Secretary Wilson. I may have made that too broad, but I mean the 
European countries. I will modify that statement. They may send it 
to the West Indies, down among those colored i^eople. 

The Chairman. I meant Europe. I did not say so, but I meant 
Europe. ' 

Secretary Wilson. That is what I meant. Oh, no, you can not sell 
colored oleomargarine there and sell it for butter. 

Mr. Wadsworth. No, but you can sell it for what it is. 

Secretary Wilson. Yes, you can sell it for what it is. 

Mr Wadsworth. The point is whether it was colored abroad, if I 
may be allowed to interrupt. 

Secretary Wilson. With that I am not familiar 

Mr. Wadsworth. You said it was not, and I felt confident that it 
was. That is why I called your attention to it. 

Secretary Wilson. I tliink the majority of the stuff of that kind that 
is sent abroad goes as oleo oil. 

Mr. Wadsworth. 1 am not sj)eaking of what is sent abroad, but 
what is manufactured over there. 

Secretary Wilson. The nianufactuie over there for sale to the people 
is not the same as it is over here. Those peoi)le enforce the laws over 
there. They will not permit any deception along those lines. 

Mr. Wadsworth. That is not the question. Mr. Chairman, you 
asked the question whether oleomargarine is manufactured in foreign 
countries and whether it is colored. The answer of the Secretary was 
that it was not colored. I thought at the time that was a mistake or an 
oversight — not our oleomargarine, but the oleomargarine that is manu- 
factured abroad by Europeans. 

Mr. Jelke. May I ask one question? 

Secretary Wilson. Yes, sir. 

Mr, Jelke. Are there any countries in Europe in which there is a 
tax imposed on the sah^ of oleomargarine, either colored or uncolored? 

Secretary Wilson. That I do not know. Probably you know. 

Mr. Jelke. There is none. 

Secretary Wilson. Very good. Now, you have given us a fact. 

Mr. Culberson. Mr. Secretary, may I ask you a question? 

Secretary Wilson. Surely. 

Mr. Culberson. You speak of the infinitesimal quantity of cotton 
oil used in the manufacture of oleomaigarine in this country. 

Secretary Wilson. As compared with the benefits of the dairy. 

Mr. Culberson. Are you aware of the quantitj' consumed for that 
purpose? Are you aware of the quantity that is exported for the same 
puri)ose? 

Secretary W^ilson. We can find those things very readily. The 
Secretary of the Treasury can tell about it. 

Mr. Culberson. 1 want to say as a manufacturer and as a live stock 
owner that the quantity that is used in this country and that is exported 
for the same ])ur[)ose abroaid is equal to nearly 25 per cent of the whole 
quantity of oil produced in the South. 

Secretary Wilson. Do you know how much oil is produced in the 
South? Give us that as you go along. 

Mr. Culberson About a million and a half barrels. 



430 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Secretary Wilson. Can you let us have it in pounds? Then we will 
understand it. 

Mr. Culberson. If you multiply that by fifty and by seven and a 
half you will get it. A million and a half times fifty will give you the 
gallons, and multiply that by seven and a half and it will give you the 
pounds. 

Secretary Wilson. I am speaking of what is in the cotton seed. 

Mr. CkiLBERSON. You spoke of the fact that oleomargarine abroad 
was not colored, did you not? 

Secretary Wilson. Oleomargarine sent from here to Europe? 

Mr. Culberson. No; manufactured abroad. Is it colored or uu- 
colored ? 

Secretary Wilson. That I do not know. 

Mr. Culberson. I will say that 1 know of my own personal knowl- 
edge that it is colored. 

Secretary Wilson. Very good. 

Mr. Culberson. And is almost identical in appearance with that 
sold here as oleomargarine. 

Senator Allen. Is that shipped from this country abroad? 

Mr. Culberson. No, sir; it is made in Rotterdam, in Holland, and 
is made in Germany. 

Senator Allen. That is not the question. Is the oleomargarine you 
export colored before it leaves this country? 

Mr. TiLLiNGriiAST Yes, sir; every i)ound of it. 

Mr. Miller. All the butterine we export is colored. We do not sell 
any in Europe or in England, because there are large manufacturers over 
there. There is one factory in London that makes more butterine in 
one year than all the factories in the United States. 

The Chairman. Those are statements you can make. I hardly think 
it is necessary to detain the Secretary in this general discussion. We 
are very much obliged to you, Mr. Secretary, and we shall be very glad 
to hear anything further from you that you wish to say. 

Secretary Wilson. I have nothing further to say, and I am very much 
obliged to the committee for their attention. 

Senator Allen. If the Secretary has any further information that he 
would like to submit to us before we make our report, I think we should 
be glad to have it. 

Secretary Wilson. I shall be glad to do so, and I shall see to it that 
you get some genuine butter in your family before the winter is over. 

( At this point Senator Proctor left the room and Senator Hansbrough 
took the chair.) 

The Acting Chairman. Mr. Adams, are you ready to proceed? 

Mr. Adams. Yes, sir. 

STATEMENT OF H. G. ADAMS. 

Mr. Adams. Gentlemen of the committee, I will take up this subject 
at a ])oint where it was dropped by Secretary Wilson. 

The statement lias been repeatedly made that the friends of the Grout 
Bill are endeavoring to destroy the oleomargarine industry, and they 
base their argument upon the statement of our position. Tliey have 
proceeded to attack us as being men who are striving to fight down one 
legitimate industry in the interest of another. These gentlemen can 
not be permitted to state our position for us. We appear here for our- 
selves, and I desire to say to this committee on my own behalf and on 



OLEOMAKGARINE. 431 

behalf of the people whom I represent, and of the sentiment of the 
State which I represent, that we are not here to make any light on oleo- 
margarine as oleomargarine under its own form and under its own color. 
We are here, as Mr. Flanders said, to, if possible, legislate the fraud 
out of oleomargarine. 

The central argument which our friends on the other side have made 
here is that if you take the color out of oleomargarine you can not sell 
it; that you are going to absolutely destroy that industry. I deny the 
proposition, and 1 can prove that that denial is made in good faith and 
warranted by the facts of the oleomargarine business, not only in this 
country but abroad. 

Some tigures were given here this morning by Mr. Wilson with refer- 
ence to the oleomargarine traffic and the consumption in this country 
and abroad, and I want to say to you that in Denmark, which is a dairy 
country, where the (rovernment has used its power to educate its people 
and instruct them in the business of making good butter, where it is 
under careful governmental supervision — a little country, less than one- 
half the size of the State wliich 1 represent (Wisconsin), with 50,000 
square miles of territory — they export every year into the European 
markets 130,000,000 pounds of the best butter which goes into the mar- 
kets of the world, and in that country the farmers buy oleomargarine. 
I admit it. They buy it. How"? They buy it white, the color which 
nature gives it. Mr. Wilson says they consume y>?s pounds per cai)ita 
over in Denmark, and that we consume 1 ]>ound over here in the United 
States. Yet Prof. W. A. Henry, of the experiment station of Wiscon- 
sin, one of the men who has done more to educate the farm sentiment 
and the farm judgment of this country, perhaps, than any man in it, 
returned from Europe only a few weeks ago, aiul told me that he had 
traveled in Denmark and gone into the stores of that country and 
studied the laws of Denmark with reference to the manufacture and 
sale of dairy products and dairy imitations, and he found that in the 
stores of Denmark, where they sell oleomargarine, they are compelled 
to sell it on one side of the store and butter on the other side of the 
store, and that they are compelled to sell that product in the color which 
nature gives it, which is substantially white. And there in Denmark, 
where they are compelled to do what the ])roducers of honest butter 
want the manufacturers of this substitute to do in this country, they 
are selling three and one-half times as much to the inhabitants as they 
are selling here in the United States, manufacturing and selling that 
product in numerous States in violation of the law, simply because it 
is in imitation of a more costly and more valuable product. 

I tell you, gentlemen, and 1 say it in all sincerity, that if I were an 
oleomargarine manufacturer, conscious of the value which my substi- 
tute had in the markets of this country, instead of coming to the Con- 
gress of the United States and demanding as a right that I should 
have the privilege of coloring my product in imitation of the natural 
substance of which it is a counterfeit, I would come here and say: 
*' Gentlemen, regulate the color of my product by national legislation 
if you will. It is wholesome. The poor people in this c(Mintry want it. 
It has its merits. There is a place for it in the markets. We can sell 
it. We are now under the ban of law in o2 States. We are constantly 
hampered by prosecutions on the ]iait of State authorities. We are 
constantly stung by the criticism of lioiiest men upon the character of 
our business, and we are willing to have the color knocked out of oleo- 
margarine and i)ut it on tlie markets of the country and sell it under 
its own color, and for precisely what it is.'' 



432 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Gentlemen of the committee, we have not come here to Congress 
asking for anything that is wrong in any way, shape, or manner. We 
are not here representing an interest which is to crush down any other 
legitimate industry in the United States. We have been charged with 
coming here as manufacturers of an inferior product, butter, some of 
which is manufactured as it should not be, and asking legislation which 
is dishonest; and these gentlemen have stood up here day after day, 
and I have quietly and patiently and calmly listened to their indict- 
ment not only of the dairy judgttient of this nation, but of the people 
of 32 States, of the legislatures of 32 States, of the courts of 32 States, 
and of the Supreme Court of the United States, which has declared 
that a State prohibiting the manufacture of butterine colored in imita- 
tion of butter is exercising a legitimate poli(;e power — for what? To 
protect the x>ublic health? No, sir; to protect and compel honesty in 
trade. That is the basis of this legislation, as stated in the judgment 
of the courts. Why, our friends come up here and say that these laws 
are passed by chicanery; that they are passed because dairymen's asso- 
ciations have political influence. Do these gentlemen pretend to say 
that the 32 great States in this Union which have passed these laws 
have passed them in obedience to a cheap and dishonest and class 
sentiment? 

I have here a map of the United States showing the States which 
have passed anticolor laws. You find there a good portion of the 
Southern States. You find all of New England except llhode Island. 
You find the great States of New York, and Pennsylvania, and Ohio^ 
and Michigan, and Illinois, and Minnesota, and North and South 
Dakota, and Nebraska, and Iowa, and the great State of Missouri. In 
ISSti our friends, the Democrats, endeavored to make that a party 
question. It is not a party question. We went before the members of 
the other House upon this question, claiming there, as we claim here^ 
that we are not endeavoring to interfere with the rights which belong to 
any man or any class of men, and out of the Southern States we got 
20 votes; out of the Democratic vote in the lower House we got 49 
votes, and leaders of the Re])ublican party and leaders of the Demo- 
cratic party on both sides of that question stood together. 

Senator Allen. How were the Populists? 

Mr. Adams. I think they stood by us, because the Populists as a 
rule have some appreciation and knowledge of the work which a man 
does who tills the soil and works ui)on the farm for his daily bread. I 
want to say to you, gentlemen, that we are not here to do injustice to 
the cotton-seed oil man. We are not here to do injustice to the men 
who raise steers. We are not here to do injustice to any interest; but 
I want to say to the men who represent the cotton-seed oil interests 
and the men who represent the beef interests and the hog interests 
of this country that if we can prove to them that this bill is right, that 
it is designed to stop a fraud, and that it probably will stop a fraud, it 
is their business as honest men and as good citizens of this Rei)ublic 
to line up with us, no matter whether it hurts their business or not. 

This is not simply a question of class interest. It is a question of 
public policy; and I want to say to this committee that you can strike 
all the color out of oleomargarine and have it sold in the markets of 
this country and have good demand for it. In proof of that I want 
to show you what we have up in the State of Wisconsin. 

I have here samples of butterine which may interest this committee, 
and the gentlemen upon the other side of the question are invited to 
inspect them. These samples were obtained in obedience to my orders 



OLEOMARGARINE. 433 

by N. J. Field, of Milwaukee. He was instructed by me a week ago 
last Thursday to go to the stores of Oshkosh, Milwaukee, and Raciue, 
in our IState, and purchase samples of uncolored butterine, and to 
write upon those samples the date of purchase, the name of the firm 
from whom they were ])urchased, and the cost. I now have the pleasure 
of submilting these samples to this committee for their inspection. 

Senator H ansbrough. You say he was instructed to procure samples 
of uncolored butterine? 

Mr. Adams. Yes, sir; of oleomargarine. I would like to say that 
one or two of these samples, possibly more, are slightly colored, but 
they were purchased for uncolored oleomargarine. 

Mr. Jelke. If the chairman will permit me, I would like to make a 
suggestion that these samples be submitted to the Government chemist 
to find out whether or not they contain artificial coloring, and also to 
report on whether they contain any unwholesome ingredient. I do not 
know where they come from, or anything about it. 

Senator Allen. I think that ought to be done. 

Senator Hansbrough. I shall direct the clerk of the committee to 
tak care of these samples after they have been exhibited, and send 
them to the chemist at the Agricultural Department for examination. 

Mr. Jelke. May I suggest that the analysis be made for the purpose 
of ascertaining the percentage of butter fats in each one, as well as the 
color and what kind of color. 

Senator Hansbrough. Yes; he will be directed to make a thorough 
analysis. 

Mr. Adams. I wish to say, gentlemen, that all these samples, with 
the possible exception of this one, were sold by the dealer in response 
to a call for uncolored butterine, they claiming that they had received it 
from the manufacturers as uncolored butterine. 

Mr. Jelke. The test will show that. 

Mr. Adams. I now wish to present to the committee and have incor- 
porated in the testimony the bill for this. It is as follows: 

William L. Moxley, 
Manufacttrer of Fine Butterine, 66 and 67 W. Monrok Street, 

Chica(/o, January 25, 1900. 
W. E. Wright & Co 

4S45 N. Clark street, Eofiers Park, III. 
Uncolored oleomargarine: 2/56 D. 2 pts. 112 13, $14.56. 

Senator Hansbrough. Did all this come under an order for uncol- 
ored goods? 

Mr. Adams. These all came'under an order from my inspector, Mr. 
N. J. Field, to Jensen & Beck, Eacine; Hanley Brothers, Eacine; D. C. 
Adams, Milwaukee; J.Linehan, Milwaukee, and Hoenig& Co., Oshkosh. 
He purchased samples of uncolored butterine for the purpose of 
demonstrating the fact that some of the grocers of our Sta te think they 
are endeavoring to comply with the law, and some of them are endeav- 
oring to comply with the law, and some of them sell oleomargerine 
uncolored. 

Senator Allen. Y"ou are using the word '''oleomargarine" and the 
word "butterine" as the same thing?" 

Mr. Adams. They are substantially the same thing. The term used 
in the internal-revenue law is "oleomargarine," and it covers butterine. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Will you answer a question? 

Mr. Adams. Yes. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Would you think it fair for the dealers in uncol- 
ored oleomargarine who are honestly attemj)ting to sell it as uncolored 
oleomargarine to pay a tax of $48 a year ? 

S. Rep. 2043 28 



484 oleomaegariisip:. 

Mr. Adams. As far as my iudividual judgment is concerned 1 wish to 
say with perfect frankness to this committee what I have said all the 
time— that I do not care about any governmental tax upon oleomar- 
garine under its own form and color. The principle I am coutending 
for here in this bill, not simply in the interest of the competing class 
except as they have a right to be considered in mtvking an honest profit, 
is that the color shall be taken out of oleomargarine whereby it becomes 
a counterfeit of an honest and more costly product. 

The figures given to me or to my assistant by gentlemen connected 
with the firms which have been cited here as to their sales of what they 
call uncolored butterine, a portion of which is evidently uncolored but- 
terine, and a portion of which is faintly colored, possibly, and possibly 
not — that is to be determined by a chemist, are: Jensen & Beck, 
3,000 iiounds a year; Hanley Brothers, .'i,000 pounds a year; D. C. 
Adams, Milwaukee, 19,000 pounds a year; L. Linehan, 5,000 pounds a 
year, and Uoenig & Co., of Oshkosh, 0,000 pounds a year. These are 
approximate hgures. Perhaps 1). C. Adams, of Milwaukee, who said 
he sold 00 i)ounds a day, sells more or less than the figures I have 
given. Sixty pounds a day during six days of the week, calling 320 
days to the year, would amount to about 1U,000 i)ounds. 

Mr. T1LLINGIIA8T. Would you in the enforcement of the laws of your 
State prosecute anyone for selling goods of that character under that 
clause, that it had an ingredient that causes it to look like butter? 

Mr. Adams. I expected that question, and I am very glad the gen- 
tleman asked it, because what we want to get at are the facts. So 
far we have confined our prosecutions to more flagrant violations of 
the law that appear upon the surface. In that case, for the reason that 
the butter is so light, the violation of law is so small, and they have 
gone beyond the border line to such a limited extent that it is extremely 
difficult in presenting a sample like that to convince them that it is 
colored at all, even if the chemist can extract from it a very faint indi- 
cation of color. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Suppose you should find no color whatever, and 
yet the ingredients were so used that it resembled butter? 

Mr. Adams. I understand the question of the gentleman to be this — 
we might just as well state it. 1 think I can state it better than he 
can. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Very hkely. 

Mr. Adams. Do I believe that oleomargarine should be manufactured 
by the use of other ingredients than mere coloring matter in infinitesi- 
mal quantities, so that it can resemble yellow butter? I say that I do 
not. I think it is against public policy. 1 think it means deceiving 
the customer just as much in the one case as it does in the other. 

Now, our friends on the other side come up here and say that we are 
prejudiced, that we are simply operating through class interests; and 
they say that the courts, in passing upon these laws, have simply said 
that the States, in the exercise of their police power, can do extraordi- 
nary things, and that the courts can not inquire into the exercise of that 
police ijower by the States. Do you lawyers upon the other side say 
that it is possible for a State legislature to pass any law doing any 
injury to any legitimate interest, label that an exercise of police power, 
and go to the courts of your State and the Supreme Court of the United 
States and claim that the courts can say nothing about that legislative 
act because they have labeled it an exercise of police power? Not by 
any means. 

Senator Allen. Does not the police power of a State extend to all 
things that affect life and health ? 



OLEOMARGARINE. 435 

Mr. Adams. Aud public morals; yes, sir. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. And public safety! 

Mr, ADA.MS. Yes, sir. 

Senator Allen. Grouped under those three heads are a great many 
hundreds of thousands of things. Anything that affects your health, 
anything that affects the public morals, anything that affects your per- 
sonal rights or the public rights, comes under the police power of the 
State. 

Mr. Adams. That is true. 

Senator Allen. If this article is deleterious to health — and that is 
probably the claim — is it not clearly within the plenary powers of the 
State to dispose of the question and the duty of the courts of the State 
to enforce that legislation ! 

Mr. Adams. Why, certainly; but that is not the primary claim, Sen- 
ator. The claim is made in these various States, in the 3U States which 
have passed these laws, and the legislative judgment of those States 
has been convinced, that the sale of colored oleomargarine deceives the 
final purchaser, and they regard that practice as against public policy. 

Senator Allen. The only ground upon which the Congress of the 
United States can interfere is to say that this article, which has an 
interest in commerce, in trade, shall be labeled, or that trade shall be 
conducted in a given way; that is, that it shall be sold white or sold 
colored when shipped from one State to another as a part of interstate 
commerce. But when the article passes one State line and into another 
State, and becomes mingled with the commerce of that State, it falls 
clearly under the police power of the State and the jurisdiction of Con- 
gress ceases. 

Mr. Adams, What do I understand the Senator to wish me to say 
with reference to that? A very amusing thing in a way to me has 
appeared in this discussion. A gentleman representing friends of this 
bill has insisted that there is some doubt as to whether the Plumley 
decision gives the right to a State to deal with original packages in the 
State, and other gentlemen on the other side have insisted that that 
decision was reversed in the Schollenbarger case. 

Senator Allen. That was all settled in the case of Brown v. The 
State of Maryland, away back pretty nearly a hundred years ago, 
where Brown imported from Europe certain liquors. The question 
was whether the revenue officers of the State could levy a tax upon 
those liquors before they became mingled with the commerce of the 
State. The Supreme Court of the United States, Mr. Chief Justice 
Marshall writing the opinion — it is a very celebrated case and has always 
been followed since then — held that until it was mingled and became a 
product of the commerce of the State the power of the United States 
continued over it, but the moment the package was broken, the moment 
it became mingled with the commerce of the State, the jurisdiction of 
the General Government ceased and that of the State attached. 

Mr, Adams. But, Senator, in the Plumley case it was decided by the 
court that the legislature of Massachusetts, prohibiting absolutely the 
manufacture 

Senator Allen. Excuse me for interrupting you. I do not want to 
interrupt you with a view to annoyance, but to make the suggestion 
that the legal distinction between the jurisdiction of the State and the 
jurisdiction of the United States is possibly well understood by the 
committee. 

Mr. Adams. I understand that. Of course we must refer to the ques- 
tion because our friends on the other side have made something of an 



436 OLEOMARGAKINE. 

argument here; but I am perfectly williug to leave tbat question with 
the gentlemen of the committee. 

Senator Allen. You must not construe anything I say or anything 
that is said by any member of the committee as indicating any opinion 
on the subject. 

Mr. Adams. I have not the slightest sensitiveness in those matters; 
but the Supreme Court of the United States has decided in the Plumley 
case that the State had a right to prohibit and that it was a proper 
exercise of p<»lice ])ower to prohibit within its borders the manufacture 
and sale of oleomargarine colored in imitation of yellow butter. 

When we come to the Schollenbarger case soiiie of our friends on the 
other side claim that was a reversal of that decision, and other gentle- 
men, lawyers, on the other side, better informed, claim it was not a 
reversal of tbat decision, and .Judge Lochran, up in Minnesota, a Fed- 
eral judge, who had made a decision in accordance with the Plumley 
decision, reversed that decision after the decision in the Plumley case. 
1 am perfectly willing to admit the decision in the Pennsylvania case 
overcame the decision in the Plumley case so far as original packages 
are concerned ; but within sixty days after that Judge Adams, the judge 
of a district court in St. Louis, made exactly the same decision as Judge 
Lochran, and the tirst section of the bill was put in there, not because 
we believe tbe decision in the Plumley case had been reversed by the 
decision in the Schollenbarger case, but because we knew that Federal 
district judges disagree and had disagreed in two specific cases as to the 
meaning of that decision. We wisbed to write into the law of the land 
the views, as we believe, properly laid down and the principles properly 
established in the decision of tbe Plumley case. 

I am not going to take up very much time reading decisions upon this 
law, and it is not for the purpose of arguing about the constitutionality 
of the law, but to give to this committee, not only for its benefit but for 
the benefit of such Senators as may read this report, and who may desire 
by tbe reference to this decision and the few sentences which are read 
here, to have tbe decisions and read them and see upon what grounds 
the courts have made the decisions tbat they have made. 

Here is an extract from a case in Twelfth Missouri Ai)peals: 

The mere fact that experts may pronounce an article intended for human food to 
be harmless does not render it incompetent for the legislature to ])rohibit the manu- 
facture and sale of the article. The test of the reasonableness of the police regula- 
tion prohibiting the making and vending of a particular article of food is not alone 
whether it is in part unwholesome and injurious. If an article of food is of such a 
character that few persons will eat it, knowing its real character, if at the time 
it is of such a nature that it can be imposed upon the public as au article of food 
which it is not, and yet to which and against which there is no protest, and if ij 
in addition to this there is probable ground for believing that the only way to 
prevent the pviblic from being defrauded into the purchasing of the counter- 
feit article for the genuine is to prohibit altogether the manufacture and sale of the 
former, then we think that such a prohibition may stand as a reasonable police regu- 
lation, although the article prohibited is indeed innocuous, and although its produc- 
tion might be found beneficial to the public if in buying it they could distinguish it 
from the production of which it is an imitation. 

Further: 

The manufacturer may brand it with its real name. It may carry that brand with 
it into the hands of the broker and commission merchant and even into the hands 
of the retail grocer, but there it will be taken off and it will be sold to the consumer 
as real butter or it will not be sold at all. The fact that the present state of the 
public taste, the public judgment, or the public prejudice with regard to it is such 
that it can not be sold except by cheating the ultimate purchaser into the belief 
that it is the real butter stamps with fraud the entire business of making and vend- 
ing it and furnishes a justitication for the police regulation prohibiting the making 
and Amending of it altogether. 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 437 

I have not very much time, Mr. Chairmau. The views which coukl 
be presented to this committee will take more time than I could be 
allowed. I am sorry for it, because I believe I can jireseut facts which 
will be cousidered by the Seuate of the United States. In my State 
what happens? We have, comparatively, a good execution of the law 
there. We have a stringent law. I drew it myself, with the assist- 
ance of an able attorney, scrutinizing at the same time the statute of 
MaSvsachusetts upon which it was based, and after the decision of the 
United States Supreme Court in the Plumley case, and up to that time 
we had been unable to stop to any extent the fraudulent sale of oleo- 
margarine in the State of Wisconsin. I was appointed dairy commis- 
sioner shortly after that law went into effect. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Will you state what your law was before that 
time! 

Mr. Adams. It was simply a labeling law, nothing else. I arrested 
three men at my home, one of whom was a neighbor and a friend. The 
oleomargarine manufacturers of Chicago supplied the gentleman ar- 
rested with the means of defense. Tliey employed an ex-Attorney- 
General of the United States, a bright, able, vigorous, and skilled man 
before a jury. It took us two days to get a jury. The citizens knew 
me, knew the ex- Attorney-General, and knew the defendant, and they 
did not want to go into the jury box at all. We finally secured a jury. 
We had a three days' trial, and then we had a disagreement, seven men 
voting for conviction and five for acquittal. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. What was the charge? 

Mr. Adams. The charge was that of selling colored oleomargarine in 
violation of law for exactly what it was. We tried the case again. 
The jury went out and returned a verdict in favor of the State in less 
than five minutes. I went down into the city of Milwaukee and made 
16 arrests, 13 for selling in violation of the color law of the State 
and 3 under the old labeling law, which had not been repealed. My 
purpose was to find out which kind of a law I could enforce; and I 
found out. I won every solitary case under the anticolor law in that 
court, although the judge said he did not believe in it. He was 
opposed to it and criticised the law from the bench. Officials about 
the court room were opposed to it, public sentiment in the court-house 
was opposed to it, and there were half a dozen lawyers on the other 
side opposed to the one lawyer representing the State; and yet in 
spite of that the principle underlying these laws, the compelling of 
men to be honest in the sale of a counterfeit food product, was so strong 
that a judge and a jury prejudiced and opposed to the law were com- 
pelled to make such decisions and such a verdict as that the law was 
sustained; and not only that, but the demonstration was so strong 
that the principal defendant in those cases came to me and admitted 
that he was wrong, and that never again would he violate a statute as 
just as that. 

Senator Dolliver. You have stated that it is possible in the State 
of Wisconsin to sell the uncolored article? 

Mr. Adams. I do. 

Senator Dolliver. And that it is sold in the ordinary course of 
business? 

Mr. Adams. Will the Senator permit me an explanation, to say what 
I forgot to say before? Up in Oshkosh this gentleman from whom I 
have obtained an uncolored sample was violating the law. I went up 
there and arrested him. I talked with him about it and I said: "Why 
do you do this? You have a good business. This is the best butter 



438 OLEOMAKGAKINE. 

shop in the city of Oshkosh. You have the best trade. Why do you 
violate this law?" " Why," he said, " I did not suppose it was a vio- 
lation. The representatives of the Chicago manufacturers came up 
here and said there was no reason why I should not sell it; that if there 
was any law it was unconstitutional; that the courts have turned it 
down;" and he said: "Not thinking very much about it, I have been 
selling it." I want to say to this committee that when my inspector 
went up there and bought a sample of colored oleomargarine that man 
was selling it at either 23 or 26 cents a pound; and he stopped the busi- 
ness and went to selling the uncolored butterine at 16 cents a pound. 
The price of butterine sold from that store was reduced 7 cents a pound, 
and the laboring people of Oshkosh who were buying it got the butter 
for less money simply because the law of the State was enforced. 

Senator Allen. Then it is possible to sell to the consumers uncol- 
ored butterine? 

Mr. Adams. Certainly it is. 

Senator Dolliver. You mentioned a country in Europe, Denmark, 
where that is done. 

Mr. Adams. Yes, sir. 

Senator Dolliver. Do you know the condition of that trade in 
other countries in Europe? 

Mr. Adams. I know that so far as England is concerned they have a 
law there prohibiting the sale of oleomargarine for butter. As to the 
details of tliat law, and the extent to which it is carried out, I am not 
informed. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Do you not know that in all foreign countries 
wherever oleomargarine is sold it is sold precisely of the same color as 
the butter that is sold in those countries, whether it is one thing or 
another ? 

Mr. Adams. The one country of which I have definite knowledge is 
Denmark. There they prohibit its coloring and compel it to be sold in 
its own color and in a separate place in the store in which it is sold. 

Mr. Tillinghast. Is butter colored there? 

Mr. Adams. I think very likely it is. I hope so. 

Mr. TiLLiNCiHAST. What proportion of tlie 107,000,0(10 pounds of 
oleomargarine that was sold last year do you think could be sold in the 
United States if it was not colored? 

Mr. Adams, ^ly estimate is based on these samples, provided none 
of these sami)les are colored. These gentlemen think thej' are selling 
uncolored butterine. I will concede that some of these samples are a 
little colored. 

Senator Dolliver. This one is certainly highly colored. 

Mr. Adams. I should judge so. Providing this law goes into effect, 
and providing that it prohibits the manufacture and sale of colored 
oleomargarine, and provided there are as many licenses out in the 
United States after the passage of tlie law as there are now — there are 
now 9,028 licenses in this country — 1 believe there would be sold on an 
average at least 5,000 pounds a year by each of the 9,000 retailers of 
the United States. 

Senator Dolliver. Do you not think if every merchant, instead of 
becoming an apologist for oleomargarine, practically, in many cases, 
denying that it is oleomargarine and claiming that it is butter, should 
become literally an agent for the sale of the legitimate article, without 
these ])rosecutions and fears of prosecution, that it would greatly 
increase the sale of it? 

Mr. Adams. There is no question about it. These gentlemen upon 



OLEOMARCIAKINE. 439 

the other side know perfectly well, as I know, who have come in contact 
personally with hundreds of merchants in my State, that they would be 
glad to sell oleomargarine under those conditions, but they do not want 
to sell it in competition with other merchants who are willing to sell it 
in violation of law. This will be a premium upon honesty. Many of 
the manufacturers are perfectly willing to make their butterine uncol- 
ored, and do not desire to build up a fraudulent business. One of them 
has admitted it to me, and he said to me: "I will concede to you that 
the time is coming when we shall make this article uncolored, sell it at 
a reasonable profit for what it is, and build up a business here in this 
countrj^ which will make the dairymen shake in their boots." 1 said : 
"Very well, gentlemen, if you can do that we shall be compelled to 
shake, because we will have no argument in our defense." 

If this substitute is reasonably wholesome, why do you not take it 
and go into the markets under its own color and do what you can with 
it and obtain a reasonable business"? But the trouble is, they come 
up into my city, and they say to some of the grocers there: "You sell 
this in violation of law and we will protect you. We will pay the 
expenses." Some of these firms are practically in a conspiracy to 
break down the laws of the various States in this Union; and so we 
come to Congress knowing that you gentlemen in the United States 
Senate and in the lower House know perfectly well that it is not 
dishonest to exercise the taxing power of this Government to stop a 
great fraud. It has been done before. It was done in 1886. It was 
done in the passage of the fllled-cheese bill. It was done when we 
passed a law taxing adulterated flour and providing for labeling. Our 
friends said these measures were all unconstitutional. They said they 
were dishonest. They said that Congress could not do it; but did 
they ever take a case to the Supreme Court? Did the law of 1886 ever 
go to the Supreme Court? I came down here three times in behalf of 
the filled-cheese bill. I went before the Committee on Ways and 
Means over in the other House. 

Judge Crisp, of Georgia, and Mr. Grosveuor, of Ohio, insisted that I 
should discuss the matter of the wholesomeness of filled cheese. I said : 
"Why, I don't propose to waste a minute on that. It is not a question 
of the public health ; it is a question of honesty. Here are a lot of fel- 
lows taking skimmed milk, taking the natural butter fat all out, put- 
ting the artificial fat in, and making an inferior product, calling it full 
cream cheese, sending it into the markets of the South, sending it 
across the ocean, and thereby, by placing that inferior i)roduct in the 
markets of Europe, cutting down our exportation of cheese from 
120,000,000 pounds to 38,000,000 pounds in a year." That bill was passed 
by the American Congress simply to stop that fraud and to build up 
and maintain the trade of this nation. We do not come here represent- 
ing the farming interests of this country to demand class legislation. 
We do not want it. We have no right to come here and ask an unjust 
thing simply because there are millions of us. By no means. If I 
were a Senator of the United States and every man in my district 
wanted me to vote for an unjust and an unfair law, I would not do it. 
We come here and ask you to do what we believe is right. We do not 
want any protection from legitimate competition, but because of our 
numbers, because of our industry, because of the way in which we have 
placed States and built up a wholesome prosperity, we come to the 
American Congress and we ask for justice and protection, not against 
competition, but against fraud. 

Mr. Jelke. Is not your industry more prosperous now than it ever 
was before? 



44U OLEOMARGARINE, 

Mr. Adams. Yes, sir, 

(The committee, at 12 o'clock and 10 minutes p. m., took a recess 
until 2.30 o'clock p. m.) 

At the expiration of the recess the committee resumed its session. 

Mr. Adams. I should like to give way for live minutes to a represen- 
tative from Maryland, Mr. Medairy, for a simple statement of not over 
five minutes in length, 

STATEMENT OF SUMMEREIELD B. MEDAIRY. 

Mr. Medairy. Mr. Chairman, I feel that there is very little for me to 
say in the interest of the dairy more than has been said by those who 
have preceded me. I have listened with great satisfaction and instruc- 
tion to those who have addressed the committee with respect to this bill. 
I realize the fact that there really is nothing more important before the 
committee than the bill itself, which carries with it the charge that oleo- 
margarine, as manufiictured and sold to day, is sold surreptitiously, which 
accounts for the magnitude of the industry. That is demonstrated by the 
experience of those who are practically engaged in the dairy business. 

The city of Baltimore about two years ago was flooded with the sale 
of oleomargarine, surreptitiously sold to such an extent that it was 
felt by every one engaged in the dairy business. We felt that some- 
thing ought to be done. The outcome of it was the organization of an 
association for the protection of the dairy interests and of the people 
of our city against the imposition that was being practiced by the 
unscrupulous vender of oleomargarine, made possible by the fact that 
oleomargarine was colored in semblance of yellow butter. 

During two years 1 personally supervised the administration of our 
law, and I found that we were deficient by virtue of the fact that many 
people were unable to distinguish oleomargarine from butter and 
thereby suffered the penalty. At the last meeting of our legislature, 
Mr. Hewes, our attorney, and I went to Annapolis and su('ceeded in 
having passed an anticolor law, which has aided greatly in the result we 
sought to accomplish. During that time, as well as my memory serves 
me, out of nearly one hundred anti forty one cases — 1 think that was the 
exact number, although I maybe mistaken in regard to one or two cases — 
there was not a single retail sale in the course of prosecution but 
what was sold as and for butter by the storekeei)er or the restaurateur, 
and in many instances we found that the people who were being pros- 
ecuted were innocent of any intention of violating the law, but had been 
deceived by the vender, who in turn had bought his product from the 
manufacturer's agent, but had, subsequent to its purchase, taken the 
product from the original package and placed it in a basket or a box, a 
vessel of some kind, and sold it as and for butter. The uninitiated, 
not being able to distinguish one from the other by virtue of its 
semblance, bought the same for butter and in turn sold it as such. 

We had many such cases in the course of prosecution, the benefit 
derived therefrom inuring to the manufacturers, to the discomfiture and 
to the detriment of those who innocently bought the stuff for butter. 
We found that to be the case not only with respect to a few store- 
keepers, but with respect to the hotel keeper, to the restauranteur, to 
the lunch counter proprietor. We found without an exception that 
they bought their goods from the manufacturer's agent as and for what 
it was, but in turn palmed it off" on the consumers as and for butter. 
That has been our experience for the last eighteen months. Out of the 
hundred and forty-one cases there was not an exception but that the 



OLEOMARGARINE. 441 

stuff was sold surreptitiously, and all accomplished by the fact that 
this stuff was sold for that which it was not, made possible by the fact 
that the manufacturers colored it in semblance of yellow butter. 

Mr. Adams, who has preceded me, has very clearly demonstrated the 
iniquity of this state of affairs and how the fraud is made possible. It 
requires an expert to determine one from the other, and as an evidence 
of that, no later than this very day, within the last hour, in company 
with Mr. Hewes, I repaired to one of your principal hotels in Washing- 
ton. We called for our dinner. The waiter brought us our dinner. 
Upon the table he placed two plates, upon which was something- sup- 
posed to be butter. We examined it, and I immediately called the 
waiter to my side. I said: "Take this back. Tell your proprietor that 
I want butter, and not oleomargarine." In support of that statement 
I have brought both here to you to-day. These are actual facts. Sena- 
tors. The proprietor I afterwards called to my side and asked him the 
question, "Did you buy this for butter or oleomargarine?" I said, "I 
want a direct answer," anfl he admitted that he bought it for oleomar- 
garine and served it to us as and for butter. We then called for a 
piece of butter, which he furnished. 

Mr, Hewes. Here [exhibiting] is the oleomargarine he served first 
and there is the butter which he gave afterwards. 

Mr. Medaiky. That came from a hotel this very day. It is an object 
lesson. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Did you ask for butter? 

Mr. Hewes. We asked for dinner. 

Mr. Medairy. Then we asked him to bring some butter, and I 
tasted it, as I always do. 

Mr. Hewes [exhibiting]. They are almost identical. 

Mr. Medairy. These are the two samples. That has been my 
experience almost without interrui)tion in — I do not know how many 
instances. 

Senator Allen. Which do you say is the butter? 

Mr. Medairy. I can tell you. 

Mr. Hewes. Anybody can tell. 

Senator Allen. You can tell which is which? 

Mr. Mediary. I am an expert in the business and claim to be able 
to tell at any time. 

Mr. Hewes. Anybody can tell. If you smell it, you can determine. 

Mr. Medairy. Do you prefer that I shall tell you? 

Senator Allen. My judgment is that that [indicating] is the oleo. 

Mr. Medairy. Yes; that is right. 

Mr. Hewes. You can smell it. 

Mr. Medairy. That is why we ask for legislation to preclude the 
possibility of such deception, and by such deception as this the busi- 
ness has grown to the magnitude which they have admitted that it has. 
Gentlemen on the other side have stood up in this room in my presence 
and have admitted that unless they colored the oleomargarine as you 
see that sample colored they can not sell it. I think, with all due 
respect to the representative of every industry that goes to make up 
oleomargarine, that it is a reflection upon a Senator of the United States 
to come here and ask him to support a measure that will tend to such 
fraud. I do not doubt for one moment that the city of Baltimore is 
but an index to the principal cities of the United States. 

Senator Allen. What hotel did this come from? 

Mr. Medairy. The hotel opposite the Baltimore and Ohio dei^ot. I 
think it is called the B. and O. hotel. I called the proprietor to the 



442 OLEOMARGARINE. 

counter and asked him the question, and he admitted to me that it was 
oleomargarine. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. What law did he violate? 

Mr. Med AIRY. I do not know, sir. I am not competent to argue that 
question. I simply know that in my own city we have a color law 
passed by our last legislature. We have yet to have an arrest of a 
dealer, other than a manufacturer's agent, and my statement can be 
verified upon investigation, wherein anyone, without exception, man, 
woman, or child, sold colored oleomargarine as and for such. I do not 
want to trespass too long upon the courtesy of my friend. I thank the 
committee for its courtesy. 

STATEMENT OF H. E. ADAMS— Resumed. 

Mr. Adams. I hold in my hand the prospectus of the Standard 
Butterine Company, organized, I think, under the laws of West Vir- 
ginia, having a capital stock of $1,000,000. The purpose of this com- 
pany is to manufacture butterine in the District of Columbia. The 
total cost of 100 pounds of butterine or of oleomargarine — those two 
terms are used interchangeably and mean the same thing in this dis- 
cussion — is $8.92, a little less than cents a pound, including the tax 
thereon. In the statement of this prospectus I find the following: 

It will be seen that the above cost, when dedncted from the market price of 13 
cents a pound, shows a net profit of $4.08. It will be seen that even if the coni- 
pany jiroduce only the 400,000 pounds per month for which it now has definite 
orders, a net profit of over $16,320 a month, or $195,840 a year would be assured. 
This would be 8 per cent on the preferred stock of the company or 20 per cent on 
the entire capitalization. The Standard Butterine Company is incorporated with 
a capital stock of $1,000,000, divided as follows: 

An attorney of this company appeared before this committee yester- 
day and made an argument against the Grout bill. The burden of his 
argument, as 1 understood it, analyzing it and getting at his purpose, 
is that this is a sort of philanthropic institution, designed for the pur- 
pose of giving the poor men of this country a cheap substitute for 
butter. In other words, he practically made the claim before this com- 
mittee that this company, with a million dollars' worth of capital, 
should be permitted to do business unrestricted by State or national 
law; a business which would enable them to manufacture a counterfeit 
of butter in tbe form and under the color of butter, and in the main be 
sold at or approximately at a butter price to the laboring men of this 
country, and that it is a right which the laboring men demand they 
shouldhave. The mere statement ofthecase is argument enough against 
it. In the course of his remarks he drew rather a poetic j)icture of the 
present conditions of the country village. He alluded to the disap- 
pearance of certain industries in these country villages, and regretted, 
in a way, the disappearance of the village carpenter, and called atten- 
tion to the mysterious disappearance of the village tinker. I do not 
know where the village tinker has gone. I know some of them have 
gone into the practice of the ])rofession of law; some of them are 
undoubtedly upon farms: but the whole tenor and drift of his argument 
was to this effect that, in the march of progress that is going on, in the 
changes which are going on in the industrial world, some men and 
some industries are liable to be wi])ed off of the face of the earth, and 
that all these changes are legitimate. The inference from his argu- 
ment was that this oleomargarine was of such superior character that 
if it was not restricted by State or national law it would go on and 
eventually eliminate the dairy farms. That was the inevitable deduc- 
tion from the logic of that illustration. 



OLEOMAKGAKINE. 443 

Now, I waut to say to him, and I want to say to this committee, that 
we appreciate the way in which modern inventions come in here and 
change things. We are perfectly willing to accept the fact that oleo- 
margarine under its own color is a product of modern genius and is a 
substitute, to a certain extent, of legitimate products; but we insist 
that it is not in the line of progress to bring into the American market 
something in the form of a counterfeit; that it does not pose as being 
in the line of progress simply because it has some merits, because it 
exists in the market and masquerades there in the form of a more 
valuable and a better product. Why, our friends say that we have not 
brought any evidence to prove here that oleomargarine is not as good 
as butter. We have brought some evidence, as a matter of fact, and I 
want to suggest to the consideration of this committee, so far as the 
relative merits of these two articles are concerned, that I do not 
believe — this is a statement of belief — that any member of this Senate 
Committee on Agriculture, in view of all that has been claimed for 
oleomargarine, or that any of the 90 Senators of the United States, or 
that any one of the 357 members of the lower House, at any time or any 
place, ever went into a restaurant or a hotel or any other place where 
food could be found and called for oleomargarine. No matter what the 
attorneys or the persons interested in this business may say, the judg- 
ment of men in this country is that butter is superior to oleomargarine 
as a food product. They go into these hotels and restaurants and 
places where it is sold, and call for what? Did you or any of you ever 
know of a man who went in and called for butterine? 

Our friends say the Wadsworth substitute is a proper substitute for 
this measure, and that substitute is designed to prevent the sale of 
oleomargarine for anything except what it is. Let me tell you what 
the facts are. In the State of Wisconsin, from which I come, and where 
for six years it has been my purpose and my effort to enforce the dairy 
and food laws of that State, this is the way they deceive the people 
there. To a very considerable extent we enforce the law. The manu- 
facturer sells his oleomargarine for what it is. The wholesaler sells it 
for what it is. The retailer, as a rule, buys it for what it is; and the 
retailer in Wisconsin, as a rule, sells it for what it is, but the men and 
the women who buy the great bulk of that product in the State of 
Wisconsin, buying it for what it is, place it upon the tables of their 
boarding houses and hotels and restaurants and along the counters, and 
sell it in response to a call and a desire for what ? Oleomargarine? 
Not for one instant. It is sold in response to a call for butter, to peo- 
ple who do not want oleomargarine and do not ask for it. Not only 
that, but in the State of Wisconsin the law is evaded in another way. 
Our friends in Chicago have agents in that State. These agents go 
around to the different people whom they think may want to buy oleo- 
margarine. They take orders and those orders are sent to the Chicago 
dealer and the goods are sent to the final purchaser in the care of this 
agent and delivered by him to them; and undoubtedly, although we 
can not prove it in prosecutions, these agents take the diflt'erence be- 
tween the wholesale price and the retail price. 

Under the law of Wisconsin an agent is not a seller, and we are 
unable to rea(;h the trafiQc. That is the way they avoid it in our State. 
In the main our prosecutions are successful, but not always. Let me 
give you as an illustration one case where they were not. I sent my 
inspector into a city in northern Wisconsin having a population of 
30,000. He bought some colored oleomargarine sold by a dealer in 
violation of law. We appeared in court. Our testimony was abso- 



444 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

Intely perfect so far as proof was concerned. It was not doubted or 
denied in any way by the attorney for the defense. The attorney for 
the defense was the mayor of that city — a skilled lawyer. He came 
before the jury. He did not jjut a single witness upon the stand — not 
one. He simply said to the jury, "Gentlemen, this man who has been 
arrested has been a citizen of this city many years. He is a good man. 
He pays his taxes. He is regarded as honest. These men who are 
trying to enforce this State law have come up here and induced him to 
break it. He is a good fellow." There was a saloon keeper on the 
jury. He said, "This law is like the Sunday closing law, not designed 
for enforcement. Now, what you want to do, gentlemen of the jury, is 
to go out and acquit this man." They went out and in three minutes 
they acquitted him, in spite of the evidence, in spite ot the law. We 
go down to the city of Racine and arrest men for selling colored but- 
terine, and they are aided by their friends in Chicago. They employ 
the most talented attorneys in the city. He comes in and secures 
postponements and motions from one court to another, and it comes up 
for final trial in the circuit court. The circuit judge disappears — prop- 
erly, no doubt — and another judge from a distant county comes in and 
throws the case bodily out of court, because he says the complaint was 
improperly drawn ; and yet every case in the State of Wisconsin that 
has been brought before the best judges in that State has been based 
upon the same form of complaint — a complaint used in Massachusetts, 
a complaint used in New York, a complaint which has practically been 
passed upon by tlie highest courts in the land. That is the way this 
law is evaded in the State of Wisconsin. I can not give you all the 
details. I give you some of them because my time is limited. 

Senator Allen. It ought to be a very easy matter to draw a suffi- 
cient complaint. 

Mr. Adams. It was sufficient. The judge simply turned it down. 
All the authorities were arrayed behind that complaint, without a sin- 
gle exception. But I just give this as an illustration of the difficulty 
of enforcing the laws of my State. 

One of the gentlemen on the other side, fair-minded, as I believe, as a 
rule, and courteous always, came in here the other day and made a 
statement which I think on reflection he would be willing to change. 
He says the representatives and friends of this Grout bill have come 
in here and made the cowardly statement to this committee that their 
laws were not enforced. I would ask the gentleman and ask the com- 
mittee if it is cowardly for the representative of any interest to come 
in here and tell the truth. We say it is not enforced to the extent that 
we desire. We say that in the great State of New York, represented 
before this committee by a dairy and food commissioner who for seven- 
teen years has been improving by his own mind and judgment the laws 
of that State by necessary amendments, and who has enforced to a 
great extent the laws of New York, the facts are honestly admitted. 
The admission includes his assistant, who came before this committee 
and said that in one thousand cases in the city of New York during the 
last three or four years in every solitary one of them he secured convic- 
tions, and in every case the j)roduct was bought for and as butter by 
the people who wanted butter. 

Why, gentlemen, you talk about the merits of this law and you say 
that you men who represent the dairy commissioners ought to go out 
and enforce it. We do go out. We do the best we can. In the State 
of Wisconsin only 700,000 pounds were sold last year, and that is only 
one-third of a pound of oleomargarine to every inhabitant in that State. 



OLEOMARGARINK. 445 

Tliey say, ''If it is so small, why do you want it?" We want it 
because Wisconsin is a great dairy State; because we manufacture 
annually 80,000,000 pounds of butter; because that butter is sent into 
all the markets of the world. We are willing to meet any comi)etition 
which is legitimate in those markers. We are willing to stand up 
against any product of science or art or skill which these gentlemen 
may devise in the open markets, but we do not want to stand up against 
a counterfeit which, as the courts have said, is of such a character that 
the average consumer can not distinguish, and is thereby compelled to 
buy a thing which he does not want. 

Have we no testimony? Is it not true that as against the testimony 
of the gentlemen interested in the oleomargarine business and. their 
attorneys before this committee every dairy commissioner in the 
United States who has expressed himself upon this subject has said 
that there is need of national legislation to wipe out what is one of the 
greatest evils in food products in this country of ours? Is not that 
testimony before this committee? Our friends on the other side have 
endeavored to array the stock interests of the country against us upon 
the ground mainly of personal interest which those stockmen may 
have in this question. For just a moment I will refer to that. 

During the last year, as I understand it, there were in round numbers 
5,000,000 beeves killed in this country. The total amount of oleo oil 
which went into the i)roductiou of the 1899 oleomargarine product was 
24,000,000 pounds. In round numbers the value of that product was 
82,000,000. Tliat is about 40 cents per head, as ag:ainst the statement 
of the representatives, so called, ot the live-stock interests before this 
committee that the loss, if this bill is enacted into law, would be from 
$3 to $4 a head. Now, that is on the supposition, which is not correct, 
that if this bill is enacted into law the oleomargarine industry will be 
crushed. It will not be crushed. You will do what is done in Denmark, 
in my judgment. In years to come — I don't know how many it will 
take — you will sell a good lair portion of your product in the American 
market as it is sold in Denmark. Three and a half pounds to each 
inhabitant are sold there of uncolored oleomargarine to 1 pound to 
each inhabitant in the United States, even with all the aids that color 
can give and all the frauds that are perpetrated in the difterent States 
in this Union. Why, gentlemen, even if they could not sell their oleo- 
margarine product for this purpose, they can sell it as tallow, and they 
can get half the amount which they get now, and the actual loss under 
those ligures would be less than 20 cents a head. 

Out west of the Missouri River what is most valuable to those people 
who have been raising wheat year after year and year after year and 
exhausting their soils? We have had some experience in Wisconsin. 
When I was a boy, away back in the seventies, the farmers in Wisconsin 
were in linancial distress. They had cropped and recropped their fields 
and cropped again, as they have in the State of Iowa, until the produc- 
tion of wheat had dropped from 20 bushels to 10 bushels per acre. They 
turned to the business of keeping cows. They have made Wisconsin a 
dairy State. They have made a product which has not taken fertility 
out of the soil — butter — which is sun like, and does not come from the 
valuable elements of plant food that lie in the soil; and because of that 
business they have bro\ight back to the State i)rospcrity and more wealth 
and more comfort not only to the farming i^opulation of Wisconsin and 
Iowa and Minnesota, but also to every class of peoiile in those States; 
and in Nebraska and in those States beyond the Missouri that process 
is going on. The coming industry in those States is going to be the 



446 OLEOMAKGARINE. 

industry of the cow. We do not want to build up this butter business 
upon the ruins of any other legitimate business, and least of all upon 
the ruins of that business which is comprised in the making of meat 
foods for the domestic and foreign markets. 

A gentleman came here the other day and said he represented the 
labor organizations of a portion of the State of Pennsylvania, and he 
said before this committee, claiming to represent the real interests of 
labor, that he did not buy oleomargarine himself — that he did not have 
to; and he and his friend testitied before this committee that when 
those men went into the stores of Pennsylvania they invariably called 
for butter and they got oleomargarine, and knew they were going to 
get it. Why? Because he said they were ashamed to buy oleomarga- 
rine under its own name. It is an astonishing proposition. What will 
be the effect to the laboring men of this country of the passage of this 
law"? It will be that oleomargarine will be sold under its own color 
and at an oleomargarine price. You go into the markets of Wisconsin, 
you go into the markets anywhere, and you buy uncolored oleomarga- 
rine and you get it at a reasonable oleomargarine price. There is no 
more disgrace in buying oleomargarine under its own form and color 
than there is for a men)ber of Congress to go up here to this vaudeville 
show and buy a ^.Icent seat instead of a 50-cent seat. I have seen 
them do it. There is no more disgrace in a woman's going into a store 
and buying a calico dress than there is in buying a silk dress. It is 
simply idle nonsense. Pass this bill and the laboring men of this coun- 
try will get their substitute for butter at exactly what it is worth. 
Permit oleomargarine to be sold uncolored, and these men claim they 
have an actual right to it, given to them by the Almighty, and they 
will be compelled in the majority of instances to pay a butter price 
for it. 

Gentlemen, I do not want to crowd upon the time of the gentlemen 
who are to follow me, but 1 want to read just a little, simjdy to enter 
it in this testimony, with reference to the direct testimony which we 
have brought. 

Senator Allen. Do you not think it would save time and do just as 
well to file it and let it become part of the record? 

Mr. Adams. Except this, Senator; part of these letters are personal. 
I am going to read extracts, and they will be very brief. 

I received a short time ago from the Vermont Dairymen's Association 
the following resolution : 

Eemlred, That we, the members of the Vermout Dairymen's Association, in our 
thirty-first annual meeting assembled, do heartily apjjrove of the Grout oleomarga- 
rine bill now pending in Congress. 

Resolved, We believe it for the best interests of the producer of pure dairy foods, 
as well as the consumer, that such a bill be enacted. 

Eemlvecl, That the members of Congress from Vermout be asked to use every 
legitimate effort in securing the passage of said bill. 

Besolved, That a copy.of these resolutions be sent at once to each member of Con- 
gress from Vermont. 

Here is a letter from the dairy commissioner of Michigan : 

State of Michigan, 
Dairy and Food Department, 

Detroit, Mich., December 21, 1900. 
Hon. H. C. Adams, Madison, Wis. 

Dear Mr. Adams: * * * if i can arrange some matters herein Michigan, I 
shall try and leave sometime Wednesday, and shall reach Washington early on 
the morning of the 3d. I will do my best to bring this about, but, as I say, the 
chances seem against it. Had I known a little while ago that you might desire my 
testimony I should have held myself in readiness, but coming as unexpectedly as 



OLEOMARGARIlSiE. 447 

your summons does, it places me in a very diffictilt position. I earnestly desire to 
assist in the vassaj'-e of the Grout bill, and believe that the story I can toll of the 
situation in Michigan might do something to secure the end. Further, I feel that 
the consuming public, as well as the dairymen of Michigan, have a right to expect 
me to at least reveal conditions when important legislation like this is pending. 

The principal reason why I can not leave Michigan is the fact that I am about to 
turn over the dairy and food department to my successor just in the midst of a bit- 
ter milk fight here in Detroit. 

Verj' sincerely, yours, Elliot O. Grosvenor, ComrnhKioner. 

I have also the following- letter : 

State of Iowa, 
Office of Dairy Commissioner, 

Cresco, Iowa, December 29, 1900. 
Hon. H. C. Adams, Madison, Wis. 

Dear Sir: * * * Will you not kindly express for me my strong indorsement 
of the bill in its present form. The undersigned has yet to find a single man who 
objects to the bill when he understands its provisions and its purpose, unless hia 
personal interests are along the line of selling oleomargarine under present condi- 
tions. I am firmly con\ inced of the necessity of this law, and know only too well 
the futility of our present State anticolor laws. The 100,000 creamery patrons of 
Iowa are anxiously awaiting the passage of this bill, and it has the indorsement of 
almost all our farmers, whether interested in dairying or not. 
Respectfully, 

B. P. Norton, Dairy Commissioner. 

I have a letter here from J. B. Xoble, dairy commissioner of the State 
of Couuecticut : 

State of Connecticut, Dairy Commissioneii's Office, 

Hartford, January 3, 1901. 
Hon. 11. C. Adams, 

Dairy Commissioner, Madison, Wis. 
Dear Sir ; * * * This is one of the most important measures connected with 
the dairy interests which has been before Congress for a long time. The dairymen 
all over the country are recognizing its importance and are extremely anxious for 
the passage of this bill. 

Important matters in regard to our own business in Connecticut will keep me 
here for the present. I have two oleo cases which must be attended to this week, 
and I can not leave them, and other business connected with the office, to go to 
Washington now. * * * 

Yours, respectfully, J. B. Noble. 

Here is a telegram from the Commission Merchants' League, Cleve- 
land, Ohio: 

Convention has just passed resolution indorsing the Grout bill, and wired Proctor 
at Washington. 

Charles T. Matthews. 

Now, then, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, we sub- 
mit here as testimony in behalf of this bill the experience of the dairy 
commissioners, who are brought directly into contact with this business 
and have the facilities which few men can have of knowing the char- 
acter of that traffic. We come here to Congress and ask for its pas- 
sage, because we believe it is a proper exercise of Congressional power 
to place a tax which is substantially prohibitory, in our judgment, upon 
oleomargarine colored in imitation of butter. We have behind us not 
only the statements of the commissioners, but we have also behind us 
the expression of 613,000,000 of people who have legislated in behalf of 
absolute prohibition in their several States. 

If you will excuse me a moment, I wish to made reference to certain 
cases which I have not taken the time to read : 

In McAllister v. State (7l' Md., 390), the court of appeals of Maryland 
sustained the validity of a statute of that State declaring it unlawful 
to offer for sale as an article of food in imitation and semblance of nat- 



448 OLEOMARGARINE. 

uial butter. The object of tbe statute being to protect purchasers 
against fraud and deception, the power of the legislature the court 
said, following the previous decision in Pierce v. State (63 Md., 596), 
was too i^lain to be questioned. 

In Waterbury v. Newton (21 Vroom, 534), the 'New Jersey supreme 
court sustained the validity of an act that forbade the sale of oleomar- 
garine colored with annato. In response to the suggestion that oleo- 
margarine colored with annato was a wbolesome article of food, the sale 
of which could not be prohibited, the court said: 

If the sok' basis for this statute were the protection of the public health, this 
objection would be pertinent, and might require us to consider the delicate questions 
whether and how far the judiciary can pass upon the adaptability of the means which 
the legislature has proposed for the accomplishment of its legitimate ends; but, as 
already intimated, this provision is not aimed at the protection of the public health. 
Its object is to secure to the dairymen and the public at large a fuller and fairer 
enjoyment of their property by excluding from the market a commodity prepared 
with a view of deceiving those purchasing it. It is not pretended that annato has 
any other function in the manuiacture of oleomargarine than to make it a counter- 
feit of butter, which is more generally esteemed and commands a higher jirice. That 
the legislature may repress such counterfeits does not admit, I think, of substantial 
question. Laws of like character have been frequently assailed before the courts, 
but always without success. 

It was further held by the court that the statute of New Jersey was 
not repugnant to the clause of the Constitution eini:)owering Congress 
to regulate commerce among the States, but that the package there in 
question, and which had been brought from Indiana, became, upon its 
delivery in Jersey City, subject to the laws of New Jersey relating gen- 
erally to articles of that nature. (50 N. J. L., 535, 537.) 

In the case of State v. Marshall (64 N. H., 549, 551, 552), arising under 
a statute of New Hampshire relating to the sale of imitation butter, 
the court said: 

Butter is a necessary article of food, of almost universal consumption ; and if an 
article compounded from cheaper ingredients, Avhich many people would not pur- 
chase or use if they knew what it was, can be made so closely to resemble butter 
that ordinary persons can not distinguish it I'rom genuine butter, the liability to de- 
ception is such that protection of the ])ublic requires those dealing in the article in 
some way to designate its real character. * * ' The prohibition of the statute 
being directed against imposition in selling or exposing for sale artificial compounds 
resembling butter in appearance and flavor, and liable to be mistakpn for genuine 
butter, it is no defense that the article sold or exposed for sale is free from impurity 
and unwholesome ingredients, and healthful and nutritious as an article of food. 

Senator Allen. Can you furnish the committee a copy of that brief? 

Mr. Adams. I can. I will submit the entire brief, which is a protest 
of the National Dairy Union against the adulteration of food products. 

I would like also to submit some references here which I would like 
to discuss with reference to certain points concerning the legal phase 
of this question, but which I will not take the time to discuss. 

The references above referred to are as follows : 

CONSTITUTIONALITY OF A LAW PLACING AN INTERNAL-REVENUE TAX UPON 

OLEOMARGARINE. 

The Supreme Court in McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat., 428, says: 

" It is admitted that the power of taxing the people and their property is essential 
to the very existence of the Government, and may be legitimately exercised to the 
utmost extent to which the Government may choose to carry it. The people give to 
their Government the right of taxing themselves and their property; and as the exi- 
gencies of the Government may not be limited, they prescribe no limits to the exer- 
cise of this right, resting confidently on the interest of the legislator and on the 
influence of the constituents over their rejiresentatives to guard them against abuse." 

Desty, in his work ou taxation, says : 

" One purpose of taxation sometimes is to discourage a business, and perhaps to 
put it out o*' existence, and it is taxed without any idea of protection attending the 
burden." 



OLEOMARGARINE. 449 

In 1886 Cougvess passed a law imposing a tax of 10 per rent ou all currency 
issued by State banks. This was intended clearly not as a ineasure of taxation, but 
aa a measure of prohibition. The Supreme Court of the United States held this law 
to be constitutional, imd said: 

"The tax can not be held invalid for being so excessive as to indicate a purpose to 
destroy the franchise of the State banks." 

Chief Jnstice Marshall, in the case of McCulloch r. Maryland, also said : 
"That the power to tax involves the power to destroy is a proposition not to be 
denied. " 

.Justice Story, in his work on the Constitution, book 1, pages 677-678, says: 
"Nothing is more clear from the history of nations than the fact that the taxing 
power is often, very often, applied lor other purposes than re\'enue. It is often 
applied as a virtual prohibition; sometimes to banish a noxious article of consump- 
tion ; sometimes as a suppression of particular employments." 
Alexander Hamilton says: 

" Under the taxing power there is no limit as to the amount which may be charged. 
It often happens in certain avocations that the power to tax is used in aid of the 
police i)Ower, either by devoting the fund to the payment of the police power or by 
making the tax so high as to be in its nature i)rohibitory.'' 

Jnstice Woodbury, in the case of Pierce et al. r. N. H., 5 Wheat., 608, said : 
"But I go further ou this point than some of the court, and wish to meet the case 
in front and in its worst bearings. If, as in the view of some, these license laws are 
in the nature of partial or entire prohibitions to sell certain articles, as being dan- 
gerous to public health and morals, it does not seem to me that their conflict with 
the Constitution would by any means ))e clear. Taking for granted that the real 
design in passing them is the avowed one (prohibition), they would appear entirely 
defensible as a matter of right, though prohibiting sales." 

In Walker's Science of Wealth this rule of taxation is also general: 
"The heaviest taxes should be imposed upon those commodities the consumption 
of which is especially prejudicial to the interests of the people." 

Mr. Hewes. I would like to add oue case to tbe references given by 
Commissioner Adams. That is the case of Fox, 89 Maryland, page 
389, That is where Judge Fowler says it is impossible to restrict the 
sale of original packages when the article is not deleterious to health, 
if it is not proven by the State that it is deleterious to health. That 
is a very important case, showing the absolute necessity for this 
legislation, so far as the first section is concerned. 

STATEMENT OF S. C. BASSETT, PRESIDENT OF THE NEBRASKA 
STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 

Senator Allen. Give your name, place of residence, and occupation. 

Mr. Bassett. S. C. Bassett, Gibbon, Nebr. Mr. Chairman and gen- 
tlemen of the committee: As president of the Nebraska State Board 
of Agriculture, I appear before you to-day in behalf of the farmers and 
dairymen of Nebraska who desire that the so-called "Grout" bill shall 
become a law. 

If you will pardon a personal allusion, I might say that thirty years 
ago 1 made settlement on a homestead in that State, upon which I have 
since resided: that much of that time I have been engaged in the dairy 
and live stock business, and that in this matter I represent the views 
and wishes of the thousands of farmers of my own State. 

It was stated by a gentleman who appeared before you that the 
farmers were not asking the passage of this law; in fact, that the 
farmers were not i^articularly interested in the matter. 

In view of the great interest which this measure has created in 
Congress; in view of its widespread discussion in the public press; 
in view of the fact that every agricultural newspaper in our land 
advocates its passage; that every State dairy and food commissioner 
who has appeared before you is in favor of the bill; that State boards of 
agriculture, State dairymen's associations, national and State granges 
have all adopted resolutions in favor of this measure and urging that 

S. Rep. 2043 29 



450 OLEOMARGARINE. 

it become a law; in view of all these facts, it seems to me that one 
must be willfully ignorant who says or intimates that farmers or dairy- 
men are not asking or particularly desiring that this measure become 
a law. 

In my own State ver^^ few measures before Congress have ever 
created the interest among our farmers that this one does. 

We have been struggling for years to suppress the fraudulent sale 
of oleomargarine as and for butter. By a large majority in the House 
and with but two dissenting votes in the Senate we passed in 1895 a 
law prohibiting the sale of imitation butter colored yellow. 

This law is openly violated. Large quantities of oleomargarine of a 
yellow color are sold, and I fully believe 90 per cent of the same is sold 
to the consumer as and for butter. 

In 1898 we created the oftice of food commissioner, whose duty it was 
to enforce the dairy laws of the State. In attempting to enforce said 
laws it became necessary for the deputy food commissioner to employ a 
chemist and have analyzed samples of oleomargarine sold for butter. 
When about ready for use of the testimonj^ of the chemist in cases where 
parties were to be tried for violation of the dairy laws, the chemist 
refused to proceed with the analysis or to remain longer in the employ 
of the food commissioner, giving as a reason that he had been employed 
by other parties, and later it appeared that the other parties were those 
engaged in the sale of oleomargarine. 

When the constitutionality of the law creating the office of food com- 
missioner was raised in our courts, the oleomargarine interests asked 
to be allowed to appear by their attorneys as against the law. I men- 
tion these matters to show that a very large per cent of the people of 
my State are oi:)posed to the fraudulent sale of oleomargarine; that by 
legal enactments they have endeavored to suppress this fraud, using 
every reasonable effort in their power to that end : that the fraud con- 
tinues to be perpetrated and the dealers in oleomargarine continue to 
violate the law. 

It ought not to be forgotten, but should be kept constantly in mind, 
that the exceedingly large profits which dealers in oleomargarine 
receive is the reason why its sale is so strenuously pushed. Those who 
divide the profits of this most i)rofitable business are comparatively few 
in number, and the retail dealers, who are the princi])al violators of the 
law, receive the lion's share of the profit, considering the amount 
handled. With us a retail dealer makes not to exceed an average of 
2 cents per j)ound on butter sold, while the retail dealer in oleomar- 
garine makes a profit of 8 to 10 cents per pound. 

By State legislation we seem well-nigh powerless to control this 
fraud, and this is why we come to the National Congress, believing 
that this is the only power which can compel the sale of this product 
on its own merits and for what it is. 

There is one phase of this question which has been presented to your 
committee which is of vital importance to the people of my State. We 
not only produce dairy products of considerable value, but we also 
raise and fatten for the market large numbers of cattle, hogs, and sheep. 
The live stock industry is, with us, the leading industry. Hence, any 
legislation calculated to injuriously affect this industry or materially 
lessen in the markets the value of our live stock is of prime importance. 

Both before this committee and elsewhere the oleomargarine interests 
have endeavored to make it appear that the manufacture and sale of 
oleomargarine increases to a marked extent the value of each animal 
slaughtered in our packing centers, and that the passage of this bill 



OLEOMARGARINE. 451 

will cause a direct loss to the farmer or raiser of live stock on each ani- 
mal marketed. There has been created among stockmen a manufactured 
sentiment that the passage of this measure would injure their business. 
At a meeting of live-stock owners in my own State within a year a reso- 
lution was presented protesting against the passage of this bill on the 
ground that it would greatly lessen the value of live stock marketed. 
It was explained that tliis statement was not true, and so proven. The 
resolution was finally adopted, one prominent stockman stating in open 
meeting that while he knew nothing as to the facts in the case he should 
vote for the resolution on general principles. 

The IS'atioual Live Stock Association has adopted resolutions oppos- 
ing the passage of this measure, and a representative of the association 
has appeared before this committee and attempted to show by statistics 
and otherwise that this proposed law would very materially lessen the 
value of all live stock marketed. 

On December 17 last, by means of the Associated Press dispatches, 
there was broadcasted over the country the following statement, pur- 
porting to come from Mr. John W. Springer, president of the National 
Live Stock Association. It is dated at Denver, Colo., and is as follows : 

" The stockmen of the West are all interested in this bill," said Mr. Springer to-day, 
"and so are all manufacturers. If such a measure as this can become law no indus- 
try in the country is safe. If it should become a law and take effect it means sim- 
ply that the stockmen of the West will lose from $3 to $4 on every steer they market. 
We also claim that the only people directly interested in the passage of this law is 
the butter trust." 

A neighbor of mine who annually feeds large numbers of cattle for 
market, after reading this statement, said- to me : " If that statement be 
true I certainly am opposed to your Grout bill." 

Gentlemen of the committee, as I understand this matter, this state- 
ment is not true, and neither by statistics nor otherwise can it be shown 
to be true. Statistics published by the United States Department of 
Agriculture for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1899, show that at 41 
packing centers the number of cattle inspected before slaughter was 
4,654,842. Outside of those inspected by the Department it is esti- 
mated that enough more were slaughtered to make the aggregate 
number slaughtered for the year, 5,000,000 head. 

The report of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States to 
Congress in May last shows that in all the 83,000,000 pounds of oleo- 
margarine manufactured in this country last year there were but 
24,491,769 pounds of oleo oil used. This at 9 cents per pound has a 
value of $2,204,259, which sum divided among the 5,000,000 head of 
cattle who produced this oleo oil makes an average of 44 cents per head. 

In some cases this product is priced at 10 cents per pound, but I think 
that is unjust from a producer's standpoint, for the reason that at 10 
cents a pound oleo oil is a manufactured product into which labor, etc., 
goes, and on which profit is realized, but the man who markets the 
cattle does not receive 10 cents a pound for it, and I have used the 
figure 9 cents, which, in my judgment, is a proper estimate. No one 
believes or for a moment seriously contends that if this oleo product 
used in the manufacture of oleomargarine could not be so used it 
would be a total loss, and lessen by the sum of 44 cents the average 
amount received by the owners of cattle for each animal sold for slaugh- 
ter. But suppose it needs be sold at the price of other fats — 5 cents 
per pound — it would mean a mere nominal loss of 20 cents on each 
animal sold for slaughter, which sum every owner of live stock well 
knows is hardly given a thought when his stock is being disposed of 
for slaughter at packing centers. 



452 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Twenty cents is but 5 per cent — the one-twentieth part — of tlie $4 
claimed by the president of the IS^ational Live Stock Association. 
Twenty cents represents the value of about an average of five pounds 
in the live weight of an animal sold for slaughter, while the $4 claimed 
would represent about one hundred pounds of live weight. 

As showing that the sentiments expressed by the National Live 
Stock Association do not represent the sentiments of the majority of 
the people in the States in which the cattle are owned, I desire to call 
attention to tlie number of head of cattle in each State as shown on 
I)age 95 of the published report of the bearing of this matter before 
the House committee. 

Mr. John C McCoy, in his argument before the committee, gives the 
number of head of cattle in each State, and for convenience I have 
arranged them in two classes, as follows: 

Number of cattle in States having laws prohibiting the sale of oleo- 
margarine colored yellow : 

Alabama 511, 080 New York 2, 059, 715 

California 913,753 ; North Dakota 431,371 

Colorado 1,115,421 Ohio 1, 455,558 

Counecticut 210,717 OregoD 637,433 

Delaware 58, 035 Peunsvlvania 1, 494, 126 

Georgia 666, 147 SoutirCarolina 260, 223 

Illinois 2,324,254 i South Dakota 879,200 

Iowa 3,442,012 Teuiu-ssee 526,235 

Keutucky 539, 449 Utah 336,076 

Maine...' 316,537 i Vermont 401,336 

Maryland 257, 435 Virginia 567, 488 

Massachusetts 254, 967 Washington 390. 444 

Miuuesota 1,237,003 > West Virginia 408,198 

Missouri 2, 047, 346 i Wisconsin 1, 598, 529 

Nebraska 2, 206, 792 Michigan 801, 818 

New Hampshire 214,678 

New Jersey 263,157 Total 28,825,933 

JS'umber of cattle in States and Territories not having laws prohibiting the sale of oleomar- 
garine colored yellow. 

Arkansas 419,422 | Nevada 238,081 

Arizona 381, 861 ' New Me.\ico 679, 359 

Florida 412,820 North Carolina 518, 141 

Idaho 397,928 Oklahoma 323,971 

Indiana 1,234,930 Rhode Island 35,405 

Kansas 2,867,224 Texas 5,046,335 

Louisiana 294,961 Wyoming 747,826 

Mississippi 517,809 I 

Montana 959,808; Total 15,065,881 

It seems to me it is fair to presume that, in the 32 States in which 
laws have been enacted prohibiting the sale of oleomargarine colored 
yellow, the sentiment of a considerable majority of the people of each 
of those States is in opposition to the fraudulent sale of oleomargarine 
as and for butter, and in favor of the passage of the Grout bill. Of 
the 43,891,814 head of cattle owned in the United States, 28,825,933, or 
more than 65 per cent, are owned in States where laws have been en- 
acted to prevent the traudulent sale of oleomargarine. 

There seems to be an impression here that you can separate the live- 
stock interest into two classes, as it were, men who raise live stock for 
selling purposes and men who are engaged in the dairying business — 
that is, that the men engaged in the dairy business have no interest in 
live-stock matters. This is not for a moment true. A man engaged in 
dairying raises the calves the same as the man engaged only in live- 
stock raising. Those calves go to market for slaughter, and further- 



OLEOMARGARINE. 453 

more, iu the State in which I live, a eousideiable portion of that State 
is what we call the range section, altogether given np to the raising of 
live stock. In western Nebraska and in western Kansas there is not 
much farming done. There is not much raised iu the way of ciojjs. 
The business of the people is the keeping of live stock. 

Senator Allen. Will you permit me to ask you a question, Mr. 
Bassett? 

Mr. Bassett. Certainly. 

Senator Allen. The dairy interests of our State raise an entirely 
different class of cattle from the meat-producing interests, do they not? 

Mr. Bassett. We used to, but we have realized that the calves, the 
steer calf especially, has a value to the dairyman, and instead of raising 
and keeping Jersey cows and Holsteius for dairy purposes, we are going 
back to what is called the common-i)urpose cow, that produces a 
reasonable profit in a dairy way and at the same time we raise steers 
that can be fattened for market. 

What I was going to say was that upon the range where their entire 
business was the raising and marketing of live stock is now one of the 
most promising industries of our State, in a dairy way. Out on the 
range, where men raise no crops whatever, we have some skinnning 
stations. A skimming station is where milk is brought and the cream 
separated from it and the cream shipped to the manutactory to be man- 
ufactured into batter. We have three skimming stations where 1 am 
under the im])ression that more pounds of milk are brought in a year to 
be skimme<l than at any other like stations in the United States and 
possibly in the world. The livestock owners on the ranges are becom- 
ing dairymen, and that is why I protest that the iSTational Live Stock 
Association does not represent the people of my State in this matter. 
The i)eople upon the range section of tlje State are interested in the 
I)assage of this measuie. 

I do not wish to discredit the National Live Stock Association before 
this committee, but in its ai)pearance here it does not represent either the 
wishes or sentiments of the very large majority of the farmers and stock 
raisers of my State. It undoubtedly does rejjrcsent the sentiment of the 
packers, commission men, owners of live stock on the ranges, and like 
interests, tint it does not represent the sentiment of our farmers and 
dairymen who are by far the largest raisers and owners of live stock. 

When I say " owners of live stock on ranges," I have reference to 
that class of men who own large interests in live stock. 

Senator Allen. Large herds ? 

Mr. Bassett. Large herds, yes; and those men do not do much in a 
dairy way. I have reference to men who own comparatively small 
herds of cattle. 

Senator Allen. Have you any idea of the number of cattle in the 
State of ]!^ebraska at this time? 

Mr. Bassett. Something over 2,000,000 head, I tliiuk. 

We make no complaint concerning oleo sold as such, but we do make 
complaint against oleo sold as and for butter and at butter prices. 
The whole and entire reason that it can be thus sold is that it is 
colored iu semblance of butter. 

If a laboring man wants to eat butter he can buy it at the maiket 
price. If through necessity or choice he wants to eat "pork lat" or 
' 'beef fat" he can buy it for 5 cents to 7 cents a jiound. 

Again, we say. it is the color that enables all who desire to defraud 
the people to <lo so. A color law is the only law devised that pro- 
tects the consumer at the table. This law i>rotects the consumer and 
the producer. 



454 OLEOMARGARINE. 

When Germany and otLer nations placed or threatened to jdaoe 
restrictions on tbe importations of the packing- houses, the whole 
power of the General Government was called upon to keep the mar- 
kets open. They iought against these markets being taken from them. 

Ou the other hand, why should they, if they believe in fair dealing 
want to take the home market away from the rank and tile of the peo- 
ple! Why should they seek to diminish the outlet of the American 
farmer for his products? 

And more especially is this true when this outlet and this market 
is taken from him by iraud which the yellow artificial color given to 
oleo enables the retailer to work on the consumer. 

There are only two questions involved: 

1. This "Grout" bill will suppress iraud. 

2. It will keep open our domestic outlets and markets for the genuine 
product of the cow. 

^A'ill the Government, through its Senate and House of Representa- 
tives, stand with the farmer or against him! Will they stand for com- 
mon honesty or despicable fraud ! 

ADDITIONAL STATEMENT OF JAMES HEWES. 

Mr. Hewes. I would like consideration for a moment, if the com- 
mittee please, as a veteran. I do not believe that this idea has been 
advanced here at all. I am one of those who came here in 1886 to have 
the oleomargarine law, as it is called, passed. Of course it was novel 
legislation in Congress at that time, and we sought to have the policing 
feature as prominent as possible in that law. We are now only bring- 
ing that law to you here for revision, tinding that the nineteen sections 
that look to policing are almost disregarded. There are only two rev- 
enue sections to the law of 1886. The other nineteen look to the 
policing of ihe couutrj', and we ask you now to revise that because we 
find that State laws are powerless. We can not i)rosecute people for 
selling oleomargarine in the original |)ackage, because, as Brother 
Adams here has told you, we are met by the varying opinions of the 
different judges, and they are as various as the leaves from Vallom- 
brosa's shades. Judge Adams says one thing. Judge Lochran says 
another, and Judge Fowler says another. 

I have had the honor of prosecuting all offenders under the oleo- 
margarine law since 1878. It has been a long fight. First it was a 
regulating law — a law of inspection. Then it became the prohibitory 
law. Now it is the anticolor law. We come to Congress and we say 
to you, "This is our law; this is the law of the dairy. We brought 
this to you. If there is any revenue feature to it, we brought it to the 
Government," and we promised them a million and a half revenue. 
We have more than kept our promise. We have given them more than 
a million and a half revenue from the time the law was passed in 1886 
to the pi'esent time, and now we say we find that will not do. That 
does not protect the consumer at all from the practice of deception that 
the color i)roduces, and we ask you to eliminate color. W^e show you 
by samples produced here tliat it is possible to make oleomargarine 
white and still sell it. We do not crush out the industry. Further- 
more, we are almost ready to predict now that uncolored oleomargarine 
will produce a revenue to the United States Government of half a mil- 
lion dollars. But suppose it does not. Does the dairy interest of the 
country stand in any ditlerent position from what it did before the 
introduction of the law of 1886! Not at all. Was there any revenue 



OLEOMARGARINE. 455 

from this thing at all i)rior to 188G? Not a dollar. There is not a 
single gentleman who represents the other side but who is confident, 
perhaps, that with uncolored oleomargarine properly put before the 
public they can get a revenue of half a million dollars at least, 

Mr. Wadsworth. What do we get under the color law at 10 cents? 

Mr. Hewes. I do not believe there will be very much uncolored oleo- 
margarine sold, and therefore the ]>ublic will be protected from this 
fraud that is perpetrated upon them, illustrated to day by what occurred 
down here at this restaurant. 

The two cases that have been decided in Pennsylvania (in 133 Penn- 
sylvania State Peports) — and they are the leading cases now on that 
subject — go to show that if a man puts up a meal and serves oleomar- 
garine, he sells oleomargarine. That is a retail sale of oleomargarine, 
because the cost of the olemargarine is included in his bill of fare. 

Senator Money. Providing he has got butter on the bill of fare. 

Mr. Hewes. He has got no butter on the bill of fare, but the pre- 
sumption is you are going to get butter. 

Senator Heitfeld. Suppose you go into a restaurant and ask for a 
meal and do not get any butter at all. 

Mr. Hewes. You call for butter, or refuse to eat. 

Senator Heitfeld. Not in our part of the country. We often call 
for it and don't get it. You go into a mining camp, and I will defy you 
to get butter. 

Mr. Hewes, 1 never heard of that East. 

Senator Heitfeld. You could not carry it in there. There is no 
possibility of it getting in there. It would be strong and rancid before 
you could get it there. 

Mr. Hewes. Where is that? 

Senator Heitfeld. That is in the mining camps. 

Mr. Hewes. We are talking about east of the Mississippi River. 

Senator Heitfeld. I do not consider it fraud, as a rule, to set up 
oleomargarine in a hotel, unless the bill of fare contains butter and it 
is palmed olf on you as butter. . 

Sir. Hewes. Take it from the standpoint of a mining camp or any 
other place, as rude and primitive as it may be. If you go into a res- 
taurant and they i>ut up anything at all, the presumption is it is butter. 
You do not presume that a man is going to put oleomargarine on the 
table for you; and if it was white, you would detect it immediately. 

There has been a great deal of talk here about the different grades of 
butter. i\Iy friend the Secretary of Agriculture did not tell you about 
the laws of foreign countries as fully as he could have told you, because 
he knew well enough that was not evidence. The law of Belgium is just 
the same as the law of Holland. The law of France is just as restricted 
as the law of Holland, 

Senator Dolliver, How do thej- prevent people from getting the 
counterfeit goods"? 

Mr, Hewes. Senator, they make oleomargarine to be sold in a place 
that is different from where butter can be sold. You can not go into 
the oleomargarine division in Paris and ask for butter, and you can not 
go into the butter division and ask for oleomargarine. 

Mr. TiLLiNGiiAST. How does that protect the table? 

Mr. Hewes. That protects the people who buy it. We have our own 
sins to answer for, however. We can not regulate the law of Paris. 

Senator Dolliver. But we are struggling for some metliod by which 
to regulate our own affairs. 

Mr. Hewes. Yes ; vou want to get the best. 



456 0LE0MAKC4ARINE. 

Senator Dolliver. I would like to know how a hotel in Paris is 
prevented from sellinj;' me oleomargarine if I sit down at its table "i 

Mr. Hewes. My ini])ression is tbat in Paris you are subject to the 
depredations of plunderers the same as you are in Washington, because 
of the color being in oleomargarine, and we ask you t»t eliminate it. 
Supi)Ose you went to the best hotel in Paris, or suppose you went to 
the Hotel Metropole or any other place in London and they brought 
you oleomargarine 

Senator Dolliver. I understood the Secretary of Agriculture to say 
that the United States is the only country in the world which allows 
its people to be plundered in this way. 

Mr. Hewes. He made a mistake about that, I think. I believe he 
admitted he made a mistake and tried to correct it. He said that oleo- 
margarine that was exported from this country was exi^orted mostly as 
oleo oil, and when they got it to the other side, they could do as they 
pleased with it; but the laws on the other side are so well enforced that 
even if a man perpetrates a fraud, he does not violate the law openly 
as he does here. 

Senator Heitfeld, Will you allow me to interrupt j^ou a moment? 

Mr. Hewes. Yes, sir. 

Senator Heitfeld. This oleomargarine that I tind in the market 
here sells for 18 cents. 

Mr. Hewes. What market? 

Senator Heitfeld. Plei e in the Center Market in Washington it sells 
for 18 cents a ])ound. There is now a tax of 2 cents a pound, and if 10 
cents a pound is added to the tax the dealer would receive -!0 cents. 
There is no butter to be had in that market worth taking out for less 
than 30 cents a pound. How are you going to prevent the sale of it? 
Will not the hotels still use it in preference to butter at 26 cents when 
they have got to pay 30 cents for poor butter? 

Mr. Hewes. I suppose they will. 

Senator Heitfeld. Then, where are you benefited? 

Mr. Hewes. If the hotel uses that oleomargarine it will not i)ut it 
before you for butter. 

Senator Heitfeld. Why should it not? 

Mr. Hewes, Because the hotel people will simj)ly say to you, prob- 
ably, "Do you want oleomargarine or do you want butter?" 

Mr. Medairy. I would like to say this. Senator: You are adding 8 
cents additional to the profits of the retailer. That is where you are in 
error. The additional tax is put on the manufacturer's price. The 
retailer now gets 18 cents a pound for the product, but if you i)ut the 
8 cents additional tax upon the cost of manufacture, it does not inure 
as much profit proportionately to the retailer, and consequently the 
consumer gets the benefit of it. 

Mr. Hewes. To resume where I left off. In the prosecutions in the 
State of Maryland ever since 1878 it has been my privilege 

Senator Allen. I do not want to interrupt you unnecessarily, and if 
it is disagreeable to you I will not do so. 

Mr. Hewes. It is not disagreeable at all, Senator. 

Senator Allen. You said that in Paris and other Eastern cities oleo- 
margarine was set up in one restaurant, for instance, and no butter 
could be sold there. 

Mr. Hewes. Only in France, Senator. 

Senator Allen. And conversely where butter was sold oleomarga- 
rine could not be sold ? 

Mr. Hewes. That is right. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 457 

Seuator ALLE^^ IJut suppose in search iuj^- for butter I walk into one 
of these uleoiuargarine stores, not knowinji' but what oleouiarj^arine is 
sold there, and 1 see an article like this, and I say " I want 10 pounds of 
this butter." They will sell it to me, will they not? 

j\Ir. Hewes, If you call it butter? 

Senator Allen. 1 do not know. I am in search of butter; I walk 
in and see this article, 

Mr. Hewes, You see that article, but you walk into the oleomarga- 
rine f^ide, you mean ? 

Senator Allen. But I do not know the oleomargarine side. 

Mr. Hewes. But they have got big placards there in 4-inch letters. 

Senator Heitfeld. They have that here at this market now. 

Senator Allen. Suppose I buy a cigar and give the gentleman a $5 
bill. He gives me back the change. I do not stop to count it. I do 
not know whether he has given me the right change or not. So I walk 
into one of these stores and I want some butter. I do not look at pla- 
cards or signs. 1 suppose he is a reputable dealer, and 1 call for butter. 
He gives me oleomargarine, and there is an open opportunity to perpe- 
trate fraud, is there not? 

Mr. Hewes. No, sir; not over there, because those laws are too 
strictly enforced. 1 will tell you what the restriction is. 1 say this to 
the sorrow of us Americans. I am so American in my composition that 
1 do not like anybody who is not American; but when it comes to the 
enforcement of laws, they beat us on the other side. I am sorry to 
admit it. When the law over there lecjuirestheni to put a label on the 
outside of this package, it goes there. Senator; and when you buy that 
10 pounds, and you may call it anything you please, you get a label on 
the outside " Oleomargarine," or, as they call it, " Margarine." 

Mr. Adams. Will you permit me to interrupt you a moment, Mr. 
Hewes ? 

Mr. Hewes. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Adams. I want to get into the record this case on the question 
of whether or not the placing of oleomargarine upon a table is construed 
as a sale or not by the courts. The case to which I refer here is the 
case of Commonwealth r. Worcester, 26 Mass., 251). That is a case where 
a man bought a breakiast for 35 cents and found the milk was adul- 
terated. An action was brought against the hotel keeper, who was 
ignorant of the fact even that the milk was adulterated. It was proved 
that it was a sale of adulterated milk, and it was so decided. 

Mr. TiLLiNCiHAST. Perhaps there was something in the milk that was 
deleterious to health. 

Senator Allen. That is upon the well understood principle of the 
law that a man can not plead his ignorance of the law. 

Mr. Hewes. If I understood the Senator right, the suggestion was 
that this committee were too good lawyers to need any legal references 
or references to cases. Otherwise 1 would simply strew the table with 
cases from Maine to California. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. While I am on this question I will ask you this: 
Do you understand that in foreign countries — you spoke of France and 
Holland and Belgium — what oleomargarine is sold is sold as of the same 
color as butter ? 

Mr. Hewes. Oftentimes, yes. That is a good general question and 
a good general answer. In foreign countries oleomargarine is sold of 
the same color as butter. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. And they are able to enforce their laws wilhout 
having an anticolor law? 



458 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

Mr. Hewes. But the correlative also follows — that is, that the trend 
of taste over there oftentimes is toward uncolored butter, aud iu France 
particularly. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Where you have uncolored butter you have 
uncolored oleomargarine? 

Mr. Hewes. Oftentimes. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. And where you have colored butter you have 
colored oleomargarine? 

Mr. Hewes. That is the case oftentimes, but that is neither here 
nor there. 

Mr. Jelke. Mr. Hewes appears to be familiar with the laws of 
foreign countries. In which country in Europe is there a tax on 
oleomargarine "? 

Mr. Hewes. None that I know of. I do not think even in Germany 
there is a tax. 

Mr. Knight. May I interpose here, and say that those countries 
have stations and are enabled to handle this matter from a central 
point without the use of a tax 1 

Mr. Hewes. If you are going to introduce these international ques- 
tions, 1 would like the privilege of reading to this committee right now 
the report of the speed of Von Buelow yesterday. I do not know 
whether you have read it or not, but it is very apropos, and I think 
it ought to govern our Congress as well as theirs: 

VON BUELOW FAVORS THE CANAL BILL — HIS ARGUMENT IN THE LOWER HOUSE OF 
THE DIET FOR THE MEASURE. 

[By cable to tho Araerican.] 

Berlin, January 9. 

The imperial chancellor (Count von Buelow), in the lower house of the Diet, 
to-day strongly supported the claims for the protection of agriculture. He said: 

"1 consider it the foremost duty of the Government to elfet't a reconciliation in the 
existing economic difficulties and the adjustment of the varying interests supporting 
those who are unable to help themselves through their own strength. I shall abide 
by the opinion that when one member of a social body suffers all the others sutler, 
and especially that as long as such an important member as agriculture is unhealth- 
ful the entire organism must be undermined. I am convinced that it is the <luty of 
the Government to afi'ord trade, industry, and agriculture an equal measure of pro- 
tection, but that one of them, agriculture, absolutely needs strong protection. It is 
in pursuance of this princii^le of even-handed justice that the bill for the comple- 
tion and improvement of the canals has been drawn up. If the measure favored 
industry at the expense of agriculture, or the west monarchy to the detriment of 
the east, I Avould not have supported it. 

"With the view to solidify the agriculture of the east and the industry of the 
■west, a series of further schemes had been bound up in the Rhine-Elbe Canal project, 
of some interest to navigation, but chiefly fur the beuetit of the tillers of the soil, 
by the establishment of a continuous network of waterways, advantageous to all 
parts of the empire, opening the industrial territory of the west to tbe agricultural 
products of the east. 

"It is my deliberate conviction," said the chancellor, "that the agricultural 
products of the east, with these cheap means of transit, aided by an a8sure<l protective 
taritf, for which we must provide and for which we will provide, will be enabled to 
hold their own in the west, which in turn will secure facilities for the distribution 
of the products of the factories." 

Von Buelow's idea here is that you must protect agriculture. Why? 
Because the wealth of the nation lies in the land, and the strength of 
the land is iu agriculture. That is an economic principle that has been 
established from the foundation of this Government, and Von Buelow 
only echoes that. It is one of the agrarian maxims of foreign govern- 
ments that if you do not protect agriculture your country must decay, 
and that is the reason why he is in favor of it. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 459 

Senator Allen. As one member of the committee, I entirely agree 
with you upon that jiroposition. 

j\[r. Miller. Does he not refer to the tax upon agriculture from 
imported goods, not the section from home industries? 

Mr. Hewes. (Suppose he does. He does not want colored oleomar- 
garine to come in there and interfere with agriculture in that country. 

This is our bill. This is the bill of the dairy interests of this coun- 
try. This is the bill to amend the bill we originally brought here. We 
ask for its consideration. We do not ask you not to listen to these 
antagonistic interests on the other side. We are liberal people. We 
presume they have to come here and speak for their i^ockets; but is it 
not asking too much to ask you to make secondary the great industry 
of the country that these few, these seventeen or twenty-seven manu- 
facturers of oleomargarine, may thrive upon the fraudulent article they 
are producing? I say it is preposterous and yet we are willing to sit 
and listen to them; to listen to whatever they have to say; to listen to 
their legal representatives, and have you listen to them. 

Senator Allen. We must do that. 

Mr. Hewes. You must do that. You can not help it. But we do say 
this : Admitting, or, as we say at law, demurring to their evidence, then 
what have we? We have 00,000,000 people in the United States who 
say, " Pass the Grout bill." They have, to give them the most liberal 
construction, about 14,000,000 peojDle who are oleomargarine peojDle, or 
their friends are people who want oleomargarine, and they say, "Do 
not pass it." What is this committee here for? What is this Congress 
here for? To listen to the will of the people, to be governed by the will 
of the people; and when sixty million appear against ten, what is your 
duty? Y^our duty is to listen to the sixty million. 

Senator Allen. Suppose the ()0,000,000 people, in the judgment of a 
Senator, were wrong, would you insist that he should follow out their 
wishes? 

Mr. Hewes. Is the Senator to sit in judgment against 60,000,000 
people ? 

Senator Allen. He must sit in judgment. His final judgment upon 
the correctness of a thing after he hears it must be his sole guide. 

Mr. Hewes. Then he must do as his heart prompts him. 

Senator Allen. Very well. That is what he should do. 

Mr. Hewes. If the Senator says that 00,000,000 people are wrong 

Senator Allen. Sui^pose my people instructed me to vote for this 
bill or against it. 

Mr. Hewes. You would not heed them. 

Senator Allen. Suppose my conviction was contrary to their will? 

Mr. Hewes. You would be guided by your conviction. 

Senator Allen. Would it not be my duty as an officer to follow out 
my best judgment? 

Mr. Hewes. I would, and I would tell my constituents if they did 
not like my action they could ask for my withdrawal, and I would 
resign. 

Senator Dolliyer. Or would you seek some method b}' which to 
comi)romise the thing? 

^Ir. Hewes. 1 would not. There is no compromise possible. 

Let me get back now where I started. 

Mr. Miller. Referring to the enforcement of these laws in foreign 
countries, is it not a fact that the word "margarine" is printed on the 
manufacturers' original package and that the retail dealer does not 
brand the i)ackage at all when he sells it? 



460 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. Hewes. No. .sir; it is not that way in England. In England he 
has to make n]) his own ])ackage and mark it "margarine," just the 
same as we do here; and lie must mark it so that the buyer can see 
what he is buying. 

When we came into this Congress in 1880 we said to you gentlemen, 
"We want you to do the policing for this thing. We want you to put 
this under your jealous care, so that no man can sell oleomargarine for 
butter," because we thought they could do it. We knew how zealous 
they were in trying to enforce the law in respect to tobacco. We knew 
that no man could possibly work up half an ounce of tobacco unless he 
had the Commissioner of Internal Kevenue or his deputy upon his heels 
to say what the ]n'oduct was, and we thought they could enforce this 
law. They do not enforce the law. They do not see that people carry 
out the nineteen sections of this bill. 

Senator Dolliver. In the matter of tobacco, do they go further than 
to collect the tax? 

Mr. Hewes. That is that compromise you were talking about. 

Senator Dolliver. No; do you mean to say that the tax provisions 
of the law of 1880 have not been executed? 

Mr. Hewes. I mean to say that whenever they find a person who is 
not doing exactly as that law says, they send for him and they make 
some settlement with him. 

Senator Dollivkr. Do they do the same with the tobacco people 
and the whisky people? 

Mr. Hewes. They compromise. 

Senator Dolliver. They arrest them for violating the law. 

Mr. Hewes. But nine times out of ten they send for them to come up 
and settle, and they do settle. 

With respect to this oleomargarine business. In the State of Mary- 
land last year we had 141 cases, and we are now standing before the 
bar of our court of appeals with this original package case, with no hope 
of win,ning it. That is the trouble. We have no hope of ever winning 
that. Why ? Because Judge Taylor, who is as fair a man as ev^r sat 
upon any court whatever, and who is a friend of the dairy and a friend 
of ours, has told me, and he has written in that Fox case, in 81) Mary- 
land, that you can not restrict or prohibit the sale of oleomargarine in 
its original package unless you prove that it is deleterious to health. 

You see how impossible it is for us to do it. It throws the burden of 
proof, it is true, upon the traverser to show that it is not deleterious to 
health, and what does he do ? He brings in his expert testimony, and 
you have listened to it here by the volume. When these chemists tells 
you that au article is chemically pure, what do they mean by that ? 
They mean sim^dy this, that sulphuric acid is chemically pure, that 
nitric acid is chemically pure; but when it comes to a question of pure 
food, all the testimony of the chemists falls to the ground. It is not a 
question of a chemically pure article. It is a question of pure food 
you are talking about. 

So we ask you to make a favorable report on this Grout bill, because 
of two things. In the first place, it reduces to a minimum the chance 
to deceive ultimately. It is a potential fraud that is reprehended and 
deprecated in the Plumley Case (155 Mass., 421). That is the trouble. 
It is a potential fraud, where this man may deceive in the restaurant, 
or where the purchaser may be deceived. 

Mr. Miller. What is the difference between pure food and chemically 
pure food ? 

Mr, Hewes. Pure food is something that is pure, and chemically 



olj:omargarinp:. 4()1 

pure food is what a cliemist says is chemically pure, the same as he 
must go to work and analyze all the fats of oleomargarine. He shows 
they are chemically pure ; but suppose they come out of cats. Every one 
of tliese fats in oleomargarine can come from dogs and cats and horses. 
Some of them come from Shoemaker's place and Horner's place in 
Baltimore. 

1 thank you for your attention. 

STATEMENT OF C. Y. KNIGHT, SECRETAEY OF THE NATIONAL 

DAIRY UNION. 

Mr. Knight. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I want to open this 
matter by reading a statement which is a copy of a letter which I 
received from a retail grocer's clerk in the city of Chicago some time 
last year. I am familiar with the gentleman's name, but I have not 
put it in here. I will vouch, however, for the condition, and prove it 
to you, but I merely read it as an introduction. 

Daring the past twenty-two years I think I liave worked in nearly every tirst- 
chiss grocery in Chicago, and I can truthfully say that eight out of every ten have 
been and are still selling butterine for pure butter. I recently was employed in one 
of the largest groceries and markets on one of tbe most prominent streets of the city. 
During the time I was employed there we never sold one pound of butter, for we 
never had it in the house to sell. We clerks would talk among ourselves alaout it, 
and would often compare notes with other clerks, and to satisfy myself I made 
quite a canvass of all the stores in the mile and found only one that did not impose 
on its trade. 

Gentlemen, from experience I can vouch for the accuracy of that 
statement, and I want to give you a little experience and 1 propose to 
demonstrate it right here. The evening before I left Chicago 1 took 
my stenographer at 4 o'clock and started out on a tour to visit the 
so-called butter stores. I went, and was gone just one hour, and visited 
ten stores; and while I did not think of it at the time, it corresponds 
with that statement. Eight of those stores sold me each a package of 
goods. At two of them they told me they had no butter. They said 
"We do not keep butter at all;" but the other eight sold me what pur- 
ported to be butter. Now here is a package of what was bought for 
pure butter at 24 cents jjer pound, and the signature of the girl who 
bought it is on it. There is the package [exhibiting a package.] You 
may be able to find a mark on that. It was bought as butter for 24 
cents a pound, 

Mr. Jelke, Do you know now that it is not butter? 

Mr. Knight. We will demonstrate that, Mr. Jelke, before we get 
through. The store which sold that butter had this sign in front: 

Try our best 

Elgin creamery butter, 

.5 pounds $1.00. 

Here is a package from the store of Hughes & Schick. I will give 
to the gentlemen of the committee a little pamphlet that we got out 
some time ago with a photograj^h of a sign in the front of that place, 
"Grass Bair}', 15c. a pound." 1 openly denounced those people as 
swindlers in a publication, 150,000 copies of which I have sent broad- 
cast. That is the place where I bought that package. 

Here is a place where we bought a pound of so-called butter, at Ko. 8 
Wells street. These are all on one street. We went from one place to 
another on the same street within a distance of several blocks. That 
we bought at 25 cents a pound. 



462 OLEOMARGAKINE. 

This package was bought at a place wliicli was originally known as 
the Ohio Butter Company, but later as the Metropolitan Market, No. 
44 Fifth avenue, an illustration of the sign of which you will find on 
page 3 of this pamphlet, at the bottom — the Ohio Butter Company. 
Those are all photographs which I made myself. 

Here is a package from William Broadwell's place. 

Now, I would like. Senator, to have you open that, if you will, and. 
just look at the package. 

(Senator Allen then opened the package.) 

Mr. Jelke. Is the price on each package ■? 

Mr. Knight. Yes, sir; every package is plainly marked. Senator 
Heitfeld, here is one from the same place, and Senator Dolliver, here is 
another one from the same place. 

Senator Dolliver. What place is that? 

Mr. Knight. AVilliam Broadwell's place. 

Senator Dolliver. You seem to have patronized him very exten- 
sively. 

Mr. Knight. Yes, sir; and I will show you why in a minute. Have 
you found the mark "Oleomargarine" on it, Senator? 

Senator Allen. No, I have not. 

Mr. Knight. That is the puzzle. Find the mark. If you will open 
it this way [indicating], and get around there, 1 think you will lind 
something of the mark. 

Now I want to read from a pamphlet issued by William Moxley, of 
the city of Chicago : 

Facts about butteriue. Compiled and published by William J. Moxley, for the use 
of the general public. 

He says on page 6 : 

Before the Senatorial committee, previously mentioned, a Mr. William Broadwell, 
one of the largest dealers in high-grade butterine, spoke of millionaires and men with 
silk hats being his most numerous customers, in fact, forming in line to get a pail of 
William J. Moxley's butterine. His remarks caused considerable lauglater among 
the audience, but created consternation in the ranks of producers of creamery butter, 
who realized the impossibility of successful contradiction. 

I will show you the front of Mr. Broadwell's store as it was photo- 
graphed, in that corner down there where he sells Mr. Moxley's high- 
grade butteriue — one of the largest dealers in the city of Chicago. That 
is his sign [indicating]. I photographed that in September myself. It 
stood there for two or three years until I photographed it, and when he 
found we had used it, that part of the sign was torn down, and these 
are the remains. 

Mr. Adams. Is that the store where the gentlemen in silk hats go to 
ask for butterine! 

Mr. Knight. Yes, that is the one. 

Mr. Jelke. Have you any photographic views of Siegel, Cooper & 
Co.'s, or Eothchild's, or any of the leading merchants of Chicago? 

Mr. Knight. I will not answer any questions now, Mr. Jelke; I am 
busy. I have got this thing on hand, and I have waited a good while. 

Now, I want to read you an extract from the report of the assistant 
food commissioners to convince you what kind of business Mr. Broad- 
well is doing with Mr. Moxley's butterine: 

The other case is No. 27, that of William Broadwell, where the defendant and his 
witnesses swore that they sold nothing but oleomargarine, and that they had a sign 
behind the counter, " No pure butter sold here ; only oleomargarine ;" that they always 
informed those asking for butter that they had only oleomargarine, and they had no 
signs reading "creamery butter;" that the stamp was always on the outside of the 
package when handed to customers, and that for seven years they had always wrapped 
it in that manner. 



OLEOMARGARINE. ' 463 

And yet I have 21 packages gotten by 21 different people, all wrapped 
the same as that from that party, and William J. Moxley defends him 
every time anybody attempts to prosecute him, and one of his men is 
here spoken of as a witness in the case where the food commission has 
prosecuted that man and endeavored to convict him. 

What are the facts in the case? Two inspectors of the food depart- 
ment went and purchased samples of that stuff as butter and for butter. 
He sold it that way. They went into court and made an affidavit as to 
what they had bought it for and where they bought it. He brought 
three witnesses to swear tliat they called for oleomargarine, and that 
he gave them oleomargarine, all properly stamped. That is the way 
they do business in Chicago. 

IsTow, going back to where we started, I want to give you a little bit 
of history of local conditions. There are produced in Chicago 40,o()0,000 
of the 107,000,000 pounds of oleomargarine made in the United States. 

Senator Dolliver. How do you get at the 107,000,000? 

Mr. Knight. Why, from the last report of the Internal Revenue 
Commissioner. 

Senator Dolliver. The Secretary of Agriculture seemed to state 
it at less than that. 

Mr. Knight. He was a year behind. 

In the State of Illinois, and i)retty near all of that is in the northern 
district, there are 2,691 of the 9,000 dealers in the United States. Of 
the 9,008 retail dealers doing business in the United States for the year 
ending July 1 last, 7,073 were violating the various anticolor laws of 
the United States and 1,995 were doing business as permitted by the 
laws. Of the 107,000,000 pounds of oleomargarine produced in the 
United States for the year ending July 1, 1900, 66,820,190 pounds were 
produced in States which prohibit the manufacture and sale of colored 
oleomargarine, and 40,240,859 pounds were produced in those States 
which permit such production. 

But to go on with my little story. Here is another package which I 
bought at iSTo. 05 Kandolph street, personally. I went in and said to 
the man, " I want some creamery butter." He said, " W^e have no cream- 
ery butter; we have dairy." I said, "All right; I will take some dairy. 
How much is it?' He said, "Nineteen cents." Senator, you will find 
a little faint attempt there to make a mark on that. I have found it, 
but nobody else would. I said to him, "Look here; this is not dairy 
butter." 

Senator Allen. What does that [indicating] signify? 

Mr. Knight. That is the Government stamp. I said, " What is this? 
This is stamped oleomargarine. I do not want oleomargarine." He 
said " I will tell you. This is dairy butter. We have to stamp it oleo- 
margarine, because it is dairy butter in which a little tallow has been 
mixed, and when there is any tallow mixed with it we have got to mark 
it oleomargarine, but it is mostly butter." That is the way he puts 
people off' when they go to him and call him down in the matter. 

Here is another package that w^as bought at a place called the Madi- 
son butter store, at 25 cents a pound. They call it Price & Keith's 
creamery butter. Price & Keith is a butter firm that has gone out of 
existence, and they have adopted the name and put it on oleomargarine. 
This man, as are most of the others, is under indictment there in Chi- 
cago and their cases will probably never come to trial. His clerk 
admitted to me that she was instructed by her employer that when 
anybody came in and asked for oleomargarine, to go and show them a 
little package of 3 pounds of butter that they had had in the store 



464 oleomakctarine. 

for about a year, and that was rancid, and tell tbem that was oleo- 
margarine. Then of course they did not want oleomargarine, and she 
would turn around and sell them that oleomargarine, which was really 
oleomargarine, at 25 cents a pound, as butter. 

Here is the Cold Springs Creamery, l^o. 72 Randolph street. The 
price does not seem to be on there at all. 

ISow to come back to what 1 started out with. I have got here a 
package which I j)urchased in the markets in this city; and I want to 
say to Senator Heitfeld about this market that the management of it 
itself looks after it and sees that the people who are trading there are 
not deceived or defrauded. That is one reason why there is not any 
fraud in the market down there. Here is a piece of oleomargarine I 
bought from Wilkins down here this morning; and I am going to put 
that in our test tube here, and show you what oleomargarine melts like, 
if 1 can get my apparatus together. That is oleomargarine, and I am 
going to mark it on the top "O." If anybody has any doubts about it 
they can have it sent out and have it analyzed, or I will leave it here 
with the committee if that question is raised. I also have here some 
pure butter — something that I believe to be pure. 

Senator Heitfeld. ^-^.re you sure about it? 

Mr. Knight. Yes; I will show you whether it is or not in a minute. 
I am going to put that in a tube with a black cork. 

(Mr. Knight then put some samples from the different packages that 
he had exhibited into test tubes, corked up, and he put the test tubes 
in a bucket containing warm water.) 

Mr. Jelke. Have you any process butter? 

Mr. Knight. I think it might be possible to get some in Washington ; 
I do not know. 

Now 1 want to open these packages, and see whether there are any 
concealed marks about them. They were all bought as butter. Ah, 
there it is. It is turned under and concealed. I just want to show you 
how the thing is done. If there are any upon which we do not find the 
marks, I will put them in that test. 

Now, here is another trick — using a colored paper so that the stencil 
will not show. These samples were bought from the stores as I came 
to them. Inasmuch as there is no mark on this one [indicating] I will 
put that in the tube, but, gentlemen, I am coming to the most interest- 
ing part of this programme later on, when it comes to speaking of the 
violation of the law. To my positive knowledge, of eight stores on 
Fifth avenue six of them are selling oleomargarine for butter. There 
is not a store on Fifth avenue that is selling anything but oleomar- 
garine, and there is not one of them that is selling it for anything but 
butter. There, gentlemen, is what they use as a handle [indicating] 
That comes from the Madison butter store. 

Senator Allen. Do they put the handles around these little packages? 

Mr. Knight. Yes; or if you take a larger one. They do not handle 
a pound of butter. Here is a package from Hughes & Schick. Let us 
look at that. (The package was opened by Senator Allen.) The cheap- 
est kind of brown paper is used, so that nobody will ever expect to use 
it for anything else, so that when it is taken off it will be thrown aside 
always. 

I sent last year a detective to seventy-eight places and got samples, 
and seventy-two of them we found to be oleomargarine, all sold as but- 
ter. I had my attorney send out this letter : 



OLEOMARGARINE. 465 

[Office of H. V. Murray, attorney at law.] 

Chicago, III., July 29, 1899. 

Dear Sir: I have been employed by the Illinois Dairy Union to ])iosecute any 
cases of violation of the dairy laws of this State which may result from the arrest 
of any dealer selling oleomargarine when bntter is called for. As you proltably 
know, a commission, consisting of a food commissioner and eight assistants and 
inspectors, was provided for by the late legislature, whose duty it is to enforce these 
laws. The commissioner has been appointed, and until he has ai^poiuted his assist- 
ants and gotten to work the Illinois Dairy Union's inspectors will look after the jjro- 
tection of consumers of butter and see tiiat those who sell them oleomar-iarine for 
bntter are prosecuted under the State laws, and also reported to the internal revenue 
department as violators of tlie internal-revenue laws. I herewith inclose extracts 
from three State laws. These laws are not tied up in the courts, and the oleomar- 
garine manufacturers will not place themselves in the liglit of pioteeting those who 
sell oleomargarine for butter, although they may consistently tight the law forbid- 
ding coloring, which hns not yet been passed upon by the supreme court. 

If you sell oleomargarine this year, rest assured that the State food commissioner 
and the Illinois Dairy Union will see that you are not permitted to sell it as butter. 
Respectfully, yours, 

Hugh V, Murray, 
Attorney for Illinois Dairy Union. 

The extracts from the three State laws which were i nclosed were 
simply extracts of laws forbidding the sale of oleomargariue tor butter. 
That was all there was to that. We did not attempt to do anything 
with our auticolor law, because it was tied up in the court. I have the 
extracts of those laws just as they were sent out. 

That was a letter that was sent out in an effort to get these people to 
conform to the State laws requiring the informing of the customer of 
what he was buying and the marking of the package. Everything was 
done just as you find it on these packages. There was no mark in 
sight. The oleomargarine was advertised as butter at every place. 
They put up their signs just as that is shown there. I supjiose there 
are a thousand just such signs as that in the city of Chicago. 

That letter of Mr. Murray was sent out July 29, 1899. On August 2, 
1899, this letter v.as sent out by William J. Moxley to his retailers, 
and probably to all the licensed dealers in the city. I will nor say it 
was sent to every one, but I know it was generally received by those 
who traded with Moxley. This is his letter: 

[William J. Moxley, nianufacfurer of fine butterine, 63 aud 65 West Monroe street.] 

Chicago, August 2, 1S99. 



City. 



Dear Sir: Our attention has been called to two circulars which have been 
mailed to you — one signed by Hugh V. Murray, an attorney, and the other by 
Charles Y. Knight, editor in chief of a periodical, without subscribers, named the 
Chicago Dairy Produce. The circular bearing Mr. Knight's name has at its head 
an imposing lot of names, gentlemen whose aim it is to prevent the manufacture 
and sale of butterine, so that the butter trnst might be enabled to get from 30 to 40 
cents a pound (or butter, depriving, as they would, a great many of the industrial 
classes from being able to use butter through its excessive price. 

With the hired attorney, who is earning his fee, we have nothing to say, only to 
inforui you that these gentlemen are trying to ring in a bluff. You will notice in 
their circulars that by insinuations they would have people believe they re])resent 
some official authority. The internal-revenue department looks after their own 
business, and the State after theirs, and should this so-called dairy union interfere 
with your business in the way of prosecution as to the State laws, we hereby guar- 
antee you protection to the extent of paying all fines, costs, etc., until the color law 
is decided unconstitutional in the supreme court of the State of Illinois, ami will 
further, on receiving complaint, take such action for damages as will make it 
unpleasant for some of those who are attempting to interfere with your and our own 
legitimate busiress. 

We were under the impression that the severe censure they received from the 
judges during their filibustering of last year would have been sufficient for all time, 

S. Rep. 2043 30 



466 OLEOMAKGARINE. 

bvit have been informed that to be successful in obtaining money from farmers and 
butter men a few circulars with imposing headlines are required. 

We strongly recommend you to pay no attention to tliose circulars. We have 
always been iu a position to protect our customers from iniustice and blackmailers, 
and will be over at your service should you reciuire our aid. 

Respectfully, yours, " Wm. J. Moxley. 

Now, our friend the enemy, there is the pure butter right there 
[exhibiting a test tube]. You will notice that is absolutely clear and 
that the casein and water are precipitated, whereas this [exhibiting] is 
muddy. It never will clarify except at a temperature of about 150. 

Senator Hansbrough. What is the object of this test? Is it to 
show the indigestibility of oleomargarine as compared with that of 
butter? 

Mr. Knight. It is a test between oleomargarine and butter. Sena- 
tor Allen asked me something about process butter, and I wanted to 
show him that; but I brought the test tubes here primarily in case 
there should be any lack of evidence that what I had bought was oleo- 
margarine at the ten places I bought it from. 

Our friend Jelke's firm — Braun & Fitts — iu reply to this letter which 
Mr. Murray sent out, sent the following reply : 

Every licensed butterine dealer in Chicago has received circular letters from the 
secretary and attorney for the Illinois Dairy Union, promising all sorts of trouble to 
dealers in butterine (that honest and pure article of food). Well, now, don't you 
believe a word of it; there is a law against blackiuailing, and we want now and 
here to go on record to the assertion, as an aftidavit, that we shall civilly and crimi- 
nally prosecute any man or party of men interfering unlawfully with the butterine 
business in this or any other State. We know exactly where we stand; we are 
properly advised on the subject, and now we make you a "fair oflPer:" " Handle our 
goods as you always have; we in turn promise and guarantee full protection against 
the State law (which has been declared unconstitutional) to the extent of paying 
cost of prosecution, fines, and paying all costs pertaining thereto." In declaring 
the law unconstitutional one of the judges stated to the effect " that the butter ring 
were, in his opinion, liable to prosecution to recover damages done an honest indus- 
try." Fair enough, isn't it? Renew your efforts, and be assured that we will be 
prepared to tight any number of rounds in any kind of a legal fight to the finish. 
Handle our butterine and be safe. 

Mr. Jelke. Mr. Knight, I think that letter was instigated by the 
condition of the law regarding the sale of colored oleomargarine in 
Illinois. 

Mr. Knight. In what way, Mr. Jelke? 

Mr. Jelke. It was tied up in the courts. 

Mr. Knight. But I did not threaten to prosecute anybody for selling 
oleomargarine. 

Mr. Jelke. I do not know the date of that letter. 

Mr. Knight. I do. It was two days after the date of Mr. Moxley's 
letter. 

Mr. Jelke. And we had just gotten through with a case of black- 
mailers who had taken our customers out to Maywood. 

Mr. Knight. That was two years before that. 

Mr. Jelke. They took six of our customers out to Maywood, a suburb 
in the country about 15 miles farther than it was necessary to go. 
They took them out there at 6 o'clock at night when they could not 
get bail or anything else. That is the character of the prosecutions we 
had. 

Mr. Knight. I will refer you back to the original letter in which 
they were threatened only with prosecution for selling oleomargarine 
for butter. 

Mr. Jelke. We have never protected one customer in the sale of 
oleomargarine for butter, and never attempted it. We never had any 
idea we would do it. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 467 

Mr. Knight. Let me tell you something. The representative of the 
firm of Braun & Fitts, Mr. Lowry, attended every trial in which we 
made a prosecution for selling- oleomargarine for butter. He went their 
bail and looked after them. 

Mr. Jelke. Xo, sir; not for selling oleomargarine for butter. 

Mr. Knight. I beg leave to differ with you. Did you not go with 
Mr. Moxley and employ Mr. Worth E. Caylor as attorney"? 

Mr. Jelke. No, sir; Mr. Worth E, Caylor has never been in our 
employ. 

Mr. Knight. Did not your man Lowry attend all the trials? 

Mr. Jelke. He may have done so. He has such instructions, to keep 
thoroughly informed on the character of the prosecutions we are having. 

Mr. Knight. Gentlemen, this is a matter of record, that when we 
began proceedings, a number of times when I was in the justice's court, 
they telephoned over to Braun & Fitts for Mr. Lowry to come and go 
the bail of people whom we had arrested for selling oleomargarine for 
butter. 

I have the briefs in the case. We brought suits in the justice's court 
in Chicago. We had seventeen people arrested and they were defended 
by Worth E. Caylor, whom at least Mr. Moxley admits having employed. 
I do not need to read from the warrant under which these arrests were 
made, because I can read from Mr. Caylor's brief, in which he states the 
case, although the warrants are here complete. I read from page 24 of 
the brief of Worth E. Caylor, attorney for the defendants in these cases, 
em])loyed by the butteriue men to defend the dealers. 

Senator Allen. What is the title of the case? 

Mr. Knight. The title of the cases are " The People of the State of 
Illinois, plaintiff, v. M. A. Wright," and " The People of the State of 
Illinois, plaintiff, v. Charles R, Horrie, defendant." The two cases are 
in one brief. Probably 1 had better read the warrant. 

Senator Allen. Oh, it is not necessary. They can be put into the 
record if you want them. 

Mr. Knight. The warrants, anyhow, were sworn out for the sale of 
oleomargarine as butter without informing the purchaser of the fact 
that it was oleomargarine, and without stating the quantity of ingredi- 
ents therein. What was their defense? Their defense was, in the first 
place, that oleomargarine is butter — that it is oleomargarine butter — 
and consequently is entitled to be called butter; in the second place, 
that the law of the State of Illinois requiring you to do as the Ohio law 
does — the Ohio laws were here yesterday, and I believe I have a copy 
of them here — was unconstitutional. We never have had a law yet that 
they did not call unconstitutional. 

The brief says : 

It ia very evident that a man who sells an article can not know the proportions 
that any adulterant enters into the butter, unless he mixes or manufactures it. Mere 
hearsay from the person from whom the seller purchases the article would not be 
evidence of the correct proportions or ingredients, so as to relieve the seller from any 
liability. The labeling by the manufacturer or the mixer of the article would not 
bind the seller with the true knowledge of the constituents of the article sold. 

Manifestly it would be impossible for the retailer or seller to make a chemical 
analysis of every article of this kind that enters his place, because it would make 
such additional expense that it would prohibit the sale of the article. If it would 
prohibit the sale of the article, the statute is unconstitutional. 

That is the same objection they raise to every law that is passed to 
restrict the sale of oleomargarine — "we can not sell it under that law;" 
consequently that is unconstitutional. I just want to bring your atten- 
tion to that point to show you that their cry that a law is prohibitory 



468 OLEOMARGARINE. 

and that they can not operate under it is raised against every law that 
has ever been brought up. 

We went ahead and endeavored to prosecute. We brought the mat- 
ter before a justice of the peace. In one case I tliink we went into 
court twelve times. The first case we brought before the court — and 
we thought we were doing a pretty shrewd trick at the time — was the 
case of a man who sokl oleomargarine manufactured by an illicit manu- 
facturer. We thought we would at least get a case with this man 
defending, because he was not a customer of theirs. What was our 
surprise to tind their attorneys defending this man who was selling 
oleomargarine manufactured by an illicit concern. 

Senator Hansbrough. That is, a concern that had not paid the 
regular tax? 

Mr. Knight. Yes, sir. And the amusing thing about this whole 
business is that in this little statement I read from here, Mr. Moxley 
speaks of how his attorney routed us in that case. The effort was made 
there to prove, and they did prove, that this man whom we had arrested 
had bought this oleomargarine as butter. When we had determined 
ourselves that he was innocent of knowledge of the kind of goods he 
was selling we dismissed the case, because we did not care to ])roceed 
against the man who really thought lie was selling butter. They made 
their boast about how they got that man dismissed, etc. 

A few weeks ago the internal revenue department took that factory 
up and exposed it and arrested the man and put him in $5,000 bonds, 
which was evidence enough that our propovsition and our claim that 
this was oleomargarine, which we proved by two chemists, was true. 
In none of the cases that came up in Chicago — we prosecuted seventeen 
of them at an expense of $1,600 — did they once deny the allegation 
that oleomargarine had been sold as and for butter. That was never 
denied. They sim])ly defended on technical grounds, and in the five 
years I have been in Chicago, endeavoring to prosecute these people, 
we never have been ])ermitted to go as far as the jury with the case. 

There was a young man here who raised the point and asked the 
Secretary of Agriculture, " Did you ever know a case where a consumer 
made a complaint and prosecuted a dealer for selling oleomargarine for 
butter?" 1 have had dozens of consumers come to me and offer to go 
on the stand as witnesses against people wlio sokl them oleomarga- 
rine for butter. Why did we not take them? Instead of taking their 
evidence, we went out and got evidence. In the first place, a consumer 
who knows enough of law to get evidence in regard to an article like 
this is very difficult to get. You can not let the article go out of your 
hands from tlie time you get it until you put it in the hands of a 
chemist. None of them understand that, hardly. They put it in their 
ice box, and tlien the question of identity of the goods would come up, 
and they can not make the connection between the sale and the time it 
goes to the chemist, because they never think of it at the time. 

Another thing. Every time we have had a case up we have had to 
go into court from at least three to a dozen times. The food commis- 
sion, when they first started to prosecute cases in Chicago, undertook 
to use some of the consumers, and there were two or three cases in 
which consumers did go to the food commission and bring them samples 
and offer to give evidence. Wliat did they do? Mr. John S, King, 
employed by William J. Moxley & Co., is defending to-day the cases in 
which the food coinmission is charging the peo])le with selling oleomar- 
garine for butter. There was a letter carrier, for instance, who came 
into the food commission and offered them a sample. The chain was 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 469 

complete so that tliey could prosecute, and they brought the case up. 
This letter carrier was workiug in the post-office. He came over to 
court and sat around three or fonr hours. Tbeu the case was put off 
for several days more. They sent for the letter carrier again and took 
him away from the post-office for three or four hours more. Tliat went 
on four or live times until the letter carrier said, "I can't devote any 
more time to it." There are not many consumers who can go into 
court half a dozen times at any time they may be called on. 1 know, 
from the fai-t that we have to pay a chemist $25 a time for ten appear- 
ances, that it is expensive business to prosecute those people, and it is 
absolutely impossible to get a consumer to come as a witness five or six 
times to prosecute one of these cases unless you pay him, and the 
minute you pay him that thing is brought out, and you know how it 
would stand in court. 

1 realize that my time is limited and that I will have little oppor- 
tunity to present very much. 1 am sorry I have not more time, because 
I have devoted a great deal of attention to this matter. 

I want now to call attention to another letter of Mr. Moxley, adver- 
tising his oleomargarine, dated October 22, 1898, in which he says: 

Your profit will be double the amount made from the butter you are now handling, 
and your butter trade will be more satinfied if you will sell them such butterine as 
you can buy from me. 

That is one of the inducements offered, double the profits on butter 
that is sold. 

Now I want to read a letter from the food commissioner of the State 
of Illinois: 

State Food Commission, State of Illinois, 

Chicaf/o, Dneviher 17, 1900. 
Mr. Charles Y. Knight, 

Secretary National Dairy Union, Chicago, HI. 

Dear Sir: In reply to your inquiry, I beg to say that it is my impression that 
about 75 jier cent of all the oleomargarine retailed in Chicago is sold as butter. The 
stamp required by the United States revenue office is generally so indistinct and 
wrapped up so that no one can see it unless they hunt for it, and consequently is 
altogether ineffective as far as it warns the customer. No one who has not tried it 
has any conception of all the difficulties in enforcing the honest sale of oleomar- 
garine. While I believe the oleomargarine manufacturers sell their product hon- 
estly, it is my impression that they are backing the retailers' defense. At least, the 
lawyer defending these retailers in the justice's court incidentelly made the remark 
in my presence to the effect that he could stay all day, as the people behind him 
had plenty of mouey. 

And I know absolutely that the man who is defending those people for selling 
oleomargarine for butter is paid in Moxley's interest. Moxley's own man told me so. 

In order to illustrate this, 1 inclose copy of a part of my report to the commis- 
sioners referring to case No. 27. Two of our inspectors had called at that store, and 
one of them asked distinctly for a pound of butter, and he was handed a pound of 
oleomargarine, wrapped up in the manner peculiar to that retailer; and these two 
inspectors, as well as the State analyst, who witnessed the opening of the package, 
swore that the stencil was not visible until the package had been unwrapped and 
examined. 

Yours, truly, J. H. Monrad, 

JsHistaut Food Commissioner. 

Now I want to pay my respects to two other matters, and ]»articularly 
to the gentleman who has come before you and held himself out to rep- 
resent the laboring men of this country. I hold here a copy of a price 
list or a letter sent out by the Capital City Dairy Company, of Columbus, 
Ohio, a concern whose charter last August was revoked by the supreme 
court of the State of Illinois for repeated defiant violations of the law. 
I have the decisions in those cases here, but I will not stop for that. 

Mr. Jelke. AVill you pardon one question ? 



470 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. Knight. Yes. 

Mr. Jelke. Why have not the Capital City Dairy Company closed 
up? We wish they would close up. 

Mr. Knight. They did not close up because they changed into a 
partnership and got around a decision of the supreme court. The 
supreme court revoked their charter and appointed receivers to wind 
up their business on account of these violations of the law. 

Mr. Jelke. Can not Mr. Blackburn close them up? 

Mr. Knight. He got that far toward it. They have dodged, how- 
ever, and made themselves into a partnership. 

Mr. McISrAMEB. Is it not a fact that that case is pending before the 
Supreme Court of the United States ? 

Mr. Knight. They have given it up, and resolved themselves into a 
partnership. 

Mr. McNamee. Have you any evidence to substantiate that state- 
ment? 

Mr. Knight. Only what Mr. Pirrung, one of the partners, told me in 
this room a few days ago. 

This is the letter: 

[The Capital City Dairy Company, makers of butteriue, higliest quality only, Nos. 185 to 197 Third 

avenue east.] 

Columbus, Ohio, December 1, 1S99. 

Dear Sir: With the appended change iu price list we can only reiterate that our 
"Purity" grade is equal, if not superior, to most makes creamery butterine; there- 
fore "Purity" selling at 20 cents, "Buckeye" or "Pride" should sell at 25 to 30 
cents. If you want a popular-priced grade, our "Silver Leaf" is particularly appro- 
priate. Ever remember this indisputable fact: You can obtain for our butterine 
a better retail price than for any other make in the United States. 

Purity, 14 cents per pound. 

Silver Leaf, 15 cents per pound. 

Buckeye, 17 cents per pound. 

C. C. Pride, 18 cents per pound. 

Prices subject to change without notice. 

Goods billed at price in effect on day of shipment. 

F. O. B. Columbus, Ohio, net cash. 

DIFFERENTIALS. 

One-half cent advance for solids under 25 pounds and rolls or prints 2 pounds and 
over. 

One cent for rolls and prints 1 pound and less than 2 pounds; also small tubs in 
crates and boxes; also unsalted butterine. 

One and one-half cents for rolls or prints of one-half pound and less than 1 pound. 
Two cents for rolls and prints under 8 ounces. 

Mixed, catch, or country rolls figured at prices of smallest roll or print in package. 
Very truly, yours. 

The Capital City Dairy Co. 

Now, gentlemen, I want to ask you if anybody would be foolish 
enough to think that any grocer wonld try to sell butterine at 30 cents 
as butterine; and here is the suggestion that he can get 30 cents for 
that grade of their butterine. It is quoted at 18 cents a pound to him, 
and that means a margin of 12 cents a pound to the dealer. 

Senator Dolliver. Where is that factory? 

Mr. Knight. That is at Columbus, Ohio; and I am informed by 
Senator Scott, who was at onetimelnternal Revenue Commissioner, that 
he was compelled to levy a line of $5,000 on those people for viola- 
tions of the internal-revenue law. He told me that over in the room 
of the Committee on Manufactures of the United States Senate. I want 
to say to you, gentlemen, that if you will introduce in the Senate a 
resolution asking for the records of these different concerns that have 



OLKOMARGARTNE. 471 

appeared before you, you will find a louc^ string of prosecutions behind 
almost every one of them. I do not say every one. 

Mr. Miller. I dispute that, Mr. Knight. 

Mr. Knight. I will except Armour & Co. and Swift & Co. 

Mr. Jelke. Find one against us, Mr. Knight. 

Mr. Knight. I will find an oflfer of $7,500 to compromise a case. 

Mr. Jelke. Not one dollar. 

Senator Hansbrough. Proceed in order, gentlemen. 

Mr. Knight. I have made the statement here that Braun «& Fitts, 
of which Mr. Jelke is a partner, ottered to settle a case where one 
Eouey and two other men had shipped something like $140,000 worth 
of oleomargarine, with the stamps scratched oft, as butter into the 
various States, one of whom was detected; and you can not deny 
that you came to the commissioner's ofiBce and that you and Mr. Dady 
were there and that you looked out for bail for these people. 

Mr. Jelke. That is right. 

Mr. Knight. You were there and you looked out for bail for them, 
and Mr. Clark J. Tisdell, assistant United States attorney for the 
northern district of Illinois, informed me that in those cases Braun & 
Fitts had offered $7,500 compromise. That is my information, 

Mr. Jelke. Your information is not correct, Mr. Knight. 

Mr. Knight. I want to say further that in the case of a concern whose 
attorney appeared here last night, a new concern in the city of Wash- 
ington, the president of that company has three indictments hanging 
over him in this District of Columbia to day, which have been there 
for three or four years, for scratching stamps from oleomargarine. 
They are in the Federal courts, but have never been tried. His brother 
was sent to jail for six months, and it was only the slip of the United 
States attorney that this man was not included in that indictment. 
The attorney himself said he should have been included. But those 
indictments yon will find pending, and I think you will find that he is 
under bond, if you go down to the district attorney's oflftce. I am 
only speaking of those things to show you the character of a great 
many of these people and their business. There are a great many 
things I would like to present, but here I think is one of the most 
important. A gentleman named McKamee, I believe 

Mr. MgNamee. At your service, sir. 

Mr. Knight. Coming from the city of Columbus, Ohio, where the 
Capital City Dairy Company is located, brings you a lot of resolutions. 
On sifting them down, I believe you will find there are -8 labor organi- 
zations which have passed resolutions against the Grout bill. I received 
from Cleveland, Ohio, a paper containing a report of a meeting of one 
of those organizations, where this matter was brought up by Mr. 
McXamee. It appears, I believe, that Mr. McNamee is an organizer of 
labor organizations. He presented this case, and from my understand- 
ing and my information from Cleveland — I may be mistaken; I am 
giving this second hand — it was stated before them that two big cor- 
porations. Swift and Armonr, in the city of Chicago, were making an 
effort to get a law which would crush the Ohio companies out of exist- 
ence. The account of the proceedings of that meeting says: 

"Moved that the Cleveland Federation of Labor do not interfere 
between two capitalistic corporations." I have the proceedings and I 
expected to produce them here. But, Senator Hansbrough, you are 
pretty well acquainted with union labor. You are a newspaper man. 
I am a union printer, and was brought np at the case. I belonged to 
the typographical union, I know it is not the policy of labor unions to 



472 oleomargarinp:. 

antagonize any class of men who are endeavoring to protect their inter- 
ests. Labor unions are organized for the protection of their own 
interests; they are organized to get better prices for their product, 
that of their own hands, and they are in favor of everybody else doing 
the same thing. I never saw a fairer lot of men in this matter than 
the laboring men whom I have talked with. 

Mr. McNamee. Will Mr. Kuightyield to a few questions? 

Mr. KniCtHT. No: not right now. When I read this, I will. 

As an evidence of this fact, in 1897, when we had before the legisla- 
ture of the iState of Illinois a law which sought to prohibit the coloring 
of oleomargarine in the semblance of butter, known as the Fuller bill, 
which T was looking after at the time, and which passed the legislature 
finally, I went to the Federation of Labor of the city of Chicago and 
called on its legislative committee. I called those gentlemen together 
and I told them the condition of things in Chicago. 1 showed them 
what we were attempting to accomplish, and asked their cooperation 
in the matter. I asked them if they could not give the indorsement of 
the Federation of Labor. They said they did not think there was any 
doubt but what they could. I now want to read you from the Chicago 
Federationist, a labor paper, of the date of April J>, 181)7 : 

WORKINGMEN INDORSE IT — ANTICOLOR BILL APPROVED BY THK CHICAGO FEDERA- 
TION OF LABOR — COLORED OLEOMARGARINE CONDEMNED AS A FRAUD — A RESO- 
LUTION PASSED AT LAST SUNDAY'S MEETING INDORSING THE FULLER BILL 18 
UNANIMOUS — LABOR IS AGAINST THE FRAUD. 

The defenders of the colored oleomargarine fraud have had their last prop knocked 
from under arjiunients. 

For years they have pleaded for protection of oleomarjiarine "in behalf of the 
working man." Oleomiirgarine was christened "the poor man's butter" by those 
who were aiding manufacturers in making millions off the same "poor man." 

The anticolor bill was brought before the CLiicago Federation of Labor by the 
legislative committee of tliat body Sunday, A])ril 4, by Chairman Williams, who has 
claimed that large quantities of oleomargarine were being dealt out in the city by 
retailers to those who called for butter and paid for butter. This fraud was made 
possible, he stated, because of the fact that the substitute was made in perfect sem- 
blance of butter, and the workingman was the chief victim. He explained that the 
only remedy tor this fraud was the enactment of a law which would make it possible 
for buyer and consumer to distinguish the compound whenever he saw it. 

Only one delegate in the entire body objected to the indorsement of the measure, 
and after he thoroughly understood the question he moved to make the vote for its 
adoption unanimous, which was done. 

The sentiment expressed by the different delegates to the federation at the close 
of the meetinn' was that, should a petition be circulated among the army of work- 
ingmen of Chicago calling for the passage of the Fuller anticolor law, it would 
meet with no opposition. 

Then the resolution which was passed at that time, and which I have 
in my possession in the city of Chicago, reads as follows: 

Chicago, April 4, 1897. 
Charles Y. Knight, 

Secretary Dairy Union. 
Dear Sir: At a meeting of the Chicago Federation, held on the 4th instant, that 
body unanimously indorsed the Fuller bill, and requested all subordinate bodies to 
use their utmost to secure its passage. 

Very truly, Victor B. Williams, 

Chairman Legislative Committee, Chicago Federation of Labor. 

I will tell you something in connection with that. When the bill was 
passed the box-makers' union, which was a member of this Federation 
of Labor, found out that they had been making the boxes for oleomarga- 
rine, so they began to see the matter in a different light. After they 
found their boxes were used to hold oleomargarine they came to the 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 473 

couclusion that oleomargarine was a good thing after all, and they 
rescinded the action of the Federation of Labor of the city of Chicago, 
and called on the legislature, I tiiink, to repeal the law, or something 
like that. 

Further than that, here last fall, before I came to Washington, I was 
called on by the chairman and secretary of that Chicago Federation of 
Labor. Thej'^ showed me a resolution which had been put before that 
body condemning the Gront bill, and they said they thought the whole 
thing should liave thorough investigation before it went through. I 
took them along this Fifth avenue. They came to me at a hotel which 
is on Fifth avenue, and I went along Fifth avenue with them, because 
it is within half a block of my oflBce, and I could find throughout the 
city 2,000 places like that where I bought the alleged butter. I showed 
them these places. They were perfectly dumfounded that such a state 
of affairs should exist, and they gave me their word that no resolution 
of that kind should be passed, and that the Dairy Union should be 
assisted in its position in asking for this 10 cent tax. I knew nothing 
farther than that until this resolution came floating down here and was 
put into the House. 

Senator Hansbbough. For or against the Grout bill? 

Mr. Knight. Against the Grout bill. 

Mr. McNamee. Do you mean to cast such an imputation as that 
against the representatives of organized labor as to say they had been 
seen and influenced? 

Mr. Knight. I saw a couple of them myself. 

Mr. McNamee. You acknowledge here before this committee, do 
you, that you have been trying to bribe members of organized labor 
to 

Mr. Knight. No, I do not. 

Mr. McNamee. You make that insinuation — that they had been seen 
in order to change their opinion. We all know what that means. 

Mr. Knight. No; they could not make anj' arrangements without 
seeing them, I think. 

Senator Allen. I think you are under a little ai)prehension, Mr. 
McNamee. 

Mr. Knight. I want to pay my respects now to my friend from Cin- 
cinnati. He has had a good deal to say here. I have heard from 
Cincinnati since he has been talking. I can not read all I have heard 
from Cincinnati, but I can put it in the record. I am very pleased to 
have him vouch for one concern in Cincinnati with which 1 am well 
acquainted — that is, the French Brothers Dairy Company. If you will 
look over the record you will find tliat he spoke of them as being very 
nice people, and he said the president of the company was treasurer 
of the county of Hamilton, or something of that sort, and that they 
were not in such business as that they would be interfered with, and 
that in the city of Cincinnati the business was done in a public way — 
and everything of that kind. I have a telegram here from French 
Brothers Dairy Company, as follows: 

CiNCixxATi, Ohio, Janiiar;/ 9, 1901. 
Secretary National Dairy Union, Xatiotuil Hotel, WasMnytoii, D. C. : 

Larjje percentage oleo sold here as butter. Hurts legitimate butter business. We 
■want Grout bill passed. 

The French Bros. Dairy Co. 

Mr. Schell. In order that there may be no conflict, I wish to call 
attention to the statement that I made, which was that I had talked 
with the Messrs. French personally, and with some young man in their 



474 OLEOMARGARINE. 

office who was a relative, but I do not recall liis name. I just met him 
that day. It was their personal experience. I do not know from whom 
that emanates, or whether it is anybody in authority or anything of that 
kind. 

Mr. Knight. I believe you told me that if they found me with a let- 
ter signed with their name on it, I would be held responsible. Was it 
not you who told me that on the House side? It was somebody. 

Here is another letter : 

[Chas. Heidrich & Co., commission merchants, butter, eggs, poultry, ealve.s, game, green and dried 

fruits, etc., 33 Walnut street.] 

Cincinnati, January 7, 1901. 
Charles Y. Knight, Esq., IVash'mfjton, D. C. 

Dkar Sir : As the Grout bill is before the Senate, and as we are anxions for the 
bill to pass, we take pleasure in writing you a few lines. 

This butterine is sold here by retailers, sirocers. market hucksters, and everybody 
else, and is panned off to the trade for butter. The wholesalers here have told us 
that they charge one-half cent a pound advance, and lay that money aside to tight 
the food inspectors. Every time a man is arrested, aud that from 5 to 20 a week 
are arrested for panning ott butterine for butter, these wholesale men protect them. 
They come up and pay the fine and the retailer sells it again. 

Now we hope that this bill will pass and this evil will be stopped. We shall write 
to one or two Senators also. 
Yours, respectfully, 

Chas. Heidrich & Co. 

This one is from the firm of Herman Wester man : 

[Herman Westerman, general commission merchant, 120 West Court street.] 

Cincinnati, Ohio, Jamiary 7, 1901. 
Mr. Charles Y. Knight, Washingion, D. C. 

Dear Sir : In reply to your inquiry addressed to a neighbor of mine, I am informed 
that the " Grout bill " is to be taken up Wednesday by the Senate. The butter busi- 
ness is almost at a standstill in Cincinnati, owing to a tight on between the dealers 
of oleomargarine. I am informed that some is being sold to retailers at 10 and 13 
cents per pound; you can see why butter is not selling. 

If I am informed rightly, you want to know if oleo is being sold for butter. It is 
not sold for butter by tlie wholesale dealers, but the deception practiced by the 
retailers is where the mischief is done. Every now and then a raid is made on these 
dealers. They are arrested, tined $50 and costs, which is paid l)y the wholesaler who 
furnishes, and in turn he charges one-half cent extra on the oleo for this protection. 

I regret that I did not hear from you personally, but trust you will be as success- 
ful in passing the "Grout bill" by the Senate as you did the House. 

Wishing you every success, I am, 

Yours, very respectfully, Herman Westerman. 

Here is a letter from Charles H. Hess «& Co., of Cincinnati : 

[Office of Clias. H. Hess & Co., general produce and commission merchants, also dealers in cheese. 

No. 24 West Court street.] 

Cincinnati, Ohio, January 7, 1901. 
Charles Y. Knight, 

National Hotel, Washington, D. C. 
Dear Sir: I learn from some of the members of the produce exchange of our city 
that a committee of oleomargarine men have reported in Washington that oleomar- 
garine is sold as oleomargarine only in our city, which is false in its entirety. I 
know positively that there is sold daily thousands of pounds of oleomargarine for 
pure butter. And that the food an<l dairy commissioners are either powerless or 
are indisposed to antagonize. 

While there are some arrests being made, it seems to be on account of local petit 
jealousies among dealers, and not touching on the main offense. The oleomargarine 
dealers have a corruption fund with which they encourage the retail dealers to sell 
oleomargarine for butter. 

In conclusion, will say that you certainly deserve the praise of all honorable deal- 
ers in pure food for the progress you are making. 
Very respectfully, 

Chas. H. Hess &. Co. 



OLEOMARGARINE 475 

Here is one that covers the ground pretty well, I think, from T. L. 
Brundage, of Cincinnati : 

[T. L. Brundage. Established 1893. Commission merehant. Butter and eggs. 28 West Court street, 

Cincinnati.] 

Cincinnati, Ohio, January 7, 1900. 
Chas. Y. Knight, Esq., 

National Hotel, Washingion, D. C. 
Dear Sir: We reijliecl promptly to your wire of to-tlay, regarding statement made 
by Cincinnati oleomargarine man before the Senate committee having charge of the 
Grout bill. In so far as that statement refers to the retail trade of Cincinnati, it is 
absolutely false. Of course the wholesaler, in selling to the retailer, sells oleomar- 
garine for what it is; he could not do otherwise. The retailer sells 90 per cent of 
what he buys for butter, and gets butter prices for it. More than 100 retail grocery 
stores in Cincinnati are to-day advertising the best Elgin Creamery at retail for 25 
cents, while it is worth 25A cents in a jobbing way. The only opportunity, in such 
transactions, for profit, is to substitute oleomargarine for butter, which is being 
done to a very great extent. The present law compels the small grocer, if he handles 
oleomargarine, to become a criminal. I have had a great many of them tell me that 
they wished the stuff was done away with entirely, or some such restrictions placed 
on its sale that deception would be impossible. The small grocer would then be in 
a position to sell his butter for what it is and not be compelled to meet the ruinous 
competition of the larger dealers who use butter only as a "stool pigeon" in their 
business. While the Grout bill, as a law, would unquestionably benefit the dairy 
interests, it would, at the same time be a great help to the small retailers all over 
the country, for the reason that it would destroy the opportunity for fraud and 
place them on the same footing as their competitors in business who are unscru- 
pulous in their methods. Summed up briefly : The oleomargarine traffic in this 
State is wholly illegal, and the only parties who realize any benefit therefrom are 
the manufacturers, jobbers, and the unscrupulous retailer who sells it for butter. 
Very nearly 2,000,000 pounds were sold in this city during the year 1900. 
I am, yours, truly, 

T. L. Brundage, 

E. I. BURRIDGE, 

Manager. 

The rest of them are as follows : 

[Office of Conrad Giebel & Co., wholesale dealers in high-grade butter, cheese, and provisions, com- 
mission merchants, 57 Walnut street.] 

Cincinnati, January 7, 1901. 
Mr. Charles Y. Knight, Washington, D. C. 

Dear Sir: In regard to the sale of oleomargarine for pure butter, we know to be a 
fact, especially in the retail trade, which is very injurious to the sale of pure cream- 
ery butter. Hoping that you will put forth your best efforts in the passing of the 
Grout bill, we remain, 
Yours, very truly, 

Conrad Giebel & Co. 



[S. J. Stevens & Co., wholesale butter and cheese, Cincinnati, Ohio.] 

January 7, 1901. 
Mr. Charle.s Y. Knight, Washington, I). C. 

Dear Sir: As the representative of the Chicago pure butter men, we write to you 
to use your utmost endeavors in meeting and refuting the arguments of those 
opposed to the passage of H. R. bill 3717, known as the "Grout bill," who say the 
manufactuiers and wholesalers of butterine never sell it for pure butter. We are 
aware of this fact, as is everybody, because they dare not do it. It is the retailers 
who offer it to the unsuspecting public as the genuine butter, and this without any 
interference. We know this to be a fact from transactions of this nature in Cincin- 
nati. 

Use all the arguments you can to promote the passage of the bill at an early date, 
and that without amendment of any kind, as amendment would only delay the pas- 
sage of the bill and probably kill it. 

Yours, very truly, S. J. Stevens & Co. 



476 OLEOMAKGAKINE. 

[Telker & Dunker, wholesale fruit and produce commission merchants, No. 118 East Court street.] 

Cincinnati, January 7, 1901. 
Mr. Charles Y. Knight, Washington, D. C. 

Dear Sir: We hear to-day that it has been argued that every pound of oleo sold 
here is sohl as oleo. This is decidedly not the case, as any amount is sold here as 
butter. 

Eespectfully, yours, Telker & Dunker. 



[Office of Blome & Dreifus, commission merchants, 1010 Race street.] 

Cincinnati, January 7, 1901. 
Mr. Charles Y. Knight, Washington, D. C. 

Dear Sir : Have been shown your telegram saying oleo is sold in our market for 
such ; it is very easy said as the wholesalers sell it for oleo as they are compelled to, 
but the retailer sells it for what he can, but invariably for butter. The writer has 
bought on several occasions (just to find oat) butter and received oleo. The State 
officers occasionally make some arrests, but the job is too big. The wholesalers guar- 
antee the retailers protection and pay their tines. If the Governmeut does not pass 
the Grout bill, batter will soon be a thing of the past, as honest dealers in pare but- 
ter can not compete with fraud. Some of the retailers make no effort any more to 
sell for oleo as the wholesalers pay the fines. There is nothing too mean or low for 
the oleo dealers to <io. 

Yours, David Dreifus. 



[Finke & Schwier, commission merchants, 1008 Race street, near Court.] 

Cincinnati, Ohio, January 7, 1901. 
Mr. Charles Y. Knight, Washington, D. C. 

Dear Sir: We have just seen a telegram that a statement had been made to the 
committee that all oleomargarine was sold as such in Cincinnati. We wish to 
emphatically deny such statement. The wholesale dealers may, as the United States 
Government compels them to. bat the retailers sell it anyway just to sell it, because 
they are protected by the wholesale dealers, who pay their lines, if caught. We 
know it is sold as butter from personal observation. We also know that the retail 
dealer is protected in selling it, as our customers tell us when they take out licenses 
that they have no fear, as the wholesale dealers pay their tines, if arrested. If no 
check is put on this fraud or imposition on the consumer, it is only a question of 
time when the dairy interests will be overwhelmed. Hoping the facts above stated 
may be of some benefit to the crusade against the colored oleomargarine fraud, we 
remain, 

Yours, truly, 

Finke & Schwier. 



[Halfhill & Kolb, general commission merchants, 134 West Court street.] 

Cincinnati, Ohio, January 7, 1901. 
Mr. Charles Y. Knight. 

Dear Sir: We were shown a telegram on 'change here in which it is asserted that 
oleomargarine is being sold in this market as such, which is an untruth, as it is a 
very common thing to go into our market and ask for a pound of butter and be 
handed oleomargarine. 

The State authorities here have been unable to cope with the combine here and it 
has been sold openly before them as butter. We therefore ask you in the interest 
of pure food, and the chances of killiug one of the largest industries in our States 
by this adulteration of butter, to do your utmost in bringing about a fair and 
equitable law in behalf of pure butter. 

Yours, very sincerely, Halfhill & Kolb. 

The purport of all these letters is the same — that is, that it is sold in 
Ciucinnati as butter and for butter, aud that there is a protection fund 
of a half cent levied upon the wholesale sales to protect those who do 
the selling. 



OLEOMARGARTNE. 477 

Mr. Jelke. Did Mr. Blackburn go to Oincinnati ? 

Mr. Knight. No, sir; he did not. 

A VOICE. Would it not be well to state to the committee that this 
Mr. Brundage is a broker in pure butter? 

Mr. Knight. All of these people are dealers in pure butter — all 
kinds of butter. 

A VOICE. In fact, more process butter than pure butter. 

Mr. Knight. I do not know how much process butter, or how much 
dairy butter, or how much ladle butter, or how much imitation ladle 
butter. 

A voice. Anyone who knows anything about Mr. Brundage knows 
he is a process-butter man. 

Mr. Knight. I do not think so. 

A VOICE. He sells more process butter than he does pure butter, I 
think. 

Mr. Knight. If he sells it legally, I can not see the objection. You 
do not claim he sells it illegally? 

A VOICE. Certainly not; but process butter is something like oleo- 
margarine. 

Mr. Knight. I want to call your attention, gentlemen, to a circular 
sent out by Braun & Fitts, under date of March 17, 1899, in which they 
say: 

Eggs are selling at cost, but "the only high grade" will give you profit, so keep 
pushing its sale and build up a reputation for good butter. 

Senator Dolliver. Did I understand you to say they are making 
artificial eggs? 

Mr. Knight. Yes, sir; they are. They are making eggine. It is 
an artificial egg, but not an imitation of eggs. There is the difference 
between a substitute and a counterfeit. 

Senator Allen. Are these letters you have read reciting the sale of 
oleomargarine from jobbers in oleomargarine to their customers, the 
retailers f 

Mr. Knight. Letters from jobbers of butter I 

Senator Allen. ^ es. You have read several letters here in which 
the writer would say to the person to whom it is sold to go on and sell 
it and the cost and expenses of prosecution would be met. 

Mr. Knight. One of them is the letter of Mr. Jelke's firm and 
another 

Mr. Jelke. Oh, no. 

Senator Allen. They are either the manufacturers or jobbers. 

Mr. Knight. The manufacturers in Chicago, if you mean the first 
letters I read. Senator. 

Senator Allen. Yes. 

Mr. Knight. Yes; one of them was Mr. Jelke's firm, and the other 
was Mr. William J. 31oxley's. 

Senator Allen. These letters were either from the manufacturers or 
the jobbers in this article! 

Mr. Knight. Those are the manufacturers. 

Mr. Jelke. Excuse me. Does not the Senator mean these letters 
[indicating]? 

Mr. Knight. He is not talking about the Cincinnati letters; he is 
talking about the other letters. 

Mr. S('HELL. I would like to have it go on the record right here that 
I want an opportunity to look into the gentlemen who have written 
these letters. I only recognize one name, and that is the name of a 
man who is not responsible financially or in any other wayj and as to 



478 OLEOMARGARINE. 

this corruption fund, I want to deny it in toto as to any of my clients, 
or as to anybody whom I know in the wholesale business, as regards 
defending" cases for the sale of oleomargarine for butter. 

Mr. Knight. I have also statements from the Secretary of Agricul- 
ture about them, if you want me to give them. Now, gentlemen, when- 
ever I tire you, 1 want you to tell me. 

Senator IHanshrough. Have you concluded? 

Mr. Knight. No ; I have not gotten through anything like what I 
should; I wanted to say something on the price of butter. In fact, I 
have a tremendous lot of information in this matter that has not been 
presented and that is very vital, but, as you see, the time I had 
intended to occupy was somewhat occupied by other people. 

Senator Hansbrough. Can you boil down what you have to say 
and present it in an hour to-morrow"? 

Mr. Knight. I might. 

Senator Hanserough. Try to get the essential points, so as to pre- 
sent it in an hour to morrow. 

Mr. Knight. I will do this, Senator. If you will let me take up a 
few minutes on butter prices I will be content to leave it to you and not 
bother any further. 

Senator Hansbrough. Mr. McNamee desired to ask a question, I 
believe. 

Mr. McNamee. Yes, sir. Mr. Knight says he is a member of organ- 
ized labor. What organization? 

Mr. Knight. The Typographical Union, when I was at work at the 
trade. 

Mr. McNambe. What local? 

Mr. Knight. Minneapolis lodge. 

Mr. McNamee. You are an ex-member? 

Mr. Knight. I said I had been a member. I employ nothing else 
but union labor all the time. 

Mr. McNamee. That is a matter of policy, of course. 

Mr. Knight. Yes ; it is a matter of policy. 

Mr McNamee. What is your present occupation, Mr. Knight? 

Mr. Knight. Newspaper man. 

Mr. McNamee. What is the circulation of your newspaper? 

Mr. Knight. Am I sui^posed to stand here and be questioned about 
circulation ? 

Mr. McNamee. What is its policy? 

Mr. Knight. None of your business, absolutely, in that case. It is 
a question that does not concern you or this case at all. 

Mr. McNamee. Is it not a fact that you at present make your living 
as an oflficer of the dairy unions? 

Mr. Knight. I have got an opportunity to answer now. I have 
worked in this case for the last three or four years and our paper has 
contributed liberally to the expense of what we have had to do in it, 
and I have never received one cent salary. I have only received my 
expenses, and every cent that has ever been spent has been accounted 
for, and the vouchers and accounts are open to you or anybody else. 

Mr. McNamee. You are at present merely receiving your expenses? 

Mr. Knight. I am. 

Mr. McNamee. You are making this patriotic effort, then 

Mr. Knight. Can you say as much ? 

Mr. McNamee. Yes, sir, Mr. Knight; I can say as much. 

Senator Hansbrough. You have said you could, so you are even. 

Mr. McNamee. I am not through, Mr. Chairman. In regard to the 



OLEOMARGARINE. 479 

Cleveland matter. Are you aware of tlie fact that the Building Trades 
Council of Cleveland passed a resolution 

Mr. Knight. I don't know anything about it except what I stated. 
I told all I kncv. If you have any information about it you might 
state it to the committee. 

Senator Allen. I suggest that we adjourn until half past 10 to-mor- 
row morning. 

Mr. McNamee. Mr. Chairman, before the committee adjourns I desire 
to say that I am a traveling salesman for a business firm in Cincinnati, 
and that I am here on private business. If it were not for that 1 should 
not be here. 

Senator Hansbkough. That is sufficient. 

Mr. Knight. That is all right. We understand each other, I guess. 

The committee (at 5.15 p. m.) adjourned until Friday, January 11, 
1901, at 10.30 a. m. 



Washington, D. C, Friday, January 11, Win. 

The committee met at 10.30 o'clock a. m. 

Present: Senators Foster (acting chairman), Money, and Dolliver. 
Also, Hon. W. J. Bailey, a member of the House of liepresentatives; 
Charles E. Schell, representing the Ohio Butterine Comj^any, of Cin- 
cinnati, Ohio; W. E. Miller, representing Armour & Co., Kansas City, 
Mo.; John F. Jelke, representing Braun & Fitts, Chicago, 111., and 
others. 

CONTINUATION OF STATEMENT OF CHARLES. Y. KNIGHT. 

Mr. Knight. Mr. Chairman and Senators, the first thing that I 
want to do this morning is to comment on this color question. Why 
do we color butter and why not color oleomargarine"? And 1 want to 
speak relative to the claim of the oleomargarine people to have origi- 
nated the color that is used, and to say something about the natural 
color of butter. 

It is conceded by everybody that the natural color of butter varies 
at different seasons of the year, under dilferent conditions of feed and 
pasture, and in different breeds of cattle or cows. So how are we to 
determine whether or not butter is naturally yellow, and how long it is 
yellow, and how yellow it is? 

The report of the Secretary of the Treasury on what is known as the 
Tawney resolution, calling for the ingredients used in the making of 
oleomargarine, for the fiscal year 1898-99 showed that there were used, 
in 83,000,000 pounds of oleomargarine, 148,500 pounds of coloring mat- 
ter. Figuring that by the gallon, it takes 240 some odd gallons to the 
million pounds of oleomargarine to bring it up to the standard color, 
which is the same as that of butter. 

I went to the leading creameryman of the United States just before 
I left Chicago. He is the head of a concern which makes several mil- 
lion pounds of butter a year. I asked him to give me a statement of 
the quantity of butter color used in a million i)ounds (taken the season 
over) of their batter to bring it up to the standard color. He got the 
statement from his books of the amount of butter color used last year, 
and showed it to have been 70 gallons per million pounds of butter. 
So the difference between the color of butter, naturally, and the color 
of oleomargarine, naturally, is as the difference between 70 gallons of 



480 OLEOMARGARINE. 

color for 1 ,000,000 pounds of butter and 240 gallons of color for 1,000,000 
pounds of oleomargarine — that is to say, if we take 100 as a basis and 
make 240 gallons of color the amount necessary to bring oleomargarine 
from white up to the normal color of butter, then the natural color of 
butter would be 66| per cent of the color that it has the year round. 

Mr. Jelkb. Mr. Knight, will you permit just one question*? 

Mr. Knight. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Jelke. Does your creamery man state what strength of butter 
color he uses? Sometimes it is double and triple strength. I under- 
stand they make a special color which is very powerful. 

Mr. Knight. No. Wells, Richardson & Co.'s colors are what they 
use, Mr. Jelke, the same as your firm does. 

Mr. Jelke. I think they make more than one standard. 

Mr. Knight. No, sir; not unless they make it especially strong 
for you. 

Mr. Jelke. We do not use a specially strong color; but they make 
it, and I know it has been offered to us. We have not used it, however. 

Mr. Knight. Wells, Richardson & Co. make but one kind of butter 
color that is used in the West for butter. I am very familiar with their 
business in that respect. Moreover, we surely do not need for butter 
(which is partly yellow in the first place) a strong color. It is the oleo- 
margarine people who need the strong color, because they have got to 
bring their color from a white up to a standard. And I think they found, 
when they first attem|)ted to color their product, that carrots were 
Deeded in very large quantities to make their substitute as yellow as 
they wanted it; and it was the necessity of getting a very strong color 
that led them to the use of the aniline colors for that purpose. 

Mr. Miller. There is one reason why there is that difiierence in the 
amount of coloring matter used — at the time of the year when the 
cows are on grass they need very little color. 

Mr. Knight. Yes; that is true. 

Mr. Miller. That accounts for the difference of which you spoke. 

Mr. Knight. Oh, not entirely. That is only a third of the year. 

Mr. Miller. You will acknowledge, however, that that is the time 
of the year when they make the largest amount of butter. 

Mr. ivNiGHT. Yes; tliey njake the largest amount of butter then. 
So that is a concession that a large amount of the butter production is 
natuially yellow. 

Kepi esentative Bailey. It takes just as much coloring matter to 
make white butter yellow as it does to make white butterine yellow, 
does it not? 

Mr. Knight, Yes; but the butter is never as white as oleomargarine. 

Re])resentative Bailey. Oh, yes, it is. 

Mr. Knight. That is a difference of opinion, then, which we can not 
settle here in the committee. 

Representative Bailey. Why, everybody who has lived on a farm 
and who luis eaten butter made in the winter knows it. 

The Acting Chairman. How expensive is the color? 

Ml'. Knight. That color costs the oleomargarine i)eople about $1.70 
a gallon, I think. It costs the butter people more. 

The Acting Chairman. For the reason that the oleomargarine man- 
ufactnrers buy such large quantities? 

Mr. Knight. Yes; they do buy large quantities. As a matter of 
fact, there is more butter color used in the oleomargarine that is made 
in the United States than there is used in all the creameries in butter. 
1 have investigated that subject, and I know what the business of the 
concerns in butter color is, because I have gone into the matter. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 481 

Mr. Miller. Do yon mean to say tliat tbeie is more butter color 
used in the 1()7,(>U0,0U() pounds of oleomargarine than there is in the 
1,5()0,()00,()()0 pounds of butter! 

Mr. Knight. No; I said creamery butter. Only 20 per cent of the 
product of the United States is creamery butter. 

The next thing to which I wish to call yonr attention is a statement 
made by a gentlemen who came down here from New York the other 
day, and pretended to be a butter num. He is in the butter business, 
I believe — the export butter business; and it is to his interest to have 
bntter as low as possible, because when it is low he can export it from 
this country more profitably. When butter is selling at a price which 
brings anything like a fair return to the producer, he does not get much 
of an oi)portunity to export it; and he is therefore interested in low 
butter prices. He made a statement to you about the tremendously 
large increase — or at least about an increase; 1 will not say '-tremen- 
dously large" increase — in the production of butter, as shown by the 
receipts of butter in New York City; and he attempted to make this 
committee believe that the dairy business now is better than it ever 
has been, by citing the fact that last year the market for butter was, I 
think, higher than it had been for twelve years. 

I hold in my hand the statistics for receipts of butter in the city of 
New York during the past twelve years. 

The Acting Chair,man. What is that taken from? 

Mr. Knight. This is from the official report of the mercantile 
exchange of the city of New Y^ork, and can be verified. 1 do not think 
it will be contradicted by anybody, however. Senator. 

With the exception of the year 1897, there has never been as much 
butter received in the city of New Y'ork as there was in the year 1890, 
ten years ago. 

In 1890 the receipts of butter in the city of New York were 2,092,115 
packages; in 1891, 1,843,702 packages; in 1892, 1,780,820 packages; 
in 1893, 1,054,198 packages. You will see from these figures that there 
was a decrease right straight down from 1890, from 2,092,115 packages 
in that year to 1,654,198 packages in 1893, in the city of New York. 
The receipts began to increase at that time, owing to a reaction in the 
market, and in 1894 they were 1,711,460 packages. In 1895 they were 
1,708,576 packages; in 1896, 1,923,061; in 1897,2,156,187 packages; 
1897, then, was the first year when the receipts got up as high as they 
were in 1890, when they were 2,092,115 packages. In 1898 the receipts 
fell off" from those of 1897. 

(Senator Allen at this point took the chair as Acting Chairman.) 

Mr. Knight. As I say, the receipts of butter in the city of New 
York reached the figure of 2,156,187 packages in the year 1897. In the 
year 1898 the production of butter began to ftiU oft" again, as shown 
by those receipts, and reached only 2,079,120 packages. In 1899 it fell 
oft" again, and was 2,000,387 packages. In 1900 there was a falling oft", 
and it reached only 1,911,061 packages. 

The Acting Chairman (Senator Allen). That is the export butter, 
is it? 

Mr. Knight. No; these are the receipts in New York, Senator. I 
am giving these figures in reply to a gentleman who was down here 
from New York the other day claiming that more butter was received 
in New Y'ork last year than in any other. I have just shown that, 
with the exception of one year, the receipts in New York have not 
been in ten years what they were in 1890. 

The Acting Chairman. 1 recall his evidence. 
8. Kep. 2(J43 31 



482 OLEOMAKGARINE. 

Mr. Jelke. Mr. Knight, just one question: Tliose figures represent 
the number of packages? 

Mr. Knight. Yes. 

Mr. Jelke. Are tliey of the same size? 

Mr. Knight. I do not know, Mr. Jelke. 

Mr. Jelke. I know that years ago a large number of pnickages of 
butter went into New York in the shape of tiikins containing 100 or 
112 pounds. 

Mr. Knight. There is no way of arriving at that information. 

Senator Foster. Are these tubs or firkins t 

Mr. Knight. There is no way of telling that. 

Mr. Miller. Is it not a tact that the receipts of butter since May 1 
last in New York show an increase over the previous year? 

Mr. Knight. Yes; they are increasing a little over the previous 
year. 

Another thing to which this gentleman drew your attention very 
forcibly was the fact that last year the price of butter was higher in 
New York City than it had been for twelve years. 

Well, he simply misrepresented the facts in that case. Here is a 
publication from the Agricultural Department giving a diagram of the 
price of butter for the last ten years ; and 1 have carried it oat to eleven 
years. 1 am sorry 1 have not enough copies of this publication to hand 
one to each member of the committee. There it is, in this ehart — the 
line showing the production of oleomargarine. It shows the amount 
produced in each month as compared with the preceding and successive 
months. 

That will reveal to you, gentlemen, a little of the cause of our alarm 
in this matter. If you will follow that diagram you will see, Senator, 
that the ])rice of butter has gradually been going down, down, down. 
You will see that in 1898 or 1899 there was a marked advance. In 
1898 you will notice a sharp jump. The market went upward. The 
cause of that has not yet been explained to you. 

The jump in the price of butter in the year 1898 was due to droughts 
all over Europe. There was a tremendous export demand for butter in 
that year, as a result of a scorching drought all over the continent, and 
all over the islands of England and Ireland. The importers of Europe 
came here in August for our butter, and they cleaned out everything 
that we could possibly sell to them. They cleaned up our storage sup- 
plies, among other things; and the result was that when we came to 
the winter there was no stock in storage from which to draw. The 
surplus had all been wiped out. That was the cause of the high prices 
of that year. It was not a natural condition at all. What is the con- 
dition to-day? A year ago the price of butter in the New York market 
was about 30 cents a pound as a result of that drought. To-day the 
market in New York is either 24 or 25 cents, I am not i)repared to say 
exactly which. 

Mr. Jelke. The market reports in the newspapers will give you the 
exact figures. 

Mr. Knight. Yes; but I have not them. 

The Acting Chairman. Mr. Knight, permit me to suggest this: 
Mr. Peters, from Texas, a very large cattle owner, is here, having come 
from quite a distance. He wants to make a statement, and possibly 
you will want to reply to what he says. 

Mr. Knight. Very well; I am willing to give way, if you suggest it. 
Senator. 

The Acting Chairman. I am simply suggesting to you the pro- 
priety of the step. You can use your own discretion about it. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 483 

Mr. Knight. I shall be very glad to accommodate the gentleman. 
Does he want to be heard now? Is that the idea? 

The Acting Chairman. Would you prefer to be heard now, Mr. 
Peters? 

Mr. Peters. Either now or at a subsequent time. I do not want to 
interrupt Mr. Knight or you gentlemen of the committee. 

The Acting Chairman. I thought possibly you might want to reply 
to some of Mr. Peters's statements, Mr. Knight. 

STATEMENT OF E. S. PETERS, PRESIDENT AMERICAN COTTON 
GROWERS' ASSOCIATION. 

The Acting Chairman (Senator Allen). Mr. Peters, kindly give the 
reporter your name, place of residence, and business. 

Mr. Peters. My name is E. S. Peters; my residence is Calvert, Tex. 

The Acting Chairman. What is your occupation? 

Mr. Peters. 1 am a planter. 

The Acting Chairman. To what extent? 

Mr. Peters. I have over 4,500 acres of land in cultivation. 1 repre- 
sent the Cotton Growers' Association of Texas, and I am the president 
of the American Cotton Growers' Association. 

The Acting (Chairman. You may proceed with your statement. 

Mr. Peters. I would like to state, gentlemen, in this connection, 
that I did not come here prepared with a speech or anything of the 
kind. J came here on very short notice, and I have simply gotten up 
a few statistics to show the amount involved; in other words, to show 
that the cotton-oil industry will really be aflFected very materially by 
this bill. I have here, figures from Mr. Hart, the statistician of the 
Department of Agriculture, giving the acreage, i)roduction, and value 
of lint cotton and estimated production of cotton seed in the various 
States of the Union. I obtained them from the Department of Agri- 
culture so as to be able to speak from official data. 

The acreage of cotton in 1898-99 was 24,9(17, 295 acres. The produc- 
tion of lint cotton was 11,189,205 bales; and the production of cotton 
seed 5,594,002 tons. In 1900-1901 (the crop coming in now) the esti- 
mated cro]) of lint cotton is 10,100,000 bales, and of cotton seed 5,050,000 
tons. A ton of seed has been selling at about $15 to $16. That is 
what we have been getting for it. Of course I do not know anything 
at all about oleomargarine; but I know that a certain percentage of 
the cotton-seed oil goes into that product. 

Senator Money. You say you produced 11,000,000 bales? 

Mr. Peters. It is the estimate of the Department that the crop will 
be 10,100,000 bales. 

Senator P'oster. And about half that number of tons of seed? 

Mr. Peters. Yes, sir; 1,500 j)ounds of seed cotton will make a 500- 
pound bale of cotton, and about a thousand pounds of cotton seed. 

Mr. Knight. What is that worth a bale? 

Mr. Peters. It is worth to-day, I think, about 9i cents in Galveston. 

Mr. Knight. Five hundred pounds to the bale, you say ? 

Mr. Peters. Yes, sir. You are talking about lint cotton, are you 
not? 

Mr. Knigh i\ Yes, sir. I wanted to arrive at the value of a bale of 
cotton, and to get, as a matter of fact, at the value of the cotton pro- 
duced. 

Senator Money. That would be 847.50. 

Mr. Knight. $47.50; yes. And how many bales comprise the pro- 
duct of the United States? 



484 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. Peters. The Department's estimate of this year's production is 
10,100,000 bales. Last year it was 9,142,838. The year before last it 
was 11,189,L'0:.. 

Now, Texas is more interested than any other one State. According 
to this statement, we raise at least a third of the crop of cotton of the 
United States. 1 say Texas; Oklahoma and tlie Indian Territory are 
included in that. Last year the amount of cotton actually raised in 
Oklahoma was 00,53.5 bales, and in the Indian Territory, 110,930 bales. 
Now, the crop this year for the Territories and Texas is 3,570,000 bales, 
representing 1,785,000 tons of seed. That seed, at $15 per ton, which 
is about the average price thai the mills pay, would make about 

Senator Money. Oh, you have that too high. 

Mr. Peters. The price of .^eed? 

Senator Money. Yes. 

Mr. Peters. No, sir; I think not. 

Senator Foster. Someone stated here the other day that it was 
worth from $8 to $10 a ton. 

Mr. Peters. Allow me to read you this statement, as bearing oa 
that question : 

Prices of cotton seed (Honnton) per ton of 2,000 pounds, 1S9S-1900. 
[From Bradstroel's quotations.] 



Jan uary 1 : [ $9. 50 

February 1 9. 50 

March l'. ' 9.00 

April 1 ' 10. 00 

May I i 1 0. (10 

J uue 1 10. 00 

July 1 9.75 

August 1 9.50 

September 1 11. 00 

October 1 9.00 

November ] l 9. 00 

December 1 8. 00 



Senator Foster. Then the prices are going up all the time? 

Mr. Peters. Yes; they are higher this year than they were last 
year. 

Senator Money. They have been going up. 

Senator Foster. For the reason that they are making so much more 
oleomargarine'^ 

Mr. Peters. No; I suppose they are finding more uses for it; there 
is a larger demand. 

Senator Money. The reason cotton has gone up is because every- 
thing else on earth has gone up — on account of the abundance of 
money. 

The Acting Chairman. You are a practical raiser of cotton, are you, 
Mr. Peters'? 

Mr. Peters. Yes, sir. I did not raise much last year, though. The 
flood hit us i)retty heavily, and we had a pretty bad time this year, 
although I raised a good deal of cotton. I have raised over 2,000 bales 
in one year. But it is coming over now. 

Senator Foster. Yes; you are all right now. 

The Acting Chairman. Go on, Mr. Peters. 

Mr. Peters. On the basis of these prices of Bradstieet's and the 
figures I got from the Department of Agriculture, the valuation of the 
crop of Texas and the Indian Territory, at $15 a ton, would be about 
$30,000,000. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 485 

Senator Foster. For the cotton seed? 

Mr. Peters. For the cotton seed — 1,785,000 tons at about $15 per ton. 

Senator Money. If it will not interrupt you, 1 would like to have 
you go back to the price of cotton seed for a moment, because the 
prices you gave are contrary to my experience. Do you refer to the 
price per ton of cotton seed, or the price per bushel? 

Mr. Peters. No; the price per ton of seed at Houston. Let nie read 
to you the prices of cotton seed at Houston, per ton of 2,000 j)ounds, 
from 1898 to 1900. These figures are taken from Bradstreet's quota- 
tions. On the 1st of January, 1888, the price was $9.50; iu 1899 it was 
$9; in 1900 it was $12. 

Senator Money. Sixty bushels make a ton, you know. 

jNlr. Peters. That is the way il is usually estimated. 

Senator Money. Well, that is the basis on which every farmer and 
every oil-dealer buys and sells. 

Mr. Peters. In our section they buy and sell entirely by the ton, 
by weight. 

Senator Money. Well, 00 bushels of seed will make a ton. I have 
lived on a cotton farm. In fact, 1 am a farmer myself. Now, that will 
make 25 cents a bushel for cotton seed, there being 60 busliels in a ton. 

Mr. Peters. That is right. 

Senator Money. The point is that in my State we are only getting 
about $8 a ton now. 

Mr. Peters. 1 sold mine last year at $15.50. 

Senator Money. Ffteen dollars and a half a ton ? 

Mr. Peters. Fifteen dollars and a half a ton. 

Senator Money. Tliat is 25 cents a bushel. That is higher than I 
ever knew it to be sold before. 

Senator Foster. You had better send yours over to Texas, Senator. 

Senator Money. Yes; we might ship our cotton into Texas at a 
profit, at that rate. 

Mr. Peters. ISlo; you do not know the railroad peoi)le there. The 
railroads charge us double price west of the river there for everything 
we ship. It takes about $2.50 a bale to get a bale of cotton to the ports 
west of us, while east of.us it is only about a dollar. 

Senator Foster. These are Galveston prices, are theyf 

Mr. Peters. These are Houston prices. 

Senator Dolliver. You are being robbed by somebody in some way, 
Senator Money. 

The Acting Chairman. The "octopus" has got hold of you. [Laugh- 
ter.] But go on with your statement, Mr. Peters. 

Mr. Peters. This is the letter I received inclosing the figures to 
which I referred a moment ago. 

Unitei> States Department of Agriculture, 

Division of Statistics, 
Washington, D. C, January 8, 1901. 
Mr. E. S. Peters, 

Hotel Ilale/Kjli, City. 
Dear Sik: In compliance with my promise of yesterday, I be<i,- to inclose such 
information as is available with regard to the production and price of cotton seed. 
The iuforniation with regard to prices is rather meager, and I do not know whether 
it will meet with your re(|uirements or not, but it is the best that can be done on 
such short notice. So far as production of cotton seed is concerned, it has been 
figured out on the generally accepted basis of two-thirds seed and one-third lint; 
in other words, it is assumed that 1,500 pounds of lint and seed will make 500 pounds 
of lint and 1,000 pounds of seed. In the tigures for 1900-1901 of production of cot- 
ton, it is impossible to sejiarate the production of Texas and the Territories, but this 
is explained in a footnote. 

Very truly, yours, John Hyde. 



486 



OLEOMARGARINE. 



Acreage, production, and value of lint cotton and estimated prodnction of cotton seed 
named States and United States, 1S9S-99 to 1900-1901. 

lJ]SriTED STATES. 



Tear. 



Lint cotton. 



Acreage. 



Production. 



1898-99... 
1899-1900. 
1900-1901. 



Hales. 

24, 967, 295 11, 189, 205 
23, 403, 497 9, 142, 838 

25, 034, 734 10, 100, 000 



I Cotton seed, 

1 estimated 

Value. t production. 



$305 467,041 
334, 847, 868 



TOUK. 

5, 594, 602 
4,571.419 
5, 050, GOO 





TEXAS. 








1898 99 . . 




6,991,904 
6,642,309 
7 (U1 000 


3, 363. 109 
2, 438, 555 


«96, 619, 431 
92, 187, 133 


1,681,554 


1899 1900 





1,219,278 


1900 1901 














OKLAHOMA. 


1898 99 




215, 893 
208, 553 
246, 000 


109, 026 
66, 555 


$3, 108, 942 
2, 512, 584 


54, 513 


1899-1900 

1900-1901 





33, 27& 












INDIAN TERRITC 


DRY. 






1898 99 


314, 906 
299,161 
344, 000 


207, 838 
119,939 


$5, 971, 019 
4, 534, 174 


103, 919 


1899 1900 


59, 970 


1900 1901 











'Texas and Territories, 3,570,000 bales; this represents 1,785,000 tons of cotton seed. 

Now, I have said what I wished to state in reference to how this bill 
will att'ect us cotton planters. 

I would like to say this in reference to the merits of this case: I see 
no reason why the products of one agricultural section should be legis- 
lated against for the benefit of another section. We all use butter 
down our way; in fact, I presume they use it as much there as they do 
anywhere else. I know I always have plenty on my table and never 
have to buy any. But there is no right or justice in taking one prod- 
uct for the benefit of another agricultural product. 

I would suggest, in place of placing the tax proposed by this Grout 
bill on oleomargarine, that if the butter men are honest in what they 
say, and simply do not want butter imitated, that can very easily be 
remedied, according to my idea. I would suggest that the products 
of the process butter factories be put up round or oval packages, so 
that they can be designated as process butter, and that oleomargarine 
be put up in square or rectangular packages and marked as it is now. 
If they will make it compulsory by a law with penalties attached to 
put oleomargarine up in bricks, a blind man or a child can tell exactly 
what he is getting, and there can be no imposition; and it would not 
work a hardship upon the dairy people at all. 

Senator Money. Then you want the renovated butter marked, too, 
do you ? 

Mr. Peters. Yes. Let the process-butter people put their product 
up in oval or round packages. I think they are the men who need 
looking after, if I can judge from some little testimony I have read and 
heard. 

I do not know, Senators, that there is anything further that I wish 
to submit to you, unless it is a letter I received from Harvie Jordan, 



oleomargarinp:. 487 

president of the Georgia Cotton Growers' Protective Association, 
directed to the committee. I will read it: 

To the hoiiorahle Committee on Atjriculture. 

United States Senate, 
Washington, D.C, January 5, 1901. 

Mk. Chaiijman and Gentlemen: In behalf of the au;ricultural interests of my 
State, which might be affected adversely or otherwise by the passage of the pend- 
ing Grout bill, now in your hands for consideration, I beg to herewith submit my 
earnest protest against its favorable consideration. The people of my State are 
opposed to any legislation which fosters one industry at the expense of another. 

Georgia is rapidly developing the dairy industry, and has also extended cotton- 
seed oil milling interests. From a careful reading of the Grout bill, I feel assured its 
passage would work serious detriment to the cotton-seed oil industry of the South. 
The sale of our farm products should be based upon legitimate demand, and every 
article given a fair showing in the maikets. 

The ditferent States will and are enacting laws which will fully protect our but- 
ter industry against the improper sale of oleomargarine, and will shut the sale of 
that article out of the inarkct as an active competitor, saA e upon its actual merits. 

A bill was introduced at the last session of the legislature in this State, and 
passed, which guaranteed absolute protection to the butter industry of (Jeorgia, and 
at the same time left the choice of purchase and consumption of butter and oleomar- 
garine on a fair and equitable basis. 

Sectional or class legislation is always objectionable, and should never be tolerated 
in a country of such wide and varied interests as ours. I can see no good reason for 
national legislation on the interests of the Grout bill. I am chairman of the general 
agricultural committee of the house of representatives of Georgia, and can assure 
you that we have secured the passage of a State law which gives satisfaction and 
ample protection to the dairymen of Georgia, so far as the future sale of oleomar- 
garine is concerned. 

I am exceedinglj' anxious for the rapid development of the dairying industry in 
Georgia, but I do not want it fostered and protected by the passage of unjust laws, 
which will be detrimental to the future of other highly valuable and equally impor- 
tant agricultural products. 

1 trust that your committee will give to the provisions of the Grout bill most 
careful and thorough consideration, and that your tinal judgment will be based upon 
a fair and just solution of the questions involved in that bill, which I feel assured is 
the earnest desire of every Senator who has the honor of representing the American 
people in the highest branch of their Natioual Legislature. 

With highest respect, I beg to remain, gentlemen. 

Yours, truly, Hak\ie Jordan. 

Senator Money. Who is the writer of that letter? 

Mr. Peters. Harvie Jordan. He is the president of the (Tcorgia 
Cotton Growers' Protective Association, and chairman of the Commit- 
tee on Agricnltare of the Georgia senate. 

Gentlemen, I thank yon very kindly for allowing me to be heard. 

CONTINUATION OF STATEMENT OF CHARLES Y. KNIGHT. 

Mr. Knight. It was stated by Senator Allen that probably I would 
want to au.swer something that the gentleman ])receding me has said 
In regard to cotton-seed oil. 

From his figures I gather that the value of the cotton production of 
this country is $47."),()00,<)00. From figures presented by other people 
here, I take it that the value of the cotton-seed-oil industry is 
$50,000,000, making a total of $525,000,000. Of those $525,000,000 in 
value of the cotton and cotton-oil product, the oleomargarine people of 
this country use less than one-half of $1,000,000 worth. The amount of 
cotton-seed oil used in the manufacture of oleomargarine in this coun- 
try, in proportion to the product of oleomargarine, basing it upon the 
figures of the cotton-seed-oil people themselves, is about two-thirds of 
1 per cent. So that we can not see, gentleujen, any great harm that 



■488 OLEOMARGARINE. 

can accrue to the manufacturers of cotton-seed oil as a result of this 
legislation, even if it would (as they claim) crush out the industry 
entirely, which we deny. 

Mr. Miller. I would like to call the attention of the committee to 
the statement made by Mr. Culbertson, representing the Paris C tton 
Oil Company, of Paiis, Tex. That statement was to the effect tnat 
the amount of oil made for the manufacture of oleomargarine was 25 
j)er cent of the total amount of oil made. 

Mr. Knight. I do not know what Mr. Culbertson said; but I do 
know that the Secretary of the Treasury has reported that in the 
83,000,000 pounds of oleoraargiue made in this country last year there 
were less than 9,000,000 pounds of cotton-seed oil. I can not give you 
in pounds the amount of cotton seed oil produced; I am only giving it 
in dollars, as shown by this report, which does not give it in pounds. 
So that that statement will hardly stand the test of reason, when it is 
seen that the value of all of the cotton seed oil is $50,000,000 yearly, 
and there is only $500,000 worth used in the oleomargarine made in this 
country, and •-:5'i)er cent of the $50,000,000 would be $ LL',500,000. 

Mr. MiLLKK. You are not taking into consideration the amount 
exported. 

Mr. Knight. Do we make into oleomargarine in this country the 
cotton-seed oil that is exported ? 

Mr. MiLLEE. What would be the effect upon the export trade if you 
should place a ban on the oil used in this country ? 

Mr. Knight. I want to speak in connection with this matter of 
"placing a ban" on the oil in this country. When this bill was up for 
consideration in 1880, the cry was, " If you place a -cent stamp on 
oleomargarine, you will place a ban on the article, so that nobody in the 
United States will use it." But the minute the tax was placed on oleo- 
margarine, its manufacturers began to call it an indorsement by the 
Government of oleomargarine; and the matter has been carried into 
the courts, and it has been claimed that this taxation gave the Govern- 
ment's stamp of approval to oleomargarine. 

Now, if 2 cents a pound tax will give you the Government's stamp of 
approval, a tax of 10 cents a pound will give you five times that much 
approval. [Laughter.] 

Senator Money. Let me ask you a question : Do you want to repress 
or destroy the manufacture of colored oleomargarine in this country? 
Is that your wish °? 

Mr. Knight. Why, I think it has been demonstrated here, Senator, 
that white oleomargarine can be sold. I know very well that if its 
manufacturers want Hb build up a trade in white oleomargarine, they 
can do it. 

Senator JMoney. I would like to have you answer my question. 

Mr. Knight. Yes, sir. 

Senator Money. I think we should have a candid talk about this 
matter. 

Mr. Knight. Y^es. 

Senator Money. Do you wish to diminish the oleomargarine produc- 
tion, or not"^ Do you want to injure it, or do you want to suppress it, 
or do you want to get it out of the way as a competitor? 

Mr. Knight. We do not want to compete with oleomargarine, col- 
ored so closely to resemble butter that the people can not have a choice 
between it and genuine butter. 

Senator Money. Then is your idea that by taxing it 10 cents a 
pound you will get rid of a competitor? Is that itf 



()LE<)MAKC4ARINE. 489 

Mr. Knight. I think we will <iet rid of tbe inceutive of people to use 
that ])rodu('t to defraud the public. 

Senator Money. Now, without usiug any roundabout expressions at 
all, you want to g•e^ rid of a competitor, do you; and you want to get 
rid of it by a tax of 10 cents a pound ? 

IVIr. Knight. We want to yet rid of a fraud, Senator. 

Senator Money. 1 am not talking- about fraud. We disagree on that 
subject, you know; for 1 think there is as much fraud in your business 
as there is in ours. 

Mr. Knight. There is fraud in every business. 

Senator Money. Nevertheless we have had testimony here to show 
that you take rancid and sour butter, and paddle it up, and i)ut chem- 
icals in it, and sell it for butter. 

Mr. Knight. And we have also had testimony. Senator, to the effect 
that these oleomargarine peoi)le want to color their butter in imitation 
of that "rancid stuff." 

Senator Money. All right. That is another matter. Now, you want 
to get rid of this industry whether it is a fraud or not; and that is the 
object of this measure, is it not — to get rid of oleomargarine? 

Mr. Knight. I do not see how I can explain to you my views 

Senator Money'. You can explain them by answering the question. 

Senator Foster. Do you want to get rid of it if it is not a fraud"? 

Mr. Knight. We want to get rid of the fraudulent competition. 

Senator Foster. The illegitimate competition'? 

Mr. Knight. The illegitimate competition. 

Senator Money. And in order to do that, you want to tax the whole 
production 10 i^er cent^ 

Mr. Knight. No, indeed, we do not. 

Senator Money'. Is not that the proposition"? 

Mr. Knight. No, sir; the Grout bill only taxes that which is colored. 

The Acting Chairman. Will there be any tax on the pure uncolored 
oleomargarine under this bill, as you understand it? 

Mr. Knight. There will be a (piarter of a cent tax, Senator, for this 
reason. The idea of putting a quarter of a cent tax on the uncolored 
article is to ])lace it within Government restrictions, so that when a 
man puts up a factory he will be located by this tax and the Govern- 
ment can keep its eye on him. 

The Acting Chairman. I mean apart from that. That is a mere 
bagatelle. Do you want any substantial tax upon the uncolored 
oleomargarine? 

Mr. Knight. Oh, no; no, indeed. 

Senator Money. Now, I want to ask you this question: Are you 
willing to insert in this bill a provision that no dairyman shall color his 
butter ! 

Mr. Knight. No, indeed; we are not. 

Senator Money. No; but you are willing that the manufacturer of 
process butter shall be restricted there, are you? 

Mr. Knight. No; now, 1 will explain that. That has been brought 
up here several times. 

Senator Money. Excuse me; I would prefer to have you answer my 
question. 

Mr. Knight. 1 can not answer it. sir, yes or no; because I have got 
to explain to you that renovated butter is made out of butter which is 
already colored, either by nature or by the farmer artiticially. The 
manufacturer of renovated butter, in choosing his stock, has no choice 
at all in this particular matter. He could not be compelled to make 



490 OLEOMARGARINE. 

his butter uncolored. He gets yellow butter that is as yellow as any 
butter that you have ever seen — which has absolutely no artificial col- 
oring- matter in it. That is one grade that he gets. Now, you can not 
make him make that butter white. On the other hand, it is within the 
province and jurisdiction of the oleomargarine manufacturer to make 
his product of one color the year round. 

Senator Money. You do not object to the oleomargarine manufac- 
turer coloring his product red, then, when he sends it down to the 
West Indies"^ 

Mr. KniCtHT. No; he can color it red, just like currant jelly, and it 
can be put on bread just as people use currant jelly on tlieir bread. 
We will not object to that at all. 

Senator Money. You only object to it when it is colored in comiieti- 
tion with your product. 

Mr. Knight. That is it exactly. 

Senator Money. In other words, you want something done by the 
United States (Jovernment which will put money in your pockets at 
the expense of some other person ? 

Mr. KNKiHT. No; we do not. But we want our i)Ockets locked up 
against the plunder of other people. 

Senator Money\ Nobody is taking anything out of your pockets. 

Mr. Knight. Oh, no! 

Senator Money. Now, here is another thing: Suppose I were to 
introduce a bill, let us say, placing a tax upon butter of 20 cents a 
pound. 

Mr. Knight. Yes. 

Senator Money. And suppose that bill forbade the coloring of it. 

Mr. Knight. Yes. 

Senator Money. And suppose I taxed oleomargarine 10 cents a 
pound, as you i)ropose to do in this bill. 

Mr. Knight. Yes. 

Senator Money. In other words, suppose I proposed to crush you 
both out of business in order that the people might be compelled to 
use a product of cotton-seed oil. What would you think of that? 

Mr, Knight. I think it would not pass. (Laughter.) 

Senator Money. I am not talking about whether it would pass or 
not. I do not want your opinion about that. I have my own opinion 
on that question. But what about the morality of it, and the consti- 
tutionality ot it, and the justice of it? 

Mr. Knight, But, Senator, you can not claim that either of those 
products are imitating your product. 

Senator Money. That makes no difference. 

Mr. Knight. That is our whole claim here. The best part of our 
whole claim is that this other product is a fraudulent imitation of ours, 
and that oleomargarine is being used to displace our product illegiti- 
mately and fraudulently. 

Senator Money. Does not the first provision of the act sufficiently 
provide against that? Now, as I understand it — excuse me for arguing 
with you. 

Mr. Knight. That is all right; I am very glad to have you. 

Senator Money. I am trying to get at the facts of this matter. I 
have only been here during a part of the hearings, because I hav^e had 
to be in other places. But in the first place, it seems to be conceded 
that the manufacturer himself does not deceive anybody. 

Mr. Knight. Oh, no! 

Senator Money. He sells his product as oleomargarine; he never 
pretends to sell it as butter. Is that so? 



OLEOMARGARINK. 491 

Mr. Knight. I will tell you. I have two cases right here to which I 
can refer you, which bear on that subject. I will tell you the trouble 
about that, Senator. Whenever that is done, it is done in such a way 
that we can not get evidence against those manufacturers to connect 
them with the fraud. But if you will permit me to do so, I will give 
you a little incident here which I think will convince you that possibly 
the manufacturers are pretty well in sympathy with those who do pass 
oft' oleomargarine as butter. That is as close as we can get to it. 

Senator Money. That does not meet the point at all. 

Mr. Knight. It meets it as nearly as we can meet it. 

Senator Money. Then you fail to meet that ])oint. The next is 

Mr. Knight. Well, what point is it you want me to meet. Senator ? 

Senator Money. I want to know where there is any fraud. 

Mr. Knight. Yes; and I wiU show you right here. 1 did not want 
to be forced to do this, but I am 

Senator Money. Oh, yes; let us hear the whole truth. Do not hold 
anything back. 

Mr. Knight. I simply did not want to be personal in this matter, 
and for that reason 1 have left out a great many things that might 
have been said 

Senator Money. You can suppress names if you do not want to be 
personal. 

Mr. Knight. I hold in my hand here an answer to a complaint which 
was made by the collector of internal revenue for the first district of 
Illinois against the largest manufacturers of oleomargarine in the State, 
in which they were accused, in twenty counts, of fraudulent entry — 
that is to say, of having sent to the collector's office wrong or fictitious 
names of people who bought oleomargarine. What was that com- 
plaint for? It was for what is known as "covering up" dealers. 

For instance, sui)i)ose I am a manufacturer and you are a licensed 
dealer. By law I am compelled to report every pound of oleomargarine 
I sell to you and your post-ofiice address. The object of that require- 
ment is to enable the Government to go to you and see that you have 
the necessary license to sell it, and have paid your tax to sell it. 
Here comes a man who wants to sell oleomargarine for butter, we will 
say, or who does not want the Government to trace him out and put a 
tax on him, so that he will be identified, and so that any person can go 
to the office and find out that he is a dealer and watch him. 

Senator Foster. It is a species of green goods, is it? 

Mr. Knight. Yes, that is it. Now, instead of his billing the goods 
to the man he wants to cover up he bills them to you. You are none 
the wiser, because those reports are confidential. And this particular 
matter was brought out in this way, as I understand it: In the city 
of Aurora, 111., there was a company formed, known as the Aurora 
Produce Company. That Aurora Produce Company, as nearly as the 
internal-revenue collector has been able to find out, sent out broadcast 
through the country $140,000 worth of oleomargarine, with the stamps 
scratched oft", as and for butter. That oleomargarine wjis sold as butter 
in New Y^ork State. Thecompany sold it by the carload. They sold it 
to one man in Buftalo, N. Y. The food commissioner became aware of 
it, and it cost that man -f 1,.S00 in tines for buying something innocently, 
which he supposed to be butter, because it was colored and he could 
not tell the difference, as it came there in tubs. Another man, up in 
Milwaukee, hiid to go up and pay a $480 internal-revenue license as a 
wholesaler, because he got hold of some of that oleomargarine, thinking 
it was butter, and bought it innocently, and sold it as butter. But the 



492 OLEOMARGARINE. 

internal-revenue collector went after liim, with the result I have stated. 
I do not know how many more men were traced in that way. 

When the man who was the head of this concern wasairested, it was 
not throu<ih the activity of the internal-revenue ottice, but through the 
department of agriculture of New York, which sent detectives to Chi- 
cago, tracked him down, got evidence against him, and turned him over 
to the internal-revenue collector. When he was arrested two of his 
people fled the country and got into Canada, and one of them, before 
he went, burned his books, and permitted nobody to see anything 
about his transactions. The people were absolutely irresponsible, and 
yet they had done a business of $140,000 within a few months. 

When this man was arraigned before Commissioner Mason (who, by 
the way, is Senator Mason's son) the leadi?ig oleomargarine manufac- 
turers of the city of Chicago came and put up bail for him, and kept 
him from going to jail. I can not say that they furnished counsel for 
that man, for you can not find out from their check books who they pay 
money to for such purposes. But the point I was coming lo was that 
this thing staited an investigation (commenced, as I understand it, by 
the Internal Kevenue Department) for the purpose of finding out where 
these goods were being shipped by the manufacturers, vso that they 
could "get on to them," and that investigation led to the locating of 
some twenty jdaces where oleomaigarine had been shipped by the 
manufacturers, without making the proper report. 

When that matter was brought up, and this man was arrested and 
put under bail, an oftcr of $7,500 was made as a compromise for his 
case and the twenty cases brought against this firm for fraud. That 
ofter was rejected. The man who was caught in the act of distributing 
this oleomargarine was fined $1,000. He got oft'. Two of his other 
people are over in Canada to-day, waiting for an opportunity to either 
come home and be cleared by the people who are back of them or to 
turn State's evidence. 

This concern, in order to clear up this niatter, offered $7,500 to the 
Internal licvenue Department. The Internal Kevenue Department 
recommended the acceptance of that otter. The collector at Chicago 
recommended the acceptance of the otter. The Commissioner of Internal 
Revenue at Washington recommended its acceptance, but Attorney- 
General Griggs sat down on it. He said: "No; we will try these peo- 
ple, and go to the bottom of the matter." 

What is the condition to-day? In order to find out what this firm 
was doing in the way of sending out these goods surreptitiously, with- 
out returning the proper names, the collector of internal revenue (as 
the law gave him a right to do, as he supposed), demanded the private 
books of this concern, alleging in his complaint that they had reported 
fraudulently to him, and had not given him the correct report according 
to law. 

The firm refused to give up the books. They set up the plea that the 
Government had no right to the books. The Government insisted. 
The collector insisted that he had the right, and he went before Judge 
Kohlsaat and asked for an order for contempt to bring them into court 
and compel them to give up the books. They came into court and made 
the plea that they had given everything the Government required, and 
that the Government had no right to go into their private books further 
than what they had submitted. 

The judge — I think it was Judge Kohlsaat, or else the other Federal 
judge there. Judge Grosscup — ruled that their plea was not sufficient, 
and that they must bring those books into court, under the order of 



OLEOMARGARINE. 41)8 

the Commissioner of luterual Keveuae. Here is the reply, the amended 
answer, of the concern; and I am not^^oing to read names, gentlemen, 
because 1 do not want to do that. This is the plea whichahey set up, 
and which the jndge tlnally said excused them from revealing the 
secrets of tlieir business so far as the Government had reiiuired, 
although they had i)ractically agreed wlien they went into business to 
comply with the Government's requirements in that respect: 

That the allegation of the collector that the returus made by said Brauii cV- Kitts 
are false and fraudulent in that tliey did not, as said collector alleges, truthfully 
state the name and place of residence of each person to whom goods were sold or 
consigned, and the allegation of the collector that such charge would be sustained 
by an examination of the books for which said c<dlector asks of this court an order 
for their production, would, if the oider prayed for be granted, comj)el your respond- 
ents to furnish, by their said books so ordered to be produced, evidence that might 
and would tend to criminate them and each of them ; that these respondents and 
each of them hereby personally expressly claim the privilege and right guaranteed 
to them by the fifth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and oliject 
to the order sought for in said petition, or any ])art thereof, on the ground that such 
order if granted would comjiel these resjiomleuts, and each of them, to giv(i and 
furnish testimony that would tend to criminate them and each of them. 

^ow, let me show you another case. These people have said a good 
deal to your committee down here about the inspection of the Internal 
Kevenue Department, and about how they are compelled to report 
every ingredient, and that they are compelled to do this, that, and the 
other. 

As a matter of fact, the present oleom'argarine law can not compel 
them to do anything that they do not want to do. All that they need 
do is to hide behind their constitutional right, and claim that the evi- 
dence called for will incriminate them. 

Here is a case which is entitled "In re Kinney, collector of internal- 
revenue.''' The heading is "Examination of books." 

AY. F. Kinney, collector of internal revenue, district of Connecticut, issued a sum- 
mons, under section 3173, Revised Statutes, against the Oakdale Manufacturing 
Company, a corporation engaged in the manufacture of oleomargarine. The parties 
refused to comply with the summons, and the collector jietitioned the United States 
district judge for an attachment against F. M. Mathewson, president of the com- 
pany, directed to the United States marshal of the district, commanding him to 
arrest said Frank M. Mathewson and bring him before the judge to show cause why 
he should not be adjudged in contempt and punished according to law, as provided 
by section 3175, Revised Statutes. 

In this connection it may be said that this talk about these people 
being compelled to make a return of the materials and products is all 
bosh. They can not be made to do it if they do not want to. They 
make the return if they wish, and if they do not wish they will not do 
it, and they do not have to, according to this decision. 

The decision of the judge was adverse to the collector. He held 
that — 

The provisions of Revised Statutes, section 3173, authorizing a collector of 
internal revenue to summon before him for examination any person charged by the 
law with the duty of making returns of objects subject to tax, do not apply to per- 
sons required under the oleomargarine law to make returns of materials and products. 
Such provisions relate only to objects of taxation upon which the tax is collected by 
the method of return and assessment, and not to those upon wliich the tax is required 
to be paid by a stamp; and a collector has no power under section 3173 to compel a 
person to appear and testify to the correctness of the returns made under the oleo- 
margarine law. (102 Fed. Rep., 468.) 

The Acting Chairman. Let me ask you a question. I do not want 
to unnecessarily interrupt you; but do I understand you to say that 
some Federal judge or court judge held this answer which you read a 
moment ago sufficient in response to a writ of attachment for contempt? 



494 OLEOMARGARINP. 

Mr. Knight. Yes; he did. 

The Acting Chairman. Without himself proceediDg to examine the 
evidence, and to determine from the evidence itself whether it was 
incriminating or not? 

Mr. Knight. He did, Mr. Chairman. I will say that the collector 
has taken an appeal in the case; but it is not known whether the appeal 
will stand or not under tbe circumstances. 

The Acting Chairman. I should think it ought to stand. 

Mr. Knight. The matter is now up in the courts. 

The Acting Chairman. I sui)i)ose you understand that the rule in 
such a case is that the judge himself must examine the evidence and 
determine from such examination whether it is incriminating or not. 
It is not left to the ^\ ituess to determine that. 

Mr. Knight, The witness, in this case, made this afKidavit. 

The Acting Chairman. But that is his own determination. 

Mr. Knight. I understand that from that affidavit the judge decided 
that there was no further cause of action. 

The Acting Chairman. Any man living who is competent to draft 
an answer in rei)onse to a writ of attachment for contempt may excul- 
pate himself if the judge can not go any further and examine the evi- 
dence said to be incriminating. 

Senator Money. That was a Federal judge, was it? 

Mr. Knight. That was a Federal judge. 

The Acting Chairman. Such a decision makes the witness instead 
of the court the judge of the matter. 

Mr. Knight. That is true. This matter was before th * Hon. Chris- 
tian C. Kohlsatt, judge of the United States court of America for the 
northern district of Illinois. That is my understanding of the case, at 
least — that the judge did not examine the evidence at all. 

The Acting Chairman. That is the first exception to the rule of 
which I have ever known. 

Mr. Knight. Well, you wanted to know something about the manu- 
facturers, Senator. That is one case. 

Senator Money. Now, you have undertaken to give circumstances to 
prove a case against two manufacturers. Do you consider that that is 
the rule or the exception? 

Mr. Knight. These two manufacturers, Senator, make 25 per cent of 
all the oleomargarine produced in the United States. 

Senator Money. They do? 

Mr. Knight. They do; yes, sir. I know that to be a fact, as I have 
seen the records of the Department, which show the amount manu- 
factured by those two concerns. 

Mr. Miller. What is your experience with the packers who manu- 
facture butterine? 

Mr. Knight. My experience with your concern, Mr. Miller, is that if 
they were all like you we would never be here. Unfortunately, they 
are not. 

Mr. Miller. Thank you. 

Mr. Jelke. If the committee will permit, I would like at this point 
to read a telegram from Collector Coyne, received last night. State- 
ments have been made here before this committee as if it were a court 
of trial. There are always two sides to a question. I do not care to go 
into a discussion of detail, but it is sufficient to say that the Internal 
Revenue Department ought to be called on to substantiate everything 
which has been offered before this committee. I would suggest, there- 
fore, that the Internal Revenue Department be asked to come here and 
I)resent their side of this question. 



()lp:omargarine. 495 

This telegram from Mr. F. E. Coyne, collector of the first district of 
Illinois, Cliicafio, speaks for itself. 1 did not care to bring it np, but 
Mr. Knigbt yesterday made some personal allusions which were entirely 
uncalled for, I think. (Reading:) 

I have ceased to pay any attention to rash statements of Charles Y. Knight, except 
to request him to report violations of the oleomargarine law to my otfice or the 
United States district attorney. Ah he has made no snch report, I take it for 
granted he has no evidence, or he is withholding valuable information from the 
United States Government. F. E. Coyne, collector. 

Mr. Knight. Gentlemen, I have an answer to that right here, and I 
am very glad this ])oint has been brought out. Mr. Coyne made just 
exactly that kind of a statement when 1 was before the Agricultural 
Committee of the House. I went home to Chicago; I went to the office 
of the Chicago Record, told tliem the situation, showed them what Mr. 
Coyne had said, and asked tliem to come out with me. Accordingly, 
Reporter Ilackett was assigned the duty, and with me proceeded to 
the store of William Broadwell, which was just a'-ross the street from 
the Record office. He went in and asked for a pound of the best 
creamery butter, for which he was charged 25 cents. When he came 
out the package was examined, and turned under the corner, ingeni- 
ously folded to defy detection by the unwary, was the oleomargarine 
stam]>, A half block down another store was visited, the Ohio Butter 
Company, and best creamery butter called for here. It was sold for 20 
cents at this place, and the package was wrapped in a purple paper 
with the oleomargarine stamp stamped thereon in purple ink, which 
was detected only after a careful search for some minutes to locate the 
outlines. Still another store, that of Hughes & Schlick, was visited in 
the same block, where 22 cents was charged for " best creamery butter," 
the stamp on this occasion being concealed by turning the paper over the 
end of the roll. Mr. Hackett went straight to the office of Collector 
Coyne, informed him that he had ])ersonally purchased these packages 
as creamery butter, and exhibited the internal-revenue rulings which 
such ])ractices violated. In the issue of Saturday, March 17, the 
Record published the following interview with Mr. Coyne, which cor- 
roborates the statements frequently made by the collector of Chicago 
to me. 

Now, this is the statement which Mr. Coyne gave the newspaper 
reporter right there. I will say, in this connection, that Mr. Hackett 
took these packages right up and asked Mr. Coyne how it was that 
within a few blocks of his office these violations could have been going 
on for years, as was reported down at Washington. I read the 
interview : 

Internal Revenue Collector Coyne's attention was called to these violations of 
the law yesterday and the wrappers exhibited. He said: 

"I am always willing to prosecute violators of the revenue laws, and I am glad 
to have these cases called to my attention. It is unfortunate that I have to depend 
on the public for my information, however. I have nineteen counties, incliuling 
Cook, to look after, and the tifteen deputies I am allowed have about 2,000 special 
taxpayers in their respective districts. These include breweries, saloons, cigar 
dealers and manufacturers, oleomargarine makers and dealers, and many others. 
The force is not large enough for me to watch every retailer — 2,000 men would be 
required to do that." 

The collector of internal revenue told me i)ersonally that that was 
one of his excuses for not enforcing that law — that it would take one 
man to every retailer to see that it was enforced. (Reading:) 

"Nor can the deputies make cases by purchasing butter or its substitute, for they 
have no fund for that. 

" Whenever a citizen comes to me and tells me of a case of this kind I am always 
willing to do my duty as the law sets it forth. I have been accused by both sides of 



496 ()LE0MARGAR1]SI?:. 



leaning toward the other, bat neither paity is right in making tliese cliarges. If 
I am called before the agricultural couunittee, I shall be glad to tell what 1 know, 
and that is more than I can tell the public in my jiresent position. The books of 
this de])artment are not open to the people, but I can assure you that many violators 
of the oleoinargariuc laws have suffered " 

Kow, I want to say in tliis connection that I have worn the soles off 
my shoes going' up to that collector's office and giving hint evidence of 
violations of the internal revenue laws. And 1 will give yoa a case 
which we took to the supreme court tiiere on mandamus. 1 have it 
right here. 

Mr. Jelke. I think Mr. Coyne ought to have an opportunity to be 
heard in self defense. 

Mr. Knight. 1 have no<loitbt that a good many people would like to 
be heard here, and it would prolong this hearing until after the 4th of 
March; but I will give you the facts right here, and then if Mr. Coyne 
wants to make a statement, all right. 

M. A. Wright, a retail dealer in oleomargarine, sold to myself, in the 
presence of another witness, a wholesale lot of oleomargarine as butter. 
Now, in selling that oleomargarine to me as butter, he did not violate 
any internal-revenue law, because the internal-revenue people do not 
care whether it is sold as butter or not, so long as it is stamped. He 
sold me two 10 pound pails. A retail dealer there is not peimitted to 
sell over 10 pounds at a sale, with a retail license for which he pays $40 
a J ear. He must take out a license, for which he pays $480 a year, in 
order to be able to sell more than 10 pounds at a time. 

These pails were stami)ed faintly on the bottom, as was the case with 
many of these packages I have shown, the marks being concealed. 

I took that evidence, and had a chemical analysis made by Mr. Dela- 
fontaine, one of the leading chemists of Chicago — a chemist of forty 
years' experience. I took that chemical analysis to Coyne, offered him 
the evidence in the case, sealed the packages up, and \)at them away 
for him. Gentlemen, that was in k5ei)tember, 189!>. I have never been 
called on for that evidence yet; and yet there was an opportunity for 
him to make a case against this man. 

There is one specific case. Then we proceeded against this man in 
the justice court, and tried to do something with him; but there is one 
specific case in which I offered that man evidence which was absolutely 
indisputable, and absolutely no attention whatever was paid to it. Fur- 
ther than that, we have been told, when we go into that internal revenue 
collector's office, that the more oleomargarine there is sold, the more 
revenue the Government gets, and the higher class the internal-revenue 
officers are. 

Senator Dolliver. Now, Mr. Knight, while all this is very inter- 
esting, I doubt the propriety of making an attack upon an officer of the 
United States, of a character which would tend to prolong this inves- 
tigation. 

Mr. Knight. That is true; but I had to do that, Senator, in answer 
to the telegram which was introduced here. 

Senator Dolliver. But I would suggest to the committee the query 
whether this whole matter is not somewhat immaterial to the question 
before us ? 

Mr. Knight. I would like to be able to state this. Senator, that the 
refusal of the internal-revenue collector of the city of Chicago to 
enforce these laws, and my continued hammering at him to do it, has 
made him very sore toward me, and that fact is exhibited in this tele- 
gram. There is no other reason in the world why he should feel that 
way. 



I 



OLEOMARGARINE. 497 

Senator Money. You would not liave any objectiou to his coming 
here and making a statement iu his own behalf, would you? 

Mr. Knight. I would have a great deal of objection to prolonging 
these hearings any further, if I had anything to say about ir. 

Senator Money. That is another matter. 

Mr. Knight. Oh, certainly; I would have no other objection ; no, 
indeed. But Mr. Jelke's point about telegraphing to Collector Coyne 
was very poorly taken, because I did not mention Collector Coyne's 
name iu the matter at all. When I stated that an offer of |7,50() in 
compromise was made by Mr. Jelke's Arm, I stated that my informa- 
tion was from Assistant United States Attorney Clark J. Tisdell, and 
not from the collector of internal revenue; and I think if you will go 
to the commissioner of internal revenue in this city, or the courts, or 
whatever the proper place may be, my statement can be verified. 

Mr. Jelke. Mr. Knight, just permit me to interrupt you for a 
moment, if you please. I did not take any notice of what you said 
yesterday afternoon, except this: 1 think if you will refer to the 
record, you will find that you made the statement that there were 2,000 
dealers in Chicago who were selling oleomargarine as and for butter. 
I think the record will show that. 

Mr. Knight. That is my opinion, Mr. Jelke; and I do not know any 
way to prove it except to go out and sami)le them, and get analyses of 
what they sell you. 

Mr. Jelke. If you will investigate the most respectable and respon- 
sible dealers in Chicago you will find them handling oleomargarine as 
oleomargarine. I refer to the leading merchants of Chicago. 

Mr, Knight. 1 do not deny that. 

Mr. Jelke. Take the Siegel-Cooper Company, the Boston Store, "The 
Fair,", the Kothschilds, Charles H. Schlatt, and others of the best of 
them. 

Mr. Knight. Let me state that if you investigate some of the manu- 
facturers of oleomargarine you will find that one or two of them are 
not upholding this kind of business; but, unfortunately, the majority of 
them are. 

Senator Dollia ER. The point I endeavored to make was this, that 
the more contentious personal matter there is introduced here the more 
interminable this filing will become. 

Mr. Knight. That is true. Senator, and I will endeavor to avoid it. 
As you saw just now, I did not want to bring any names into this 
matter at all. I endeavored to avoid that. 

Mr. Jelke. That is the difficulty — class against class. 

Mr. Knight. Now, I want to say a few words on this "class-against- 
class" question. 

The Acting Chairman. Oh, I think the committee understands 
the question of "class against class." We have heard it discussed 
here time and time again. 

Mr. Knight. But here is something that has not been brought out, 
Senator; and that is the fact that the oleomargarine people to-day are 
largely people who have been butter people in time past. When oleo- 
margarine first came in it was handled by butter people. Almost every 
butter man in the United States handled it. What made the difference 
between oleomargarine dealers and butter dealers? When the laws 
went into effect which made it unlawful and illegal to handle butterine 
in the only way that it would be honestly sold, a part of the dealers 
got out of the business. Those who wanted to comply with the law got 
out of the business because they could not remain in it legally. The 

S. Rep. 2043 32 



498 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Ijeople who are now the oleomargarine dealers are largely — I will not 
say all — those who stayed in it notwithstanding the laws. 

Now, you have this condition of aifairs: 

Here is a man who is doing an honest butter business, endeavoring 
to sell butter in compliance with the law. He is a butter man. He 
could just as well sell oleomargarine, because it all goes to the same 
trade. The retailers who sell oleomargarine sell butter; and he could 
just as well sell oleomargarine and make the profit on it that oleomar- 
garine dealers make if he wanted to violate the law. What is the con- 
dition to day ? He is asking yon, as a law-abiding citizen, and a man 
who will not resort to such practices, to protect him against the man 
who is willing to take his chances and violate the law in order to make 
that profit. That is the condition which exists to day, and that is the 
diflerence between the oleomargarine man and the butter man. 

Mr. Peters. Mr. Knight, will you allow me to ask one question? 

Mr. Knight. Certainly. 

Mr. Peters. What objection would you have to having oleomar- 
garine put up in square ])ackages, so that anybody could distinguish 
it from butter at a glance? 

Mr. Knight. 1 do not think that square packages have anything 
to do with the distinction. It has been my experience that there is 
nothing easier in the world than for a man to take ten square pack- 
ages of 1 ponnd each, put them in a 10-pound jar, and make " butter" 
out of them. 

Mr. Peters. That is not the question which I asked. You have 
not answered it. 

Mr. Knight. My objection is that it is absolutely no bar to fraud. 
And I can not answer the gentleman any further, because I do not 
consider that he is an expert in the butter business and in the enforce- 
ment of laws. 

I want to say here, gentlemen, that one of our greatest difficulties 
in trying to do anything with the illicit sale of oleomargarine is the 
fact that there is a class of hucksters, who were described to you by 
the gentleman from New York City the other day, who take this oleo- 
margarine, take all the stamps and wrappers off of it, put it in jars, 
and all kinds of shapes, and take it and sell it around at the houses, 
or take orders for it. 1 know I tried to catch one fellow of that class 
who came to my house. I live in a suburb of Chicago. He came to 
the house, and offered us butter the year round at tiS or 25 cents a 
pound. He said that the people whom he represented owned cream- 
eries in Iowa, and that fact made it possible for them to sell butter 
cheaper than anybody else could sell it. 

My wife would not buy any, but when I heard of it, I told her, if he 
came around again the next day, to give him an order for some. I did 
that expecting to catch the fellow. He came around about a week 
after that, and she gave him an order. Then I " laid " for the gentle- 
man when he came around to deliver the goods. What did 1 find? 
When the goods came, they were delivered by an expressman, some- 
body absolutely not connected with the thing at all, and I could find 
no one to arrest and prosecute. The expressman came to collect for the 
stuff, and brought it C. O. D. He disclaimed any connection with the 
concern, and I was not able to locate the people at all. 

Under such conditions it is absolutely impossible for us to get any 
kind of legal testimony unless we trace them down, and even then there 
is no way to do it. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 499 

Senator Hansbrough. What was the character of the goods — oleo- 
margarine! 

Mr. Knight. Oleomargarine. They went through the whole neigh- 
borhood and took orders. Tliey killed the butter trade in the neigh- 
borhood absolutely, by claiming that because they had creameries they 
could sell butter much cheaper than anybody else. 

Kepresentative Bailey. Mr. Chairman, may I ask Mr. Knight a ques- 
tion ? Will Mr. Knight tell the committee, in case the Grout bill becomes 
a law and the manufacturer of oleomargarine continues business and 
pays this tax, where any fraud will bo supj)ressed, and where in any par- 
ticular the manufacturers can not do just exactly as they are doing now'? 

Mr. Knight. Mr. Bailey, T will answer that question as I have 
answered it a dozen times to you and anybody else. 

Xo man goes out and commits fraud for fun. No man goes and vio- 
lates our State laws for the fun of violating them. No man violates 
the internal-revenue laws for the fun of violating them. He violates 
them because there is 8 or 10 cents a pound profit in violating them. 
With a 10-cent tax on colored oleomagarine, the profit would go to the 
Government in case oleomargarine were used. I think that is a full 
answer, Mr. Congressman. 

Eepresentative Bailey. No; the fraud would be peri^etrated exactly 
the same. 

Mr. Knight. I do not think people perpetrate fraud for fun. 

Just one other point, and I will close, gentlemen. 

A great deal has been said to you about the inspection of the Inter- 
nal-Eevenue Department. A gentleman from Ohio was telling you 
about what rigid inspection and supervision the Government main- 
tained over this oleomargarine traffic. He told you that inspectors 
visit their factories and inspect their goods and keep a lookout for the 
purpose of ascertaining whether there are any deleterious substances 
in those goods or not. It has been attempted in that way to lead you 
into a belief that the industry is really under Government supervision, 
in spite of the fact that the manufacturers refuse to report the mate- 
rials they use when they are called on, as shown by this case up in 
Ehode Island. 

There are, in the United States, over 9,500 dealers, I believe, and 30 
manufacturers of oleomargarine. The report of the Commissioner 
of Internal Revenue for the j'^ear 11(00, which I hold here, shows that 
during the year 1900 the chemical department of that bureau made 177 
analyses. You can figure the i^roportion 177 bears to nearly 10,000. 
That will show you how many times a j'ear they get around to these 
retailers and inspect their goods, and inspect the wholesalers, and 
inspect the factories. 

There has been an attempt here to make it appear that the manu- 
facture of this product is really under Government inspection, when 
the Government absolutely cares about nothing except to get the rev- 
enue out of it. That is all the Internal-Revenue Department cares for 
in any place. It is not a police department; it is not a pure-food 
department, and you can not make that out of it. 

There is where the trouble has been — in the attempt to compel the 
Internal Revenue Department to enforce a provision of the law relat- 
ing to the stamping and branding, which is absoluteh^ apart from its 
business. As Commissioner Wilson said before the House committee, 
they enforce the law from a revenue standiDoiut, not from a pure-food 
standpoint. 



500 OLEOMARGARINE 



Senator Money. Would it not be worse then? They would not be 
so anxious to make money out of it, would they? 

Mr. Knight. Commissioner Wilson himself states, and it is in the 
testimony here, that he had no fear but what the tax part of it would 
'be enforced if they made the tax 10 cents a pound. 

Senator Money. In other words, they would be divested of the 
desire to make money out of it by increasing the tax? 

Mr. Knight. Let me tell you, in answer to that, that the fraud in 
oleomargarine is not inspired by the desire to evade the tax, but by 
the desire to get a price like that of butter — to get the butter price. 
There is where the fraud comes in. 

Eepresentative Bailey. Now, following out that same argument, 
would they not be compelled to sell it as butter if they had to pay this 
10-cent tax? Would you not compel the retailer to sell it as butter by 
virtue of that fact? 

Mr. Knight. There is no incentive in any man to sell oleomargarine 
as butter unless there is a profit in it — that unless it is better than but- 
ter; and if it is better than butter it can go on its own merits. 

Representative Bailey. If you take the price to day and add 10 
cents a pound to it, and make tlie manufacturer or dealer pay that extra 
10 cents, you will compel him to sell the product as butter. That would 
still leave the fraud unrestricted. 

Mr. Knight. No; there would be 8 cents a pound less profit in the 
transaction if he did it, and that is a good deal. 

Now, Senator, I will leave these books here, showing you the down- 
ward trend of prices of butter during the last ten years, and with that 
I shall close. 

The Acting Chairman. It strikes me, before going any further, 
that a time limit ought to be set here, and that we oughf to determine 
when these hearings shall close. 

Senator Money. Mr. Chairman, I want to say that I had an under- 
standing with the chairman of the committee that there would be no 
action of that sort taken until Senator Warren came back from Boston. 
There is nobody here to day but myself in oppposition to this course. 

The Acting Chairman. When will he be here. Senator? 

Senator Money. He is to speak tonight to the Boston Wool Manu- 
facturers' Association, and he will certainly be here by Monday. I do 
not think he could possibly be here by to-morrow. He asked me i^ar- 
ticularly to see about this matter, and at his request I suggested to the 
chairman of the committee that no executive business of that sort be 
transacted until his return. 

The Acting Chairman. Of course, it is evident to anybody that 
whatever the report of this committee may be, pro or con, if the bill is 
to be acted upon at tbis session of Congress it must be reported upon 
within a reasonable time. 

Senator iMoney. Well, we can not put out of joint any of the appro- 
priation bills, which are coming up right along, so far as that is con- 
cerned; so a week more would not make a bit of difference in that 
respect. 

The Acting Chairman. I formed no opinion thus far upon the 
merits of this bill, and shall form none until the hearings are con- 
cluded. But it is due to all parties, in my judgment, that we report 
upon the measure as speedily as we can conveniently do. 

Senator Money. Now, I am going to make a motion, Mr. Chairman. 
That motion is that Mr. Coyne be invited to appear here as speedily 
as possible — say next Monday. If he has anything to say in reply to 






OLEOMARGARINE. 501 

tlie remarks of the gentleman this morning-, I think he should be given 
an opportunity to be heard. 

The Acting Chairman. Is there any objection to that, gentlemen? 

Senator Hansbrough. Why, Mr. Chairman, if we are going into 
matters of that kind, there have been accusations made here which 
wouhl bring a hundred people to this Capitol in order to present the 
other side of these matters and dispute accusations which have been 
made. I think Mr. Coyne's telegram states everything that he can say. 

Senator Dolliver. I believe that his settlement should be with the 
Treasury Department rather than with us, anyhow. 

Senator Money. The point is just this: You are asking for testi- 
mony upon certain points which seem to be considered important by 
some people. I do not consider them so. They are of no importance 
whatever to me. One side of this matter, however, has been heard. 
The question now is, Are you willing to hear the other side or not? 
Are you willing to hear rebuttal? 

Senator Dolliver. Senator, no reference was made to Mr. Coyne, 
as I understand it, until the gentleman who had a telegram from him 
here today read it, disparaging the statements made by the witness 
and the witness himself; whereupon he replied. I cautioned him against 
continuing the personal controversy. I think it would be an endless 
matter if we allowed it to continue. 

Senator Money. If the committee does not want to hear him, if it 
wants to prevent his being heard by a vote of the majority, that is ail 
right. But I want to ask the committee if it will not instruct the 
stenographer to send the remarks of Mr. Knight by mail this evening 
to Chicago to Mr. Coyne, and ask him to make a reply, to be submitted 
as part of the evidence ? Nobody is under oath here. 

The Acting Chairman. I suppose he could send a resume of Mr. 
Knight's statement. Mr. Knight, however, has been talking here for 
two or three days. He could hardly transcribe his notes of his entire 
remarks in time to do what you suggest. I suppose the clerk could 
send a resume of what has been said this morning. 

Senator Money. I only mean that part where he referred to Mr. 
Coyne this morning. 

Mr. Knight. Mr. Chairman, may I make a suggestion? Inasmuch 
as they seem to want some specific instance of where they have been 
offered evidence and have refused to present it, I will state that the 
case of M. A. Wright (I think that is the name) is a matter of the kind. 

The Acting Chairman. The case involving the two tubs of butter? 

Mr. Knight. Yes; I will give you the name, so that you can have it. 

The Acting Chairman. That is a part of what you said about Mr. 
Coyne? 

Mr. Knight. Yes; that is specific. 

The Acting Chairman. Then, Mr. Eeporter, the extract from the 
proceedings to be sent to Mr. Coyne will embrace this precise state- 
ment about these two tubs of butter, as you have it there. 

Mr. Knight. No; I beg your i)ardon. That is the wrong case. The 
case about which I have been speaking here to day is not the case we 
carried to the Supreme Court; it was another case. We have had so 
many of those cases that it is ditticult for me to remember them all. I 
can look it up. 

The Acting Chairman, But it is the one that embraces these two 
tubs of oleomargarine you speak of? 

Mr. Knight. Yes, sir; that was a clear violation of the law. 



502 OLEOMAKGARINE. 

Senator Money. I do not doubt that every law which was ever passed 
is violated every day by somebody. Bat when a specific charge is 
made against a man charged officially with collecting revenue, to the 
efiect that he does not enforce the law at all, I think he ought to be 
given an opportunity to be heard in self-defense. If the committee 
does not want him to come here then I think the charge that is made 
against him ought to be sent to bim at once, and, as it is not a very 
lengthy oiie, I suggest that it be telegraphed to him under the frank of 
the Senate. 

Mr. Knight. Then, if that is to be done, I ought to give full details 
here, so that there will be no misunderstanding. 

Senator Hansbrough. Senator Money, I observe by the telegram 
sent by Mr. Coyne that he says tliat he has "long since ceased to pay 
any attention" to w^hat Mr. Knight says. Do you think he would 
respond to a message of the kind you propose sending? 

Senator Money. That is not the point at all. 1 want to hear what 
he has to say. I do not care whether he wants to come or not. 

Senator Dolliver. Do you regaixl it as material here, or merely as 
a matter of justice to him? 

Senator Money. oSfo; 1 regard it as somewhat material to the case 
here. A charge is made here that this stuff is sold all over the city of 
Chicago, and that the revenue officials do nothing at all about it, and 
will not bring the cases before the judges, because they can make more 
money out of them in fees. 

Mr. Knight. Why, gentlemen, I could bring you 50 witnesses who 
have taken cases of violations of the law to him 

Senator Money. I simply want this man to have a chance. He may 
or may not be an honest official. I do u(jt know anything about him. 
I never heard of him before, personally. 

The Acting Chairman. It seems to me this is altogether a collat- 
eral issue. 

Senator Money. It makes no difference whether it is or not. It is 
an important issue. 

Senator Hanserough. I understand the committee has decided to 
send this charge to him. 

The Acting Chairman. Certainly; the reporter will do that. 

Mr. Knight. Now, Mr. Chairman, if this matter is to be taken up 
specifically, if you are going into it, I sliould give you the exact details 
of the affair, so that Mr. Coyne will understand what I mean. 

Mr. Adams. Mr. Chairman, with the consent of the committee and 
of Mr. Knight I would like to make a suggestion with reference to this 
matter of the internal-revenue collector of Chicago. It may not meet 
with Mr. Knight's approval, and it may be presumptuous in me to sug- 
gest it to this committee; but with consent, I would like to do it. It 
seems to me to be a reasonable solution of this matter. Have I the 
consent of the committee? 

The Acting Chairmj^n. Go ahead. 

Senator Hansbrough. What is the suggestion? 

Mr. Adams. I will give it. 

Senator Money, in the course of the witness's testimony, calls u]3on 
him for explicit evidence as to violations of the law. In the course of 
his general answer to that question, ])roperly made, properly answered, 
a gentleman here representing the oleomargarine interests introduces 
a telegram, as the Senator has indicated, criticizing Mr. Knight, sub- 
stantially; and in self-defense he makes reply, and brings out a state- 
ment of facts of the correctness of which he is no doubt thoroughly 
convinced. 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 503 

Xow, that excites some feeling among our friends upon the other 
side. But I want to say to Mr. Knight and to this committee that we 
do not base our case before this committee or before Congress upon any 
particular act of a single Federal official, however discreditable it may 
have been. The case which we are endeavoring to establish before this 
committee is simply this — and we have proved it; I will not take the 
time to recite the proof — that this business of selling oleomargarine, 
colored in imitation of butter, is i)ermeated with fraud at some stage 
or other of the proceedings, it is not vital to this case that a single 
instance like this should go into the record. And I will ask Mr. Knight's 
consent, and that of the gentleman on the other side and of the com- 
mittee, to strike out of the record everything which relates to the 
internal-revenue collector of Chicago. 

Senator Hansbrough. I think myself that the record ought to be 
edited with a great big blue pencil. 

The Acting Chairman. It must be, or it will make a volume bigger 
than this desk. 

Senator Money. Mr. Chairman, here is Mr. MacNamee, representing 
the Confederated Labor Union of Columbus, Ohio, who wants to make 
about ten minutes' remarks. 

The Acting Chairman. We have heard him, but I think we will 
hear him again. 

Before he begins, however, do you insist. Senator Money, upon this 
matter being telegraphed to Mr. Coyne? 

Senator Money. Oh, no; not if the whole matter is to be stricken 
out of the record, although the impression will be left upon the minds 
of the committee. 

The Acting Chairman. And do the gentlemen who have made 
these statements consent that they shall go out altogether"? 

Senator Money. I believe. Senator, that I will insist, if you please, 
upon this statement being sent to Mr. Coyne. Then we can take the 
liberty of striking them both out of the record if we choose to do it. 

The Acting Chairman. Very well. 

Mr. Knight. Senator, I will appeal to the committee to sustain me 
in the statement that I did not bring these things in voluntarily. 

The Acting Chairman. The record shows that. 

Mr. Knight. And so far as I am concerned, I am willing that they 
should be stricken out. 

The Acting Chairman. Now, what further are we to do this morn- 
ing, gentlemen'? 

Senator Hansbrough. I think it would be a good idea to adjourn. 
I would like to ask now who desires to be heard this afternoon"? 

Senator Money. Pretty nearly all of the gentlemen who have 
appeared thus far have talked indiscriminately; but 1 should like to 
suggest to the committee that on Monday I shall move to close these 
hearings by Wednesday. 

The Acting Chairman. By the following Wednesday"? 

Senator Money. By the following Wednesday. 

Senator Hansbrough. Oh, I think that is too long a time. 

The Acting Chairman. Very well; then I will make this sugges- 
tion, and I want Senator Money to hear it, that if we can get a fall 
committee or a majority of the committee here this afternoon 1 shall 
move to close these hearings by Mondaj' night. 

Senator Money. You can not get the fall committee here, that is cer- 
tain, because Senator ^^'arren will not be here. 

The Acting Chairman. AVell, if we can get a majority of them 
here. 



504 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Seuator Money. I will try to be here, altbougb I am attempting to 
keep up with the Army bill at the vsame time. 

The Acting Chairman. I shall make the motion, then, I think the 
hearings ought to be closed and the report, whatever it may be, made. 

Senator Money. Well, gentlemen, I do not think you are going to 
facilitate business by taking this sort of course. I do not want to be 
dilatory, but 1 do waut fair play. If you are going to take advantage 
of your majority to press us to a conclusion here, when other men want 
to be heard, and when members of the committee who are absent 
especially request that the thing be delayed for a day or two 

Senator Dolliver. There will be no difficulty about that, Senator. 
Senator Warren can be counted as present. 

The Acting Chairman. The evidence is altogether cumulative 
now. 

Senator Money. That may be true, too. I do not know about it, 
however. Nobody can say that positively. They do not know whac new 
matter may be sprung at any time, Eut I want to ask that this gen- 
tleman [Mr, McNameej be heard lor a few minutes before we adjourn. 
He is a representative of the 1 iboring people. 

The Acting Chairman. Goon,3Ir. McNamee, 

Senator Money, And he simply wants to reply to certain strictures 
made upon him by a former speaker. 

The Acting Chairman. Let it be understood, however, that there 
must be nothing in the way of personalities here. 

Senator Money. No new matter; he simply wishes to reply. 

ADDITIONAL STATEMENT OF JOHN 0. McNAMEE, OF COLUMBUS, 

OHIO. 

]\Ir, McNamee. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen: I simply desire to 
submit this as my reply to the remarks of Mr. Knight last night. 

It would be a very great hardship upon me to be compelled to stay 
here any longer, as I must transact this afternoon some private busi- 
ness, which I have come to Washington to look after, and be gone 
to morrow morning. I have no personal feeling toward any gentleman 
who has been connected with either side of this controversy. As for 
Mr, Knight, personally, I think that he is, under normal circumstances, 
a good fellow, and if it were in my power to do him a favor I would 
gladly do it. But I have a duty to perform and I must perform it, 

I desire to take exception to Mr, Knight's method of designating 
my representative power. He has, in referring to me, used the expres- 
sion, "the gentleman who represents himself as representing organized 
labor." 

Permit me to pause to say that I will not submit to any questions, 
that I will submit this as my answer, and then go. This will be posi- 
tively my last appearance before this committee at this session. 

The credentials which I bear, gentlemen, from the Columbus Trades 
and Labor Assembly, bearing the seal of that organization and the 
signatures of its officers, should, I think, be sufficiently authentic to 
shield me from implied imputations of that nature on the part of even 
those gentlemen interested in the destruction of the interests that I 
have been instructed by my constituents to protect. I would, therefore, 
request that this reference to my representing myself to represent 
organized labor be stricken from the record, as my credentials alone 
make sucli representation. Mr. Knight claims that there are but 28 
labor organizations which have taken action against the Grout bill. I 



OLEOMARGARINE. 505 

desire to i.npress upon yon, gentlemen, that some of the organizations 
included in that number, even though Mr. Knight be correct in his esti- 
mate, represent in turn hundreds of subordinate organizations aftiliated 
with them, the membership of which will go into the hundreds of thou- 
sands. They are what is known in the labor world as central bodies, 
and although it has been now some months since these resolutions were 
adopted by them, and although the delegates of which they are com 
posed have reported back to their various suborganizations, the fact 
that those resolutions were adopted, we have yet to hear the first pro- 
test against or objection to such adoption of such resolutions on the 
l^art of any of the hundreds of local or subordinate organizations which 
constitute such central bodies. What, I ask yon, could be more evi- 
dential of complete acquiescence? 

Regarding the statement the gentleman makes relative to the Chi- 
cago Federation of Labor having in 18D7 adopted certain resolutions 
condemning the coloring of oleomargarine, I desire to say that Mr. 
Knight has acknowledged tliat such action was taken as a result of 
his representations to two members of the legislative committee of 
that body, who in turn convej'ed to their fellow-members the informa- 
tion imparted by himself. This is by his own acknowledgment the 
only enlightenment those gentlemen had on the subject. It is evident 
from the resolution adopted by the same body on March 1, 190U, more 
than three years later, and which I herewith submit, that as a result 
of full and complete investigation they have discovered that the rep- 
resentations of Mr. Knight were incorrect, and have not only rescinded 
their former action, but in the most vigorous terms, and speaking out 
boldly and clearly for all they represent (and that means thousands 
and thousands of workingmen — workingnien who by their aftiliation 
with organizations instituted for the protection of their rights and 
interests have demonstrated their possession of a high standard of 
intelligence and the fact that they are fully alive to a rigid observance 
of nature's first law — that of self preservation) protest in the most 
vigorous terms against the legislative ])ersecution and destruction of 
the legitimate industry, manufacturing butterine. 

The following is a coi)y of those resolutions: 

Chicago, March 21, 1900. 
Hon. William McAleer. 

Dear Sih: The following resolutions were nnanimonsly adopted by the Cbicago 
Federation of Labor at regnlar meeting, .Sunday, February 4, and I was instructed 
to forward a copy of same to you : 

Whereas the Chicago Federation of Labor is dee]>ly interested in and desires to 
encourage every legitimate industry which furnishes employment to the laboring 
classes ; and 

Whereas efforts are being attempted by contemplated legislation at Washington 
to destroy the manufacture and sale of butterine. thereby displacing large numbers 
of the industrial element and preventing them from gaining a livelihood as well as 
the use of an article of food which has received the highest testimonials of every 
chemist in this country and the indorsement of every standard work that treats on 
the subject of hygiene; and 

Whereas we believe the efforts to place a tax of 10 cents per pound on colored 
butterine is inspired by selfish motives, so that the manufacturers of butter may 
charge an unreasonable price lor their commodity and enable the large creameries 
to estaltlish surely and securely a butter trust which may raise prices as their 
cupidity may dictate: and 

Whi reas justice demands equal rights for both manufacturers of butter and but- 
terine, both products having equal merit; any adverse legislation against either 
must be condemned ; and 

Whereas the late published reports furnished to Congress by the Secretary of the 
Treasury proves the legitimate and growing demand for butterine and discloses the 
large amount of revenue derived therefrom; and 



506 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

"Whereas we believe that the present Federal law taxing bntterine 2 cents per 
pound and the additional regulations imposed by the Commissioner of Internal Rev- 
enue are sufficient to properly regulate the manufacture and sale of butterine ; there- 
fore be it 

Resolved, That we, the representatives of the industrial classes in Chicago, and 
voicing as we know we do the sentiments of the mechauic and the laborer through- 
out the country, protest against the passage of the Tawney, Gront, or any other bills 
that have for their object the further increase of tax or the relegating to the ditter- 
ent States the right to enact laws that are opposed to the interests of the people and 
in no way in harmony with the inventive and progressive spirit of the age; and be 
it further 

Resolved, That we instruct our secretary to have sufficient copies of these resolu- 
tions printed that one l)e mailed to every Senator and Congressman in Washington 
and one to each of the labor organizations affiliated with the Federation of Labor, 
requesting them to indorse same or pass others of a similar character, so that a full 
expression of our condemnation of such legislation may be made known. 

Kespectfully submitted. 

Walter Cakmody, 
Secretary Chicago Federation of Labor. 

Mr. Kuight bas iutiinated that my presence here has been influenced 
by gentlemen representing the butterine interests. This statement I 
most emphatically deny. Were my presence in Washington or before 
this committee dependent upon any financial assistance, past, present, 
or j)rospective, given or promised me by or upon the generosity of the 
gentlemen here or elsewhere, or any other person representing directly 
or indirectly any butterine industry in any part of the United States 
or of the world, I assure you gentlemen, I would not yet, were I depend- 
ent upon such assistance in coming here, 1 would not yet, I say, have 
been able to cross the eastern corporation line of my home city of 
Columbus, Ohio. I came here a perfect stranger to all of these men. 
They' did not know me. They did not know of my coming, Jior were 
they, as far as I know, aware of the fact that any action had been taken 
in this connection by our body. Having been instructed and empow- 
ered by the organizations 1 represent to oppose, in their name and in 
their behalf, the passage of the Grout bill to the fullest extent of my 
ability, for the reasons as expressed in my credentials, I propose to 
demonstrate to them that the confidence they have reposed in me is 
fully justifiable, and to carry out their wishes and their instructions to 
the letter. That and that only, together with my own instinctive sense 
of justice and right, is the motive which actuates ray present course in 
this connection. 

Another central labor organization, representing in turn hundreds 
of ijubordinate organizations which has taken action against the Grout 
bill, and taken such action unanimously, is the Ohio Federation of 
Labor. I refer to the action of this body particularly because its pro- 
test is not, as far as I can learn, on file here. Now, gentlemen, 1 desire 
to say that the first intimation that I have had ol^ the fact that said 
federation had adojited resolutions condemning the Grout bill was 
when the delegate reijresenting the Columbus Trades and Labor 
Assembly at the convention of said Ohio Federation of Labor, held in 
Newark, Ohio, last November, reported that fact to a subsequent meet- 
ing of said Columbus Trades and Labor Assembly as part of his official 
report to said body. I was not present at the Ohio Federation of Labor 
when this resolution was presented, and never knew that such a course 
was contemplated, but now regard it as a matter of course that said 
bill, together with all unjust legislation which aft'ects the interests of 
wage-earners, should receive, as it is receiving, general condemnation 
by all such central bodies and organizations. I would be safe in say- 
ing that my present opposition to this Grout bill is representative not 



OLEOMARGARINE. 507 

only of tlie seiitimeut of organized labor in the premises, but of tbat 
prevalent generally among our urban citizens. Speaking particularly 
for Columbus, Ohio, I will say, and without the slightest fear of suc- 
cessful contradiction or contraversion, that such sentiment is general 
from our wealthiest and most representative citizen, the retired or 
active business man, to the very humblest and poorest. The fact of 
the matter is, gentlemen, that this present contention has resolved 
itself into an attack upon urban rights by rural influences, as manipu- 
lated and directed by the collective intelligence, experience, and design- 
ing capacity at present identified with the operation of creamery 
concerns, on one hand, and the firm determination on the part of the 
men representing such urban rights to defend themselves against such 
persecution and unjustifiable invasion of their constitutional rights. 

It speaks badly for the merit of the contention being made by the 
gentlemen at present engaged in attacking the butterine industry that 
some of them should be compelled, as a feature of their effort, to resort 
to reprisal by way of making an attack on labor legislation, as some of 
them have to me personally threatened they would do. They propose 
to have the Senators, whom they seemingly profess to own and operate 
by right and virtue of their connection (whatever its nature) with agri- 
cultural influences, oppose all labor legislation^ which may hereafter be 
introduced in the United States Senate. We fear not such threats, and 
defy these gentlemen, or any others, to put them into operation. We 
have too much confidence in that sense of independence, prudence, and 
justice which characterizes the United States Senator to believe that 
any one of such Senators would lend himself to these gentlemen, or any 
other men or set of men, for the sheer purpose of gratifying a desire 
for revenge, or of satiating or attempting to satiate or gratify that 
narrow-minded and un-American sense of intolerance, prejudice, and 
brow-beating tyranny which has characterized every action, expression, 
and argument of the supporters of this measure in their efforts to 
secure its passage, based as it is, and as they know it to be, ui)on a 
childish, senseless, miserable, contemptible, threadbare, and transpar- 
ent subterfuge. 

W^e have no quarrel with agricultural Senators or agricultural inter- 
ests. We are simply endeavoring to protect ourselves from the evils 
sure to result from the complete formation of the creamery monoi)oly^ 
the foundation of which is already laid upon the anticipated strangu- 
lation of the infant industry producing oleomargarine. Should such 
strangulation be successfully effected, said creamery monopoly will 
establish itself as the Standard Oil Company is at present established. 
They will own little creameries located in every village, and within easy 
access to all farmers of our country, to which said farmers will deliver 
their milk just as the Standard Oil Company at present secures its oil. 
Said creamery monopoly will regulate to its own suiting the selling price 
of butter, and to the farmer's sorrow the purchasing price of milk. They 
will adopt the methods in general use by monopolies to destroy other 
competitors if they succeed in utilizing the United States Congress in 
destroying the oleomargarine industry, and the result will be that the 
citizens of the United States will have the pleasure of paying 55 or GO 
cents per pound for butter, or going without it altogether. It will be 
the same old story of our citizens paying tribute to monopoly, vainly 
endeavoring to satiate monopolistic cupidity, which as we all know is 
insatiable and merciless. We recognize, and if necessary will defend 
the rights of tlie farmers, but we do not propose to have the farmer 
trample upon the rights of the manufacturer at our expense if we can 



508 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

prevent it. We happen to Lave interests ourselves, and when tliey are 
attacked we propose to devote organized effort to their protection. I 
beg to submit in conclusion one of the great number of resolutions 
adopted by labor organizations, viz, that of the Cleveland Building 
Trades Council, a central body representing over G,000 Cleveland work- 
in gnien. 

Building Trades Council, 

Cleveland, Ohio, April 21, WOO. 

Dear Sir: The Building Trades Council, of Cleveland, Ohio, and vicinity, repre- 
senting over 5,000 mechanics, has by unanimous vote indorsed the action of the 
Chicago Federation of Labor and all the other lab^r organizations who are so doing 
in opposing the persecution of the batterine industry. 

We can not see auy justiticatiou in placing a larger or, in fact, an^- tax on butterine 
or oleo:uargariae. The article is sold on its merits, and it would rather hurt than 
help its sale to attempt to sell it for butter, aa it is more popular and generally 
regarded as mare healthy than butter. Any of our people that may not want but- 
terine can, while it is on the market, buy butter at a reasonable price, l)ut if the 
attempt to kill it by legislation is successful, the butter manufacturers will have no 
competitors, and the result will be that the present butter trust will absorb the 
butter industry and control the purchase of milk by having little creame"ies in every 
farming localit3^ on the plan of The Standard Oil Company, and we will have the 
pleasure of 5) or GO cents per pound for butter, or going without it altogether, the 
chances being in favor of the latter. 

We feel that as butterine is demanded and sold for what it is, and as the laws 
regulating its manufacture and sale are operating successfully in preventing its 
adulteration, that the legislative bodies of our country have gone as far as they have 
any right to go, and that further interference on their part is persecution and 
intended to advance private interests at the expense of the rights of the people. 

There is, undoubtedly, political motives behind all this. 

There are a hundred dilferent cases in which legislative vigilance could protect 
the people from adulterated foods where such yigilance is n )t exercised, or if in auy 
remote way ever applied it is not being taken advantage of by the officials supjtosed 
to enforce it; and why? Simply because the manufacturers of adulterated foods or 
the beneliciaries of their existence have no iuiluential competitors to be served by 
their suppression. 

Butterine has been the victim of legislative attacks for a number of years, and we 
feel it is now time to let up on it and devote the effort wasted in the persecution of 
this legitimate industry to some more worthy cause in the protection of the real 
interests of the people. 

There is an old saying that " He who is bent on an evil deed is never lacking for 
an excuse," and it is certainly applicable in this case, the excuse being that it is 
wrong to c(dor butterine because it is likely to be sold as butter, whereas, in fact, 
■owing to the extreme popularity of the former, there is more liability of an attempt 
being made by some butter manufacturer to imitate it, and the only reason why an 
attempt is made to prevent the use of the material in butterine imparting color to 
it is to hurt its sale, as it has been proven this material is perfectly healthy. And 
where is the justice of prohibiting its use simply because it helps the sale of an 
honest product? 

As long as the piM)ple want butterine and it is good to use, as the Government 
chemists have proven, why should it be abolished? We can not see that there is 
need to s ly more. You can not but see the rank injustice of this whole business, 
and we would, therefore, earnestly request, in the name of common American jns- 
tice, that you would strenuously oppose and exert every means in your power to 
defeat all such legislation. 

This letter has the hearty indorsement of our body, and as a testimony of which it 
bears our seal. 

W. C. Davis, 

President. 
Grant Morgan, 

Secretary. 

Senator Money. Are you a member of the Knights of Labor? 

Mr. McNamee. No, sir; I am vice-president of the Columbus Trades 
and Labor Assembly. That assembly is affiliated 

Senator Money. Do you know how the Knights of Labor stand on 
this question "? 

Mr. McNamee. Well, the Knights of Labor and the Federation of 
Labor are two different bodies. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 509 ' 

Senator Money. Then yon do uot know as to how they stand! 

Mr. MoXamee. As to the Knights of Labor I will say that they are 
intermingled all through the labor world the same as the other labor 
organizations. Now, the Knights of Labor are a general body with 
which smaller organizations are affiliated; but I will say that it has 
been my discovery, wherever I have heard this matter discussed in the 
ranks of organized labor, or amongst wage earners at all, that they are 
absolutely and emphatically in favor of retaining the oleomargarine 
industry in competition with the butter industry, because they see, and 
they are absolutely honest in contending, that if the oleomargarine 
industry is at present crushed out (as it will be if this Grout bill is 
passed), a monster in the form of a monopolistic octopus will arise and 
gather in all under its protecting care — the butter industries of the 
United States. 

I care not how extensive they may be. Look at the Standard Oil 
Company. It has monopolized the oil industry of the world. And it 
will uot be long before we will have a "Standard Butter Company" 
which will be stronger than the United States Government. 

Senator Dolliver. I noticed that the Standard Butterine Company 
is about to be established here in Washington, with a capital of $1,000,- 
000. That looks threatening. 

Mr. McJSTamee. But they have i^ermanent competitors in the form of 
certaiu creamery institutions. 

Senator Dolliver. Did you hear the testimony of the gentleman 
who stated something here about oleomargarine being sold in this city 
for buttei', at the price of butter? What would the workingmeu think 
of a situation like that? 

Mr. McNamee. Sold for butter? 

Senator Dolliver. Yes. What would the workingman think if he 
went to buy butter, and paid a butter price, and got oleomargarine? 

Mr. McNamek. Well, I will tell you. Senator. If our present city 
and State and district governments are not powerful enough to enforce 
the laws as they exist, they ought to go out of business. 

Senator Dolliver. But, my friend, the chairman of the committee 
was telling me that he caught a little oleomargarine on his butter plate 
this morning, at his hotel. 

Mr. McNamee. Where? 

Senator Dolliver. In this town. He was not looking for it. 

Senator Money. Did he have a testing apparatus? 

Senator Dolliver. He has had a great deal of experience. 

Senator Money. What gentleman was that? 

Senator Dolliver. I refer to Senator Allen, the chairman of the 
committee, here. 

Senator Allen (the acting chairman). I discovered that I had been 
eating it all winter. 

Senator Dolliver. And he had been paying for butter. Now, sup- 
pose the workingman got into that situation? 

Senator Money. Well, if Senator Allen could not tell it by the taste, 
the effect, or anything else [Laughter.] 

Mr. McXamee. Senator, I want to tell you a little story. I have 
got an old German mother-in-law, who is as bitterly prejudiced against 
butterine as she is against the average snake. She does uot want any 
of it near her. She will uot use it, and will not have anything to do 
with it. I myself continually use the product of the Capital City Dairy 
Company, in Columbus, as do a majority of Columbus citizens. My 
mother-iu-Iaw was telling my wife about the man who came around to 



510 OLEOMARGARINE. 

her house, and who had such lovely butter, and all that. My wife said: 
"Well, I don't know that that butter is any better than ours;" and 
when my mother-in-law would come over occasionally and have a meal 
with us, she would eat some of the butter that we had. My wife did 
not detail to her the fact that it was butterine. After quite a length 
of time the old lady said: "Carrie, that is good butter that you have 
got. I don't know but what it is as good as mine." "Well, mamma," 
said she, "that isn't butter; it is the butterine you hate so much." 
[Laughter.] 

Senator Dolliver. Do you regard that as a fair deal with the old 
lady? [Laughter.] 

Mr. McN"amee. Well, I will tell you, Senator. I don't know how fair 
it may have been to my mother-in-law; but I do know that it is a 
demonstration of the fact that after all there is not much of any dif- 
ference between butter and butterine. Now, if one is as nutritious as the 
other, and one exists as a competitor of the other, to keep these big 
monopolies from cornering the butter market, why not let them both 
alone? 

Senator Monf.y. Senator Allen's testimony stands for all that. He 
ate it all the winter and did not know tlie difference. 

I want to ask a question. Tlie secretary of the Knights of Labor 
has told me that his organization was very much opposed to this bill. 
They want butterine and oleomargarine, if the^' choose to buy them. 
Doyou know any thing about any resolutions passed by thatorganization? 

Mr. McNamee. The Knights of Labor? 

Senator Money. Yes. 

Mr. MoIsTamee. ISTo, Senator. I simply refer to the Ohio Federation 
of Labor. But it is a sentiment that is instinctive with labor all over 
the country — everywhere. It is instinctive. 

(The committee thereupon took a recess until 2.30 p. m.) 

At the expiration of the recess the committee resumed its session. 

The Acting Chairman (Senator Hansbrough). The committee will 
come to order. 

Senator Allen. There has been considerable discussion here about 
"oleo oil." Will some one of the gentlemen present tell us what it is? 

Mr. Miller. Oleo oil is made from the caul fat of the beef. AVhen 
a steer is killed it is cut open and this fat is taken off— this yellow fat 
that lies under the stomach of the steer. 

Senator Allen. About how much of that fat do you get from the 
steer? 

Mr. Miller. We get about 40 pounds from the steer. That fat is put 
into water that is partially chilled by ice. It stays in there until the 
animal heat is eliminated. Then it is thoroughly washed. Then It is 
put in tanks and heated to a temperature of about 155° to 100° Fahr- 
enheit. Then they take a cloth about the size of a large towel, and it 
is put in that cloth. Each side of the cloth is thrown over this way 
[indicating]. Between each two cloths, of course, there is a sheet of 
tin. Then it is put in a large press and pressed, and the oil comes 
out. That is oleo oil, and the residue is stearin. The stearin is not 
used in the manufacture of butterine, but it is used with oils, wax, and 
various other things. While Professor Wiley said there was stearin 
in butterine, that is true; but it is the body of all oil. Take a bottle of 
cotton-seed oil and let it stand until to morrow morning, and there will 
be a lot of sediment at the bottom; that sediment is nothing but the 
stearin. 

Senator Hansbrough. Where does paraffin come from? 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 511 

Mr. Miller. That is a by-product of petroleum. That is not used 
iu the niauufacture of butterine at all. 

Senator Allen. What aretheother ingredients'? 

Mr. Miller. Neutral is made from the leaf lard of the hog. We get 
about 8 pounds of that to the hog. That is churned together with 
refined cotton-seed oil. 

Senator Dolliver. What is the average product of oleo oil to the 
steer? 

Mr. Miller. About 40 pounds we get. 

Senator Dolliyer. How many steers are slaughtered annually in 
the United States from which this fat is taken? 

Mr. Miller. 1 think it Las been stated here by the cattle people 
that it is about 5,000,000. 

Senator Dolliver. Is that a correct statements 

Mr. Miller. I judge it is. 

Senator Allen. How is oleo oil made? 

Mr. Miller. The oil expressed from the fat is churned together with 
cream and salt and the coloring. 

Senator Dolliver. What is the annual export of oleo oil from the 
United States? 

Mr. Miller. I think in the neighborhood of 140,000,000 pounds. 

Senator Dolliver. And what is the annual product of oleo oil enter- 
ing into the manufacture of oleomargarine? 

Mr. Miller. I think it is about 30,000,000 pounds of neutral and 
26,000,000 pounds of oleo oil. 

Senator Dolliver. So that the aggregate product of oleo oil you 
think would be about 16!),000,000 pounds? 

Mr. Miller. That is right. 

Senator Hansbrough. What is the proportion of cotton-seed oil 
used ? 

Mr. Miller. It varies at different times in the year. Sometimes we 
use 15 per cent and at other times 20 or 25 per cent. 

Senator Allen. Let 100 represent a pound of oleomargarine of fair 
grade; what are the percentages of the different ingredients? 

Mr. Miller. Of course it varies. All of the manufacturers have 
different formulas, and again they vary at different times in the year. 

It would average, I should say, about 30 per cent neutral, 20 per 
cent cotton seed oil, and the balance butter, cream, salt, and coloring. 
The statement was made by the Secretary of the Treasury last year 
that there was only about 10 per cent of cottonseed oil used. That 
was true; but that must be coupled with the fact that some manufac- 
turers do not use it iu their i)roduct. 

Senator Hansbrough. So that it is not a necessary ingredient? 

Mr. Miller. Xo, sir. And it is for this reason that the high grade 
of butterine is rather a small percentage of the total amount of butter- 
ine sold. In other words, there is more of the grade that contains 
cotton-seed oil sold, I guess, than of the higher grades. 

Senator Hansbrough. Is cotton-seed oil put in the higher or the 
lower grades? 

Mr. Miller. Iu the lower grades. 

Senator Dolliver. In regard to the oleo-oil product from the steer, 
I would like to get, if it be possible to do so, the average oil product, 
not from the heavy steer, but the average. 

Mr. Miller. The average is about 40 pounds. 

Senator Hansbrough. Including cows and all beef creatures? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. 

Senator Hansbrough, The caul fat? 



512 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir; we use that iii order to get the proper taste. 
Oleo oil as we make it is pure neutral oil, aud it has no taste. If we 
use the poorer fats of the beef, we should get a tallowy taste. 

Senator Hansbrough. I talked yesterday with an old butter man. 
T said, '-Can you tell the difference between oleomargarine aud but- 
ter?" He said, "Yes." I said, "How do you do it?" He said, " I take 
a little piece and allow it to melt on my tongue." Then I said, "What 
happens f" He said, "If it is good butter, no disagreeable taste fol- 
lows; if it is oleomargarine, there is sure to be a tallowy taste." 

Mr. Miller. That is not true of all grades. 

Senator HANSBROuan. He spoke generally, and that was his taste. 
He said he had dealt in hundreds of thousands of pounds of butter, and 
he had also dealt in oleomargarine; and he gave it as the result that 
the oleomargarine always had that tallowy taste. 

Mr. Miller. Take neutral oleo oil and cotton-seed oil, and it is the 
endeavor to get those oils just as neutral as possible. 

Senator Allen. I l^sually, I believe, it takes a less amount of heat to 
melt butter than it does to melt bntterine? 

Mr. Miller. No, sir. They had that point up before the House 
committee and had Professor Schweitzer, a very intimate friend of 
Professor Wiley, of the Agricultural Department, make a test. He 
took samples from the market; he did not take samples made up for 
the occasion, as stated here; and the melting point for the best grade 
of butterine and of the best grade of creamery butter was exactly the 
same, 96° Fahrenheit. 

Senator Hansbrough. I think that Governor Hoard, who was here 
last week, made a statement to the effect that there was, perhaps, a 
difference of two or three degrees in the temperature. 

Mr. Miller. There is not. I have had our chemist aud several 
other chemi.sts make the test. 

Senator Hansbrough. I recall the statement he made at the time. 

Mr. Knight. In this report of Schweitzer, that Mr. Miller speaks of, 
he reports the following as the melting point of each of the different sam- 
ples he had: Lotus 813.95, Magnolia 84.05, Silver Churn 93.05, Princeton 
90.80, Best Butter 96.80. Those samples of oleomargarine here yester- 
day when subjected to a test of over 120 degrees clarified here in half 
an hour. That was the melting point. Why does it clarify? 

Mr. jMiller. The tests were perfectly clear at 82.95 to 90.80. 

Mr. Knight. In your tests yesterday, when you heated butter or 
butterine it separated, but that was not the case with oleomargarine. 

Mr. Miller. The butter clarified, but the butterine did not. 

Mr. Knight. What is clarification? 

Mr. Miller. The clarification of a thing is when the sediment goes 
to the bottom. 

Mr. Knight. I wish you would have some samples tested here by 
Professor Schweitzer. 

Senator Hansbrough. We have sent a lot of samples to the Depart- 
ment, and have asked for a full report. 

Senator Allen. Not long ago I was coming to Washington on the 
Baltimore and Ohio liailroad to enter upon the discharge of my eminent 
duties here. On entering the dining car and sitting at the table, I found 
a couple of i^ieces of butter, not extraordinarily large, which had a kind 
of greenish appearance, that is, while it was j'ellow, yet it seemed to 
have a shade of green. What was that? 

Mr. Jelke. That was occasioned by the use of some peculiar shade 
of butter-coloring matter. I remember a few years ago, when some 
of our customers preferred butter with a sort of reddish tint to the yel- 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 513 

low, rather than the greenish tint of yellow, while others preferred the 
greenish tint. 

Senator Allen. I notice that the cottonseed oil has a greenish 
tint. 

Mr. Jelke. Yes, sir. 

Senator Allen. I made up my mind at that time it was possibly 
cotton-seed oil that had given it that slightly greenish color, 

Mr. Jelke. 1 should not like to express an opinion uiDon something 
I had not seen. Cottonseed oil may have been in it. 

Senator Allen. I am not a chemist or specialist of any kind; I could 
not reproduce it; I can oidy tell you how I remember it; but while the 
general color was yellow, it seemed to have a slightly greenish tinge to 
the yellow. 

Mr. Jelke. I also remember, when I was in the butter business, of 
boiling it for twenty-four to thirty-six hours with anuato, and then 
putting in what we call turmeric, something of a similar character, 
only of a different color; it is a vegetable, and it has a greenish tint; 
that is, if you get a little too much of the turmeric in with the annate 
that greenish tint predominates, and if you get a little less, then the 
reddish tint predominates. 

Senator Hansbrougii. How do yon get the butter taste into the 
oleomargarine"^ 

Mr. Jelke. By the use of milk and cream ; in the better grades by 
the addition of a percentage of the finest butter we can buy. 

Senator Hansbrough. You are not obliged to use milk and cream 
to make certain grades of oleomargarine? 

Mr. Jelke. We can get a butter Havor without the use of milk and 
cream, but 1 do not think any oleomargarine is made without the use 
of milk and cream. 

Senator Hansbrough. You have to have some product of the cow, 
then, to get the butter taste? 

Mr. Jelke. Always; yes, sir. In fact we are now taking into our 
factory every day the milk and cream from 300 or 400 cows — cans of 
milk and cream of 8 gallons each. That all comes from the farm. 

STATEMENT OF MR. D. A. TOMPKINS. 

Mr. Chairman, in the <liscussion of a subject like this, it seems to 
me to be important to keep it in the direction of what constitutes the 
merits of the whole industrial snbject, and not have it take a course 
that would simply put the subject in the attitude of an argument as 
to whether one ])hase of an industry were being created by another 
phase of industry; and legislation should have reference to any faults 
that were found in the whole industry, and not have reference to any 
kind of tax that would be calculated to handicap one end of it and 
throw money in the direction of the other end of it. 

In the development of the industries of the United States we have 
constantl}^ found, from time to time, industries that were j)ut in the 
situation where improvements,- energy, the working of more time, and 
talents were handicapped. That was notable in the case of Bessemer 
steel. When that was first introduced into this country it was a bogus 
industry; it was unreliable; not a great deal was known about it. 
And yet, in the face of all the opposition it transpired in the end that 
it was the best thing that ever happened to our metallic industries. 

And in the business of flour and wheat that went West, they had 
methods of getting whiter flour, perhaps not better flour, but the 
people are still buying the whiter flour; so that business went out of 

S. Rep. i>0J:3 33 



514 OLEOMARGARINE. 

existence in this Eastern section of the country, either because of the 
lack of enterprise or because the conditions here were not so favorable. 
At any rate, we all know that that industry left New England and went 
West on account of the energies of the Western people. 

We also know that the manufactnre of Corliss engines has practically 
gone from New England to the West, simply because of the energy, 
talent, and capability of the people of the West to make better and 
cheaper engines than can be manufactured in New England. 

In the development of this business of food stuffs for the human race, 
it seems to me that what ought to be considered is only whether the proc- 
esses are injnrious to anybody; that whatever you doiu resi)ect of one 
industry in the matter of producing food stuffs, as respects their proc- 
esses, ought to be e(]ually applicable to the other branches of that same 
industry. 

Whether these food stuffs are wholesome or not, the distinguished 
Secretary of Agriculture yesterday expressed an adverse opinion. Yet 
in the testimony before the House committee we find that on examina- 
tion of his chemist, we have a very clear-cut expression of opinion from 
him, on page 228: 

Representative Bailky. Dr. Wiley, let me ask you this question : Do you consider 
oleomargarine a wholesome article of food? 
Dr. Wiley. I do. 

Also on page 196 there is similar testimony: 

Dr. Wiley. Two years ago I was addressing farmers' institutes in southern 
Indiana 

That relates to a subject you have already had presented to yon, of 
various kinds of butters packed together in barrels to be shipped for 
renovation. 

On page 1)3 there is a statement relating to the finding of a subcom- 
mittee appointed by the United States Senate Committee on Manufac- 
tures, of which Hon. W. E. Mason was chairman, "that the product 
known as oleomargarine is healthful and nutritious, and no further 
legislation is necessary." 

With reference to the processes of manufacture, if it is right to under- 
take to eliminate certain points of the processes of the manufacture of 
oleomargarine, because they are immoral or because they are injurious, 
it is equally proper that they should be eliminated from the processes 
of the manufacture of butter. 

You have had the most ample testimony as to butters of all degrees 
of purity. Butters of various kinds were taken, and by chemical means 
more or less puritied, and by the addition of coloring matter made to 
resemble spring butter by means of growths of bacteria known as 
Pond's culture, for the purpose of giving the flavor of spring butter. 
In the production of an article of food in the shape of oleomargarine, 
if it is improper to use coloring matter simply because it gives some sem- 
blance to the product of spring butter, is it not equally immoral and 
equally unfair in trade to use bacteria? If you forbid the renovation 
of butter so as'to give it the flavor of spring butter, if you undertake 
to forbid the manufacture of butter from the product of cows fed on 
swill, is it not equally improper to undertake to forbid the uniform col- 
oring of this food product, in whatever way, or whence it comes? If, 
by means of coloring matter, butter is made of other foods than are in 
yellow butter, and butter is produced that is similar to spring butter, 
made from the product of cows fed on spring grass, by the addition of 
the product from the cotton-seed mills or other food stuffs, if there is 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 515 

auy immorality iu the one, there is certainly a similar immorality in the 
other. 

Senator Allen. You would not claim that butter made from the 
product of swill-fed cows is wholesome, would you? 

Mr. Tompkins. I understand that people object much more seriously 
to eating that kind of butter than they do to eating many products 
that are entirely healthful. 

Senator Allen. 1 have eaten it, and often found it as sweet as any 
butter in the world. 

Mr. Tompkins. Of course it depends upon what the swill comes irom. 
But in the great majority of cases, of course, we know that the use of 
any of the swills produced in cities is very much objected to for the 
production of milk or for any food pur[)ose. 

To my mind the Secretary of Agriculture day before yesterday struck 
the keynote of the whole remedy when he was talking about the sub- 
ject of the education of a lot of young men, as the result of which the 
dairy business has been put in a very improved condition. To the com- 
petition of the valuable products that go into our milk we must look in 
the future, as we have in the past, to giving the very freest opportunity 
for the exercise of talents, of new inventions, the development of raw 
materials for cheaper and better products; and there is nothing in the 
world that will so much contribute to an understanding of the subjects 
they are handling as the education of tlie youth of the country. At the 
present time what the agricultural and dairy interests of the country 
want is not a law i)utting an embargo, as it were, upon the energies and 
talents of those who are working the cotton-seed oil business, who are 
developing the production of stock; upon the consumers who are using 
the products, and upon the advancement that has been brought about 
by these occupations, but leave them in a situation in which competition 
will drive them to the same intelligent endeavor to find out in what 
way they can better their products, in what way the people who aie 
furnishing this cheap butter at railway stations can be induced to fur- 
nish good butter, thus enabling the consumer to get a higher chiss and 
a better quality of butter at better prices, just as the oleomargarine 
people have found a way, by means of cotton-seed oil — a most whole- 
some product — and the application of chemical science and the best 
mechanical appliances, to make a good, wholesome, and cheap food for 
the people. 

Then in whatever respect either one of these occupations misrepre- 
sents its goods to the trade it ought to be forbidden. To any extent 
which either one of them is furnishing an unwholesome article of food 
to the people it ought to be prevented But to simply handicap 
improvements that one set of people have found out; to handicap 
the new food stuffs that, by energy and talent and education, have 
been brought to the i)eople, by a tax for the benefit of the other people 
who are not giving proper attention to the development of their trade, 
is to depart from the principles upon which all the industries in America 
have been built up. Whenever a man has had the freest opportunity 
to find out something that was not known to other people, thereby 
enabling him to make as cheap goods or cheaper goods than other peo- 
ple furnished, something that was not unwholesome, that should do no 
harm to anybody, he has the right to put that article on the market 
and enjoy the emoluments arising therefrom. We equally know that 
when an industry finds itself in that condition where, in competition 
with others, by the application of more intelligent methods or the ai)pli- 
cation of new processes, it can not work to equal advantage with or 



516 OLEOMAKGARINE. 

better than its competitors it must go down and tlie other business 
takes its place. 

The conditions in Europe have been frequently spoken of. We find 
that vast quantities of cotton-seed oil have been shipped to Germany 
and to Holland every year, and that the use of it in their dairies has 
given them the very best results. They are making butters both for 
their own use at home and for export. It has been used both in their 
dairy processes and in their oleomargarine processes, and in both with 
ample knowledge of the very best methods; and for that reason we 
hear nothing of this competition over there. Whatever is not injurious 
is i)ermitted; whatever is fraudulent is not permitt('d; and whatever is 
unwholesome either in the i)rocesses of dairy butter making or in the 
oleomargarine making is strictly forbidden both in Germany and Hol- 
land, and ought to be forbidden in this country. There is no discrimi- 
nation in respect of one being taxed in favor of the other, but the law 
simply ])rovides that the i^rocesses must be such as will give whole- 
some products; that no ingredients must be put in either that will be 
injurious, and the coloring matter is not so considered. 

ISenator DoLLiVER. Sometime ago Congress passed a law taxing 
what is known as mixed tiour. The testimony taken before the Ways 
and Means Committee of the House was quite distinctly to the effect 
that a common mixture with tlour was cornstarch. It was very dubious 
in the minds ol everybody whether j)ure cornstarch added to the mill 
product of wheat was injurious. Many testified that it was a common 
practice for housewives, in making bread, to a<ld cornstarch to the 
tiour in the i»rocess of the domestic manufacture of bread, and had 
been for a long time. But Congress found that there were a large 
number of people manufacturing tiour, or what was put uyjon the 
market under the name of tiour, which contained a percentage of starch 
in addition to the products of the grain of wheat, and that that article 
was being sold iiere and abroad under the name of flour, greatly to 
the injury of those who were in competition in that business and did not 
so mix their Hour. So Congress, in placing that tax upon mixed flour, 
proposed this: simply that whoever sold tiour should sell what the 
world commonly called and understood to be tiour. The nmin object 
of the Government was to prevent people from being swindled in buy- 
ing fl(mr which contained ingredients that did not belong to pure tiour. 
Is there any objection to that kind of legislation"? 

Mr. Tompkins. I see no objection to that kind of legislation. 
Neither is there objection to legislation which requires that peo])le who 
ma lie butterine or oleomargarine or butter should brand it for exactly 
what it is. The fault in the case you speak of, Senator, was not that 
people might not mix their 10 per cent of starch with 90 per cent of 
the product of wheat, if everybody who bought it so understood. 

Senator Dolliver. It appears here that 32 States, including the 
great commercial and industrial cities of the country, have prohibited 
the manufacture and sale in their borders of oleomargarine made in 
the imitation of butter — made so that it looks like butter. Neverthe- 
less, it would seem, from what is said here, that the business goes on 
thriving, often best in those great cities that are located in States that 
have made that prohibition. The testimony here seems to show — I 
speak more i)articularly in respect of the retail trade of Cbicago — that 
this article is sold to the public for butter at a })rice which ought to 
command the genuine article. What objection is there to some scheme 
of legislation that would utterly prevent that, so that everybody who 



OLEOM AEGAKINE. 517 

sits down to a hotel table, or at his own table, may be secure against the 
swindle involved in paying for pure butter and getting oleomargarine? 

Mr. Tompkins. There is not the slighest objection to any scheme 
being devised which will do that, but which, on the other hand, does 
not take away from an industry its right to handle its business under 
conditions that are given to another industry, to the disadvantage of the 
first industry. Is it any more right for butter collected at railroad, 
stations, appearing in various sorts of shapes, to be doctored \Aith a 
growth of bacteria, to be colored so as to look like spring butter, to be 
otherwise doc^tored and manipulated and sold for what it is not on the 
proposition that it is spring butter? 

What this committee wants to do — and that is exactly what I am 
dwelling upon — is to undertake what is right in both instances, and 
not adopt a scheme of taxation that takes away from one side of the 
question in order to prevent the proper handling of their goods under 
favorable conditions, and gives to the other side tlie advantage in that 
respect, and disregarding in both cases the question of the extent of the 
misrepresentations made and giving to the untaxed side the right to do 
absolutely all the things you forbid the oleomargarine people to do. 

Senator Dolliver. There is great force in what you say. 

Mr. ToMrKiNS. That is my whole proposition — that whatever test of 
honesty is to be on one side, be put on the other; that whatever test 
of competition is put on one side, should be put on the other; if one 
color is to be eliminated on one side, let it be eliminated on the other — 
but inasmuch as it is not injurious at all I do not see the use of forbid- 
ding it at all, any more than I see no use in forbidding a woman to 
attempt to make herself attractive by wearing beautiful clothes. 

All goods used in the manufacture of wearing apparel are put upon 
the market in nice and attractive shape. A little starch is added to 
the clotli. It might be said tliat is not honest. It is said that certain 
goods weigh 4 pounds to the yard; as a matter of fact, they do not; 
they only weigh 3.^ pounds; tlie other half pound is starch. That 
starch is put in because people demand that goods shall have an 
attractive and smooth api)earance. If that question of putting in starch 
to add to the attractive appearance of goods, when it actually falsifies 
the conditio) of the goods, sliould ever come before this comuiittee, 
then it would be your proper province to undertake to stop it. If you 
find occasion to undertake to stop it in one line of trade, you ought to 
undertake to try to stop it in another. 

But as a matter of truth, here we have a totally different proposition. 
We have a condition in which competition has brought new articles of 
food on the market. Here is an old-established institution overshiughed 
in their methods, as acknowledged by the distinguished Secretary of 
Agriculture — and we all know that they are — finding themselves com- 
peting with new methods, not keeping their business up to the demands, 
and failing by reason of competilJion. Is it fair and proper that they 
should come here and call down methods that have been devised by 
energy, by talent, by education, by jireparation, and by discovery, and 
eliminate a great part of the just rewards for that ])rogressiveness, for 
the benefit of those who do not do anything of that sort? 

Besides that, if you take this subject to relate only to dairy butter, 
the people who have cows, who make the best sort of butter, in every 
case where these people have developed the best methods they have 
been able to get ample ])ric(*s for their product. I have understood 
that two dairymen in the last two or three days have testified here, one 
testifying that he got 35 cents a pound for his butter, and the other 



518 OLEOMARGARINE. 

that be received 55 cents a pouiid. It is simply a question of getting 
laws passed that will still further enhance the value of the product of 
dairy butter produced from cattle that are known often where tlie milk 
is bought. But when the dairymen know the surrounding conditions, 
the <iuantity of tliat kind of butter I acknowledge is exceedingly liunted 
and the prices are very excellent. The great complaint that is being 
put up here is not by the producers. The great bulk of cheap butter is 
produced by people who do not give any attention to the production of 
butter. They have not learned what the proi)er food stufl's are. The 
complaint is not being made by them, but by the men who bay exceed- 
ingly cheap butter and have it renovated, give it a taste by bacterial 
growth, and give it color, just exactly as the oleomargarine people give 
their product color. Those are the people who are making the biggest 
fight, and it is practically oleomargarine against oleomargarine. 

Mr. Knight. Will the gentleman yield to a question ? 

M)'. Tompkins, Go ahead. 

Mr. Knight. Upon what authority do you base statement that the 
makers of i)rocess butter are the ones who are making this light here? 

Mr. Tompkins. Well, ui>on the general proposition that we have seen 
a good deal of them here, and we have heard a great deal of testimony 
on the subject. 

Senator Dollivee. The Secretary of Agriculture, it seems to me, 
denounced the process butter worse than oleomargarine. 

Mr. Tompkins. I know he did. Nevertheless the support of this bill 
comes largely from those manufacturers. 

Mr. Jelke. The bulk of the testimony introduced under the applica- 
tion of the butter dealers of Philadelphia all went to show that they 
were dealers in process butter, with the exception of two dairymen, one 
who realized 35 cents a pound the year around for his butter, and the 
other who averaged 55 cents a pound the year around for his butter 
and said he never sold butter for less than 50 cents. Otherwise the 
testimony all through has gone to show that there have been no farmers 
here, no consumers here. 

Senator Hansbrough. From my own State I am in receipt of 6 to 
20 letters a day, and have been for several weeks past, from individ- 
ual farmers who are interested in creameries there, who are furnishing 
milk to them, or are stockholders in them, requesting me to favor the 
passage of the Grout bill. Those farmers, of course, can not come all 
the way to Washington. I simply state that as a fact. 

Mr. Jelke. I married my wife on a farm; 1 have in central Illinois 
as large a following of good friends who are larmers and the finest 
people I know of anywhere; but 1 should like to state that there is not 
one of them that has had the other side of the question, the oleomar- 
garine side of the question presented, who would not come down here, 
if necessary, and take the Capitol by force of arms. 

Mr. Knight. Let me inject a remark. 

Senator Hansbrough. Mr. Tompkins, do you object to any more of 
your time being occupied"? 

Mr. Tompkins. No, sir. 

Mr. Knight. I want to say this, that two or three days ago there 
was a resolution introduced at the instigation of the oleomargarine 
people, in the chamber of commerce in St. Paul. A lot of the business 
men there failed to pass resolutions condemning the Grout bill. An 
attorney came before the meeting and gave the oleomargarine side, 
talked an hour on that proposition, and talked all about the oleomar- 
garine side of it. Congressman Tawney went up there and gave the 



OLEOMARGARINE. 519 

other side. Instead of pai^siiig a resolution condemning the Grout bill, 
the chamber of commerce then instructed their resolution committee 
unanimously to bring in a resolution indorsing the Grout bill. That 
is the kind of verdict we get from disinterested and fair-minded jjeople. 

Senator Dolltver. 1 do not regard that question as material. 

Mr. Knight. No; but it is being introduced here. 

Senator Dollivbr. So far as Congressmen should be governed by 
the views of their constituents, they have superior means of finding out 
what their constituents want. But 1 do not regard it as material to go 
into that. 

Mr. ScHELL. I would like to say that Senators have not alone received 
these letters and telegrams. It might be suggested that they have 
been instigated by some dairy-paper publisher. Last evening we had 
some letters coming from Cincinnati, and before we are through here I 
will find out and send to the committee the reasons why. 

Mr. Knight. I can explain it. 

Senator Hansbrough. Perhaps they came here after the fashion of 
the telegram of Attorney Coyne. 

Mr. Knight. 1 can explain that. That interests Mr. Schell ; he is 
from Cincinnati. I will say that I telegraphed that one man from Cin- 
cinnati, an attorney for the oleomargarine people, had made a state- 
ment to the effect that oleomargarine was sold only as oleomargarine 
in the city of Cincinnati; that it was all properly stamped, and that 
there were no violations of the law. 

Mr. Schell. 1 beg pardon. 1 did not put that in that report. I 
said they were violations of the color law. 

Mr. Knight. I asked this friend of mine in Cincinnati to find out 
and have merchants of Cincinnati write me if that were so. He went 
to them and submitted my telegram, and they answered it and furnished 
me that information. I have furnished it to the committee, and if you 
want it I will give you a copy of the telegram I sent him. I don't know 
but 1 have it in my pocket. 

Mr. Jelke. Regarding the statements or letters presented from 
Cincinnati by Mr. Knight, 1 should like to call attention to some clip- 
pings from the Cincinnati Enquirer of January 9 and 10. It appears 
that some years ago there was a i)roduce exchange in Cincinnati. That 
produce exchange was an association of the small commission mer- 
chants and butter dealers and dealers in butter and eggs and poultry. 
The produce exchange went to pieces largely on account of a corner on 
eggs that was engineered by a couple of members who had bought 
futures in eggs for December delivery. The contract stated that they 
w^ere to be delivered "fresh in season." Naturally the parties who 
bought tlie eggs supposed they were fresh-laid in December. But there 
happened to be a majority of the people who were on the short side of 
that corner, and they ruled that they were supposed to be such eggs 
as could be called fresh eggs in December, no matter whether they had 
been laid in the i»revious June, July, or August. So there was quite a 
bitter feeling stirred up, and the produce exchange practically went to 
pieces in consequence of it. Now, Mr. Knight brings in some letters 
from just su(,'h merchants; I do not question but that they are all good 
peoi^le. But let me read his extract from the Cincinnati Enquirer of 
January 9: 

The board of directors of the chamber of commerce 

That is the leading body of merchants in Cincinnati, corresponding 
with such a body as do business in Chicago, known as the board of 



520 OLEOMARGAEIlSrE. 

trade, or in New York as the produce exchange, where grain is dealt 
in 

The board of directors of the chamber of commerce yesterday reopened the case 
in which the butter men were arrayed ai^ainst the oleomargarine manufacturers. 
The latter opposed the Grout bill, and a majority of the board of directors signed a 
protest against the passage of the bill, which protest was forwarded to the House of 
Eepresentativcs at Washington. The bill puts a heavy increased tax on oleomarga- 
rite, if colored, and the manufacturers held that it would dri\'e them out of the busi- 
ness. The directors considered the matter at length, and finally confirmed the action 
of the majority of the board taken some time ago, as stated. 

This is from the Cincinnati Enquirer of January 10: 

There is dissension among the produce and connuission men on change that 
threatens to call into question the legal existence of the body that is generally 
known as the Produce P^xchange of Cincinnati. 

The f|uestion has been brought up by the action of the members of that body yes- 
terday in passing a resolution in wliicli exceptions were taken to the action of the 
directors of the chamber of commerce in calling on Congress to defeat the passiigeof 
the Grout bill, which is hostile to the interests engaged in the making of oleomarga- 
rine. The creamery-butter men want the bill passed, as it puts a tax of 10 cents a 
pound on colored oleo, and thus makes it easier for the creamery-butter makers to 
sell their product without the competition of the oleo men. 

At yesterday's session the butter men in the produce exchange passed the follow- 
ing resolution : 

Whereas the board of directors of the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce has 
memorialized the Senate of the United States that the organization is opposed to 
the passage of the Grout bill : 

Be it resolved, That the Cincinnati Produce Exchange, members of the Cincinnati 
Chamber of Commerce, do condemn the action above taken, and do respectfully 
urge your speedy and favorable action upon the Grout bill. 

Senator Hansbrough. That resolution was sent to the chairman of 
the committee, I will state. I have it here, signed by David Dreifus 
as president and H. J. Finlce as secretary. 

Mr. Jelke. Also, in reply to some statements made regarding the 
sale of oleomargarine for butter in Cincinnati, I have a tejegram from 
my brother living in Cincinnati, whom I notified last night by tele- 
phone. His answer reads as follows: 

Collector Rettman authorizes me to say for him that it is not true that large quan- 
tities of oleomargarine are sold in the Cincinuati markets as butter; that the law is 
more closely observed, and there is less violation of the law and revenue regula- 
tions in regard to oleomargarine than in regard to either whisky or tobacco; and 
that he will make this statement over his own signature if asked by the Commis- 
sioner of Internal Revenue. 

F. Jelke. 

Mr. Tompkins. With reference to communications from farmers, I 
want to say that I have not the slightest doubt that the farmers, who 
are very much interested in this subject, up to the present time do not 
know about it, and those who produce the cotton seed and are inter- 
ested in the cotton seed that goes Into the cotton-seed-oil mills do not 
know about it. If it is a question of getting communications from 
farmers I have not the slightest doubt that at least 50 ]K'r cent of the 
farmers could be got to petition against the bill, which will depreciate 
their interest not less than $2 a ton on 2,000,000 tons of seed. 

On the subject of the interests that are affected we have some testi- 
mony that was given before the House committee on the subi<^ct of the 
cattle interests, that since the fall of 1805 there has been a depression 
in the value of live stock to the extent of >B<)2,000,000. I have not the 
slightest doubt that the passage of the bill would affect the farmers' 
cottonseed interests to the extent of at least $2 a ton on all the seed 
that they sell. 

Mr. Knight. Will you yield to a question? 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 521 

Mr. Tompkins. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Knight. How do you figure it out! 

Mr. Tompkins. By takiug- the quantity of oil off the market where 
it is sold at present; it will depreciate the value of the whole amount 
of cotton-seed oil, because the surplus product is what controls prices, 
not the wliole quantity. 

Mr. Knight. What is the quantity of oil? 

Mr. Tompkins. The quantity of oil is from 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 bar- 
rels. It is difficult to state the amount exactly. 

Mr. Knight. What is that quantity"? 

Mr. Tompkins. It is from 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 barrels of oil that is 
produced. 

Mr. Knight. You do not grasp my question. That is what I have 
been trying to get at in the cotton seed business. What do you con- 
sider to be the relative value of the production of oleo in this country 
to cotton seed oil! 

Mr. Tompkins. I consider the finest pressed oil about 5 cents a gallon. 

Mr. Knight. That is not the question at all. What is your market 
for cotton-seed oil to these manufacturers? How much do you market? 

Mr. Tompkins. We have their testimony for that. I think they can 
give you a more accurate estimate of it than I can, probably. 

Mr. Knight. Is it not true that the Internal-lievenue Commissioner 
shows that you sold to them last year less than $500,000 worth of that 
oil? 

Mr. Tompkins. I could not answer that question. 

Mr. Knight. Well, it is a fact. I think the committee will accept 
my statement, because tliis is a matter of record. 

Mr. Tompkins. But that nmy not be any measure at all of the quan- 
tity of oil that goes into the product, because it may have gone through 
several other channels. We know that they use cotton-seed oil to the 
extent of 10 to 30 per cent and that it furnishes a large market for it. 

Mr. Knight. Do you not know how much they actually use? 

Mr. Tompkins. According to their testimony. I say. 

Mr. Knight. Do you not know how much, exactly, they use accord- 
ing to their own testimony? 

Mr. Tompkins. That testimony stands for itself. 

Mr. Knight. What I want to get at is, what is the value of the 
product? According to the Secretary of the Treasury it was about 
$8,800,000, as I understand. 

Mr. Tompkins. It is not a question of the value of that. It is a 
question of what will be the cause of destroying that market and 
limiting the sale of cotton-seed oil in the markets that are left. 

Mr. Knight. I want to ask you this question: Y^'ou claim there, as I 
understand, that the loss of a market of a half million dollars' worth 
of cotton-seed oil would lower the value of vour product to the extent 
of $2,000,000? 

Mr. Tompkins. In a differential maiket it might easily. 

jNIr. Knight. Then why would it not be a good investment to burn 
up a half million dollars' worth and thus advance the price? 

Mr. Tompkins. We are not in the business of burning up. Each 
man would have to burn his own oil, and you can not bring about a situa- 
tion of that kind. It might bring about the same result if you did. Xo 
individual man is going to burn his own product, and I doubt if the law 
would permit a combination to do it. That is not the question at issue. 
We have this example before us: That the ])roduction of a cotton crop 
of 11,000,000 bales carried the price to 5 cents, and the production of 



522 OLEOMARGARINE. 

55,00,000 bales doubled the i)rice. Isn't it reasonable to suppose that a 
like cause would have a similar inHueiice on the i)riees of other goods'? 

Mr. Knight. I do not think that any man who is engaged in busi- 
ness will assent to the statement that the destruction of a market for 
a half million dollars' worth of goods will cause a loss of $L',000,000. 
I will ask you this: If the displacing of the product of half a million 
dollars' worth of cottonseed oil will depreciate your stock |-J,000,000 in 
value, what do you think will hai)pen to the dairymen, or is happening 
to the dairymen, where they are deprived of a market for $20,000,000 
worth of their products ? Would it not be that they were beaten out of 
f 80,000,000 a year? 

Mr. Tompkins. If all other honest occupations were eliminated, your 
argument would be all right, but we are discussing the subject of its 
being unfairly done. 

Mr. Knight. On the other hand, why not apply the same rule to the 
cotton growers, and say if the other occupations were closed to them 
that the value might be so and so? 

Mr. Tompkins If it were, I dare say cotton would go to 25 cents 
a pound — that is, if you were to forbid the production of wool and flax. 

Mr. Knight. Then, as a matter of fact, it is easy to destroy the value 
of butter to the extent of $80,000,000 a year on that basis, or to 
decrease the price of cotton-seed oil $15,000,000. 

Mr-. Tompkins. And decrease the value of cattle and charge the 
laboring elements of the country that much more than they ought to 
pay. 

Mr. Knight. All right. , That is what I have been trying to get out. 

Senator Dolliveb. There seems a very much larger production of 
cotton seed oil than enters into the manufacture of oleomargarine, 
and a vastly larger production of oleo oil than enters into the manu- 
facture of oleomargarine. If these laws restraining the sale of oleo- 
margarine, such as exist in 32 States, were wiped out, and no action 
at all taken by either State or local governments, would it be pos- 
sible for oleomargarine to occupy the whole field for butter, thereby 
totally destroying one of the chief commercial products of the country? 

Mr. Tompkins. It would not, on account of the variety of tastes. 
There are people who will not have any lard but lard rendered from 
hogs raised under circumstances that they themselves know about, 
people who will not buy commercial lard at all. Equally there is a 
large consumption of dairy butter by people who will not eat any- 
thing else. The province of this committee is to put itself in the 
position of a purchaser who wants to know what he purchases. It is 
not a question of elimination. 

Senator Dolliver. My question was based upon the theory that the 
oleomargarine product has now become so perfect an imitation of 
butter that people would be unable to discern whether it is butter or not. 

Mr. Tompkins. But I do not think yon would have any difficulty 
under the police regulations in reference to that matter. VV"e have the 
testimony of a gentleman from Cincinnati here, who is a State official. 

Mr. Jelke. He was collector of internal revenue. 

Mr. Tompkins. I will undertake to say he would keep track of that 
difficulty. There is no trouble in organizing a body of agents or 
inspectors, just as is done in the case of whisky and tobacco. 

Senator Dolliver. About four years ago we received an elegant 
specimen of oleomargarine that had taken the first prize as butter at 
the State fair of Pennsylvania. 

Mr. Tompkins. Yet your proposition would be to totally eliminate a 
food product 



OLEOMARGARINE. 523 

Seiiatoi DoLLiVER. I was inquiring whether, in the absence of any 
regulations, State or local or national, a situation is not possible, owin<j 
to the volume of oleo oil and cotton-seed oil, by which the dairy inter- 
ests of the country might be totally expunged without the knowledge 
of the public. 

Mr. Tompkins. If it were totally expunged by competition or putting 
something else on the market that was better, by means of processes 
that affected larger interests, by furnishing the working people and all 
other peo])le a better article at a cheaper price, is not that the standard 
by which American commerce has always been judged? I absolutely 
feel that 1 know that the dairy business would never go down; that it 
has within it possibilities which, by education and by a better under- 
standing of the processes of feeding and of utilizing manures from the 
food of the cattle, butter can be produced excellently and cheaply in a 
way to keep always in competition with the other products of the same 
animals exactly, excepting only the vegetable part that goes in from 
cotton seed oil. 

Now, what you want, is to leave that competition exactly free. What 
ought to be done is simply to require that these things shall be sold on 
their merits and without any misrepresentation, to which the gentleman 
acquiesces promptly. Nevertheless, all the arguments here are that you 
must eliminate butter, you must eliminate everything that gives this 
product a fair show on the market. If you eliminate in both instances 
I am with you, and I think all the people are with you. The elimination 
of coloring matter is not the elimination of an injurious ingredient. 
But if you cause the butter people to put a label on their packages that 
it is butter, and they renovate it to give it a taste by culture and growth 
of bacteria, and give it an artificial color, all that is as absolutely decep- 
tive when the butter is put on the umrket, when its appearance is 
changed, when its taste is changed so as to represent grass butter, as it 
is to put oleomargarine, otherwise wholesome, on the market, and color 
it yelltiw, but call it by its own name. Indeed, there is no deception at 
all in that. There is not the slightest objection to the regulation of the 
article, to the making of everybody stand the same tests and make the 
same degree of honest representations. 

It is absolutely no use to eliminate something that is simply used 
for the purpose of making that article more attractive to the purchaser 
without doing him any harm. If you will require a wholesome article 
of oleomargarine to be made, let them color it if they want to. Eequire 
them to put on the formula by which it was made, if you desire, just as 
is the case with cotton-seed oil, and then do exactly the same with the 
butter business, and there will be no trouble about honest competi- 
tion, and neither side will have any right to ask that the other side 
be handicapped with an embargo of a great big tax, or of being 
dei)rived of tlie advantage of i^utting a good appearance on their goods 
for the market, while they themselves are allowed to put identically 
that thing on the market under circninstances that are more deceptive 
in the one case than in the other. Everybody knows that oleomarga- 
rine is colored; but not a great number of peoi)]e know that butter 
which is alleged to be si)ring butte-, with the color made by grass or 
by cotton-seed meal, actually contains that thing at all. The color is 
artificial and the taste is artificial. 

Mr. Knkiht. Will the gentleman yield? 

Mr. Tompkins. Certainly. 

Mr. Knight. You speak of spring butter and bacteria. Do you 
think it is a fraud to use what you call an artificial flavor caused by 
bacterial development? 



524 OLEOMAKGAKINE. 

Mr. Tompkins. When you conceal the fraud it is. 

Mr. Knight. Do you know what produces the flavor in butterine? 

Mr. Tompkins. It is said to be bacteria. 

Mr. Knight. 2^othiug but bacteria. All flavor is produced by 
bacteria. 

Mr. Tompkins. That is what they say. I am not a chemist. 

Mr. Knight. In giving butter a spring color, in what way is that 
deceptive ? 

Mr. Tompkins. In the fact that the whole truth is not made mani- 
fest on the package. 

Mr. Knight. Uo you know that there is butter without bacteria 
in it? 

Mr. ToMTKiNS. I do not know. That is one of the complaints made 
by the Secretary of Agriculture about oleomargarine, that there were 
no bacteria in it. 

Senator IIansbrough. I understand that it is necessary for the oleo- 
margarine manufacturers to use a certain proportion of milk and cream 
in order to get the butter bacteria into their product, thus securing the 
butter taste. Is that right? 

Mr. Tompkins. That is right. 

Senator Hansbroitgh. So that there can not be much harm in the 
one case if you use it in both cases? 

Mr. Tompkins. Nor is there any harm in using coloring in both. 
Yet it is set ui) here as the very essence of fraud that it is done. I sup- 
pose there are many people who would object to the use of grass butter 
if they knew that it contained bacteria. 

Senator Hansbrough. You were speaking of a certain class of 
worms and bugs which were ])retty large in size. 

Mr. Tompkins. I did not say bugs. 

Mr. Knight. To return to the deception in coloring butter to make 
it look like spring butter, I do not understand where the deception is. 
I want to understand where you think the deception is. Will yoa 
please explain? 

Mr. Tompkins. In coloring one butter to make it look like another 
butter? 

Mr. Knight. Yes. Where is the deception ? 

Mr. Tompkins. The deception lies in the fact. 

Mr. Knight. I know that spring butter is yellow naturally, is it not? 

Mr. Tompkins. Yes. 

Mr. Knight. When is this butter colored to make it look like spring 
butter, and when is it necessary? 

Mr. Tompkins. Whenever you gather it up in barrels at the various 
railroad stations throughout the country and take it and renovate it. 

Mr. Knight. When is it white? 

Mr. Tompkins. If you feed the cow on cotton seed, the butter will be 
white; that is also true with many other kinds of food. 

Mr. Knight. But that is not spring butter. When you speak of 
spring butter you intend to convey the idea of butter that is naturally 
yellow, do you ? 

Mr. Tompkins. Butter that comes from cattle that have been fed on 
spring grass ; that is butter that is most attractive and that most people 
want to eat, and butter that most people feel, as a matter of sentiment, 
is the purest. 

Mr. Knight. T want to ask another question : Do you know at what 
period of the year this artificially colored butter is marketed ? Do you 
understand the matter sufiRcieutlv to know when the butter is white? 



OLEOMARGAKINE. 525 

Mr. T()3iPKiNS. Tt would be wliite ;it any time of the year if the cow 
were led on food stuff tbat would produce white butter. Jf you feed 
the cow on cotton seed, the butter will be ns white as cotton. 

Mr. Knight. What I want to get sit as to that is to bring- out this 
point about the alleg-ed deception in color. You talk about the coloring 
of butter as being deceptive. Uo you know that butter is colored in 
the winter and not in the summer*? 

Mr. Tompkins. No, I don't. 

Mr. Knight. Then I will say for your information, and you will find 
out that it is true, that white butter comes in the winter. I think the 
oleomarg:arine people will tell you that. 

Mr. Jelke. 1 believe that if Mr. Knight will wire to a half dozen of 
the leading creamery men of the United States that furnish butter for 
Washington or St. Louis he will find that they use artificial coloring 
twelve months in the year. 

Mr. Knight. No; that is not tiue, 

Mr. Jelke. I am making tbat as a suggestion to the committee. If 
you wish to controvert that, simply send your telegrams. 

Mr. Knight. I have a statement wliich has been tiled with the com- 
mittee on that jtoint. It appears that 1 can not bring- it out by these 
questions, and 1 would like to make a statement right here, so that it 
will go in the record. 

Senator Hansbrough. 1 suggest that you give Mr. Tompkins a 
chance to finish his statement. 

Mr. Tompkins. I am perfectly willing to yield to Mr. Knight. 

Senator Hansbrough. For a short statement. 

Mr. Knight. This great deception that is claimed in the practice of 
coloring butter is based on the supposition that in the winter time, 
when butter is naturally white, people are deceived into buying it, 
thinking it is spring butter because it is colored. Now look at the 
proposition. You come down here in December or January and buy 
some butter; it is highly colored, but it is butter. Do you buy that 
butter because you think it was made last summer? Do you want 
butter made last summer? 

iMr. Tompkins. It may be made with cotton-seed meal, which is per- 
fectly wholesome; but as against butter made from cows fed on swills, 
many people consider it poor stuff" and object to it. 

Mr. Knight. I will say in that connection that I have been in the 
butter trade for twelve years, and I have never heard that the color of 
butter was indicative of its quality, so far as its wholesomeness is con- 
cerned. Senator Dolliver has had experience in New Y'ork to the effect 
that at the Waldorf-Astoria, they serve you with butter perfectly white. 
I was in England for the Agricultural Department investigating but- 
ter in that country, and they served me there with white butter all the 
time I was there, and I never heard anybody complain because it was 
white. 

Mr. Tompkins. Why do they ever want to have the color in it? 

Mr. Knight. The average natural color of butter is two-thirds nor- 
mal. Y'ou take our dairies throughout the United States, and one cold 
wave or storm will change the color of the butter. One cold wave that 
will drive the cows from feeding on the green pastures to feeding on 
hay or any kind of grain food will make the butter white this week 
which last week was yellow. That is true of any place. 

The tendency of all commerce is toward uniformity in everything. 
Butter is put up in packages or in tubs. Everybody puts up every- 
thing with this idea of uniformity in view. That is what the public 



526 OLEOMARGARINE. 

demands. It does not make any difference in what sliape the packages 
are, but all the packages must be uniform in order to be merchantable. 
So with butter. Butter must be uniform in packages, uniform in body, 
uniform in the amount of salt, uniform in flavor, uniform in color. The 
weather conditions may be such that one day will make white butter 
and another day will make yellow butter. I tell you that it is neces- 
sary that we do something to keep the color uniform. When I tell you 
that, I am telling you what 1 know. I say to day that it would be 
better for the buiter tra<le if butter could be made white uniformly 
and all the time, rather than yellow part of the time and white part of 
the time. The consumers would soon become used to that uniformity. 
But we can not accomplish that. In the winter time butter might be 
nearly white if the color is kept out of it. If oleomargarine were white, 
where would our distinction be"? In this bill we seek a distinction 
between the two articles. If a bill could be passed that would cause 
the color to be kept out of butter and oleomargarine in the winter 
time, then the oleomargarine men would go to their retailers and tell 
them, "You know there was a law passed at the last Congress which 
practically forbids coloring butter." Where would the value of the 
law be that would bring the two articles down to the same basis "as 
regards color? It is true that would be an advantage in the summer 
time, when butter is cheap, and oleomargarine has no market to amount 
to anyhow. But when it came to the winter time the color miglit be 
taken out, and the two articles standing side by side would show the 
same color, and then fraud would be practiced just the same, pjvery 
man who wanted to sell oleomargarine for butter would convince the 
consumer that it was natural butter, and would tell him that color had 
been forbidden by law, and that butter is white in winter. 

Mr. Miller. It is a fact that creamery butter is colored in the winter 
time. 

JMr. Knight. That is in Kansas, 

Mr, Miller. Yes. Why? Because they want to keep it uniform. 
Mr. Tompkins's point is this: This renovated butter is reworked and 
sold on the market as creamery butter. 

Mr. Knigh't. I am going to talk about that renovated butter for 
live minutes. 

Senator Hansbrough. I suggest that Mr, Tompkins be allowed to 
tinish his statement hrst. 

Mr, Tompkins, The proposition seems to reduce itself, even after the 
gentleman's explanation, to one thing — that we want to keep them 
trom putting their articles of manufacture into nice and attractive 
shape, and we want the liberty to do so ourselves; that we want you 
to tine them for doing it, but we want to go scot-free. That is the 
whole proi^osition. That is my interpretation of all that he has said. 

i^s^ow as to the question of who is affected by this bill. There is an 
enormous number of small farmers and many of them have been per- 
suaded to send deputations here when their interests practically lie on 
the other side, or only on the side of improving their methods. The 
fellow who sells butter to dealers, who, in turn ship it to the dairymen, 
gets very little, if any, more for his butter than the oleomargarine peo- 
ple do for theirs. The number of that class of people who make a kind 
of butter that does not go upon the market in these attractive shapes, 
is very large, whereas the number of people who pro(kice the high kind 
of butter, either naturally on the farms or in dairies for renovation, are 
the interested parties, and are comparatively few. So that the great 
bulk of the small farmers who feel that they are getting entirely too 



OLEOMARGARINE. 527 

little mouey for their butter would, after tlie passage of tliis bill, not 
be materially improved, for the reason tbattbe dairymen, the renovated 
butter men, or other people who buy their butter, would give them just 
about the same price as they now get, and would get the benefits of 
this taxation and a curtailment of production for those who are now 
enjoying the very best benefits of the dairy interests. 

After them, the next interest that is affected is this enormous inter- 
est in the South in the i^roductioi:: of cotton seed, where, by means of 
improved processes and more work, they have learned to produce beef 
steers, and are producing a great many beef steers, and are fattening 
them on cotton seed oil and meal. Their interests will be affected. 

But the largCvSt of all interests to be alfected is the working people 
of the country, who have to consume the i^roduct. There is no ques- 
but that, if the propositions relating to legislation brought here by the 
dairymen is carried through, the prices of that article of food to the 
people will be the biggest part of the tax. 

(Senator Allen. Do you know aj^proximately how many milch cows 
there are in the United States? 

Mr. Tompkins. I do not. I think it is stated somewhere in the tes- 
timony. 

Mr. Knight. Sixteen millions. 

Senator Allen. The average production of butter per cow would be 
how much per week '? 

Mr. Knight. Eleven millions in the production of butter. 

Senator Allen. What is the average production? 

Mr. Tompkins. I am not a dairyman. These other gentlemen will 
tell you that. 

Senator Allen. Say 4 pounds per week. That is reasonable, is it 
not? 

Mr. Tompkins. I suppose so. 

Senator Allen. How much butter will be produced per week? 

Mr. Tompkins. Four pounds a week, and fifty-two times that. 

Senator Allen. In round figures, what will that be? 

Mr. Knight. I have figured it at about 1,500,000,000 pounds. 

Senator Allen. Divide that by 75,000,000, the population of the 
United States, and what would the result be? 

Mr. Tompkins. About 18i pounds per capita. 

Senator Allen, Do you think we ought to resort to a substitute for 
butter under those circumstances? 

Mr. Tompkins. They do not want a wholesome article of food, or at 
least they do not want to pay 25 per cent more for that food than they 
are now paying. It is the differential quantities of food, I suppose, 
that enter into the prices in the estimation of the values of the actual 
quantities concerned. They are by no means a measure of what the 
increased prices would be. I am sure that the working people would 
not want to be made the victims of any law whicTi materially increased 
the price of what they buy, whether butter or oleomargarine. 

Senator Hansbrough. If you knock out the color from oleomarga- 
rine, would not the working i)eople be able to buy it at a lower price? 

Mr. Tompkins. If the color was knocked out of butter, would they 
not also be able to buy it at a lower price? Why should the principle 
apply to one and not the other? 

Senator Hansbrough. It is stated here by butter experts that for 
about two months in the year the butter is naturally colored, that you 
can not take it out. 

Mr. Tompkins. That is all right. Leave it in. 



528 OLEOMARGARINE 

Mr. Knight. And butter is the clieapest at that time of the year. 

Mr. Tompkins That is all right, too. 

Senator Allen. Some time, probably before the 1st of August, the 
butter begins to get pale, so that unless the c<jw is fed other than food 
in the ])astnre until along about December, the butter would be almost 
white, having but a slight yellowish tinge. 

Senator Dolliver. Suppose it shouhl turn out, as some of the testi- 
mony Avould seem to indicate, that in large cities, like Washington, 
poor people, anxious to supply their table, are inveigled by the appear- 
ance of your oleomargarine goods into paying the better prices for it 
under the impression that they are getting butter, whereas in point of 
fact they are getting an article wliich, in the ordinary state of the 
market, ought to be worth very much less? 

Mr. Tompkins. Is not that same thing applicable to white butter as 
well as to colored butter I The principle of the deception in the one, it 
seems to me, is quite as important as in the other. 

Senator Allen. One is butter and the other is nof, and the consumer 
buys the oleomargarine under the impression that it is butter. It is a 
substitute for butter now. I am not prepared to say that it is now 
wholesome, so far as 1 am concerned. 

Senator Hansbrough. It is a wholesome article of food. That is 
not disputed. 

Mr. Tompkins. I do not think anybody disputes it except the Secre- 
tary of Agriculture. 

Senator Allen. What is the color point of butter! 

•vlr. Jelke. I think butter dealers count color at 15 points. 

Mr. Knight. Ten points, I think. 

Senator Allen. So far as I am individually concerned, I do not care 
anything about the color of butter. 

Mr. Jelke. If butter is perfectly sweet to the taste it is immaterial 
about the color. But the trouble is about butter that is not perfectly 
pleasant to the palate. 

Senator Allen. I know that butter overscalded on the farm will be 
almost as white as paper and at the same time very palatable. 

Mr. Paul. Allow me to submit the standard official score from the 
twenty-sixth report of the Philadelphia Produce Exchange: 

Form B. — Standard official score. 

Points. 

Flavor 45 

Body 25 

Color 15 

Salting 10 

General appearance 5 

Total.. 100 

Senator Allen. What is the estimated value of colored oleomar- 
garine? What points do you count? 

Mr. Jelke. We have never made an estimate of those points; but 
I should think it worth fully as much to us as to the butter dealers. 

Senator Dolliver. I haven't got it in my head how you can place 
a label on a package of oleomargarine, showing that it is oleomargarine, 
and then expect the public to buy it. It seems to me it would have 
the effect of destroying the industry. 

Mr. Jelke. That would be practically the effect. 

Mr. Tompkins. It would put us in a situation where poor people 
would not buy, because it would have a brand of condemnation, as it 
were. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 529 

Senator Dolliver. It would seem to indicate that it was univer- 
sally disreputable in itself. 

Mr. Tompkins. Another thing about it is 

Senator Dolliver. If you put up an article that a man is ashamed 
to have on his table it seems to me there would not be much sale for 
that article. 

Mr. Tompkins. Suppose an attempt were made to put an honest man 
in the penitentiary and put the stripes on him, don't you think he 
would object! You can put marks upon anything in this world that 
will create prejudice. In fact, this question of color is a question of 
sentiment or prejudice, and nothing else. 

Senator Dolliver. If a man without stripes were honest, but still 
fought everybody and shunned society, it would seem to indicate that 
there was something constitutionally defective about him. 

Mr. Tompkins. But this is not that case. You propose, in the case 
of butter, to permit them to make this very distinction you talk about, 
to the detriment of the reputation of oleomargarine, as though it were 
marked by the Government exactly as a man would be marked by 
stripes in the penitentiary. 

Mr. Jelke. I want to answer Senator Dolliver. In Chicago oleo- 
margarine has the stripes of condemnation on it, in consequence of the 
sentiment created by a partisan press, and promulgated throughout the 
country, and the statement was made in one instance before the com 
mittee, but afterwards they wanted the statement stricken out. 

Senator Allen. What would be the objection to using carrots in the 
manufacture of oleomargarine for the purpose of giving it color? 

Mr. Jelke. This bill would not allow it. 

Senator Dolliver. It all looks to me as if the oleomargarine busi- 
ness, by this fight against State and United States laws, had invited 
a lot of opprobrium, which I believe should not attach to the business. 

Mr. Jelke. There has not been any fight against United States laws, 
as shown in the statements of every internal-revenue collector and the 
Commissioner, or otherwise. 

Senator Dolliver. But we had on our table yesterday a dozen 
packages upon which the United States law had been dodged. 

Mr, Tompkins. If you make a law of any kind relating to butter it 
will be dodged. You can not make any kind of a law that will not be 
dodged more or less. We have the testimony, by telegram, of an 
officer of the United States (xovernment that he does not believe that 
the law is being dodged in one large and important commercial city of 
the Union. There is no reason why it should be done more anywhere 
else than it is there. It is simply a question of proper regulation. 

Senator Hansbrough. You recall the statement of Secretary Wil- 
son yesterday, I think it was, in regard to the conditions of Denmark, 
where 3i per cent of butter substances was oleomargarine, and that it 
was uncolored? 

Mr. Knight. Three and a half pounds per capita. 

Senator Dolliver. And that they found a ready market to that 
extent in Denmark? 

Mr. Knight. The public taste is educated easily. I ate white butter 
for four weeks in England, and in fact got so used to it that when I 
returned to this country yellow butter was repulsive. 

Senator Hansbrough. I make that statement to show that it is not 
the purpose of Congress to injure the oleomargarine business as an 
oleomargarine business. 

Mr. Tompkins. Then don't put any bill on the country that is dis- 
criminating in its terms and in favor of butter. Revise and reconstruct 
S. Rep. 2043 34 



530 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

the bill so as to make it a good bill that will be applicable to the butter 
business as much as to the oleomargarine business. 

Mr. Knight. What ■would hai)peu to you if you should go on the 
streets of Washington attired in woman's clothes? 

Mr. Tompkins. I do not see the relevancy of the question. The 
question at issue is whether in this bill there is an unfair discrimination 
against one product and in favor of another; not with reference to 
whether a proper and legitimate industry ought not to be allowed and 
all legitimate occupations ])ursued with perfect ireedom, I can not 
but feel that the bill does two things: It discriminates in the first place 
in favor of the butter business, in allowing the manufacturers to use 
processes for coloring and to use flavoring compounds; that these 
things are permitted, whether they are right or wrong, whether the 
processes are clean or not clean; while, in the case of oleomargarine, 
you permit absolutely nothing, even though the article is perfectly 
wholesome. The distinction between right and wrong should be made 
by police regulations, and there are ways of doing that without dis- 
criminating in favor of one and against the other. 

Senator Allen. I suppose you recognize the fact that almost the 
entire quantity of butter consumed on the farms is never colored"? 

Mr. Tompkins. I do not think it is colored. 

Senator Allen. I refer, of course, to the butter that is consumed on 
the farms. 

Senator Hansbeough. It is taken in its natural state. 

Mr. Tompkins. What I am contending is that both butter and oleo- 
margarine ought to be allowed to be colored, or not, according to taste, 
provided that the color is not injurious; and all injurious methods 
ought to be forbidden in both cases. I think the whole matter can rest 
on that proposition, and I thank you for your kind attention. 

Senator Dolliver. Let me say that I find a natural prejudice in 
favor of butter, and a very strong indisposition to do any real damage 
to a legitimate business that has invested capital. I am extremely 
anxious to know what would be the actual efl'ect of putting oleomar- 
garine on the market in its natural condition and leaving it to make 
its way without a continual conflict with laws and prejudices and cus- 
toms in thirty two different States, but give it its true reputation, and 
rescue it, if possible, from the general disrepute in which it seems to 
be, so far as has been shown generally by the testimony. 

Mr. Jelke. I will say here that if the Grout bill passes, providing a 
tax of 10 per cent, it will kill the industry. Last winter a dealer was 
arrested in Council Blufls, Iowa, through the efforts of the dairy com- 
missioner of that State, and we had to go to the expense of paying for 
the return of the goods. The goods were absolutely uncolored except 
for a slight grayish tint. We defeated that case in the police court 
there. Then the dairy commissioner presented the case to the grand 
jury, the dealer was indicted, and we had to defend another case 
brought against him there. A dealer in Des Moines said, " I am going 
to undertake to sell butterine." The commissioner said, "If you do I 
will prosecute every sale you make. We don't want it sold in our city, 
colored or uncolored." 

Senator Dollivek. The State of Iowa would be an exceedingly dis- . 
couraging place to undertake to sell anything for butter, very much as|| 
a man would not carry coals to Newcastle. But in the city of Chicago, 
where there is a great demand by the poor i)eople, who have been 
spoken of, for cheap butter, what would be the practical difficulty in 
selling authenticated oleomargarine under its own name without any 



OLEOMARGARINE. 531 

tendency to deceive anybody by dealers, if the article were left 
uu colored. 

Mr. Tompkins. Your proposition is that all grades of butter be made 
in imitation of a butter that costs 5 cents a pound, because it certainly 
can be produced for people who want it. On the other hand, you have 
forbidden any api)earance of that sort of thing on the part of the oleo- 
margarine people themselves, and made a great distinction. The two 
subjects would naturally lap if you let them both alone and let all col- 
ors take care of themselves absolutely, simply forbidding artificial 
colors anywhere. But by means of artificial color you so criticise one 
product m connection with this traffic that the other becomes oppro- 
brious at once. 

Senator Dolliyer. There is some force in that, but I would rather 
take the testimony as to the grades of the manufactured article called 
oleomargarine, whose business methods are less subject to criticism, I 
think, possibly, than any other. 

Mr. Jelke. 1 think those reasons have been stated here by a labor- 
ing man. 

Senator Dolliver. That story, I will say to my friend, sounded a 
little fishy to me. 

Mr. Jelke. A man does not seek here to display the quality of food 
on his table three times a day. 

Mr. Tompkins. I assert that the whole aim of the human family 
seems to be to get food and other necessary articles as cheaply as pos- 
sible. I have never heard it was a rei^roach that cheap goods were sat- 
isfactory CO the j)urchaser. 

Mr. Jelke. Would you want to eat uncolored oleomargarine on your 
table? 

Senator Dolliver. jS^o; I have a constitutional prejudice against it, 
I must confess. 

Mr. Jelke. Would you want to eat white butter? 

Senator Dolliver. Oh, yes; I have eaten it the year round, and in 
youth I churned it. As Senator Allen says, everybody eats white butter 
on the farm. 

Mr. Jelke. As soon as that butter is shipped to the city it is colored. 

Senator Dolliver. 1 am talking about my own taste. 

Mr. SCHELL. The wholesale dealers in Cincinnati have tried to put 
white oleomargarine on the market, but have reported to me that it was 
absolutely impossible to do it. Mr. Seither, who claims to be and I 
believe is the oldest man in that business in this country, tells me he 
has tried it from time to time, but it is utterly impossible: that the peo- 
ple will not take it. He has not told me the reason why, but I think 
one of the principal reasons is the fact that tliere is an unwarranted 
sentiment attached to it, an unwarranted prejudice against it, and peo- 
ple do not want to put it on their tables for the criticism of their 
neighbors. You know liow a neighboring woman will say: "Mrs. 
Smith uses oleo," etc. 

Senator Allen. Is not this the fact: That the man does not want to 
put oleomargarine on his table knowingly, because of his natural 
inclination for butter ? 

Mr. ScHELL. No, I think not. I was telling the committee about an 
experience I had during the holidays on one occasion where I found 
what I knew to be oleomargarine on the table of a physician, a man 
amply able to have the very best. I called attention to it, and brought 
blushes to his wife's face at the same time. But he explained it, and 
said it was all right. Why? Because he liked something upon which 



532 OLEOMARGARINE. 

he could depend; that he hked it better than the country butter that 
he could get, and better than the creamery butter that he could get in 
the city stores. 

Senator Dolliver. Have you studied the question of how far this 
continual conflict with State laws, and the almost universal duplicity 
of the retail trade in dealing with its customers, such as was described 
here yesterday by Mr. Knigbt, with an appearance of truth and veracity 
at least — how tar that has contributed to bring the whole business into 
disrepute and reproach in the commercial world"? 

Mr. SciiELL. I have not considered that, because in Cincinnati we 
have not the same situation which Mr. Knight described as to a certain 
portion only of Chicago. 

Mr. Knight. It is all over Chicago, every place. 

Mr. ScHELL. After all, that is largely hearsay, and covers only a 
very small amount of business. We do not have that condition in 
Cincinnati, 

Senator Hansbrough. You say all over Chicago? 

Mr. Knight. Yes, sir. I do not say every dealer, but I will say 
eight out of ten dealers in Chicago, and that will leave about 200 honest 
dealers in the city. I consider that 90 per cent of the oleomargarine 
that is sold in Chicago is sold as butter. 

Mr. Miller. I think if the oleomargarine manufacturers would put 
up these goods in packages so that retail dealers could not break them 
that would settle the difficulty. For instance, say we put it up in 
2-pound packages for the retail dealer, with the word "oleomargarine" 
printed on the wrapper. 

Senator Dolliver. Is that the Wadsworth bill? 

Mr. Miller. That is practically the Wadsworth bill. 

Mr. Knight. May I ask why he could not break the package just as 
well as he coukl mark the package? The present law requires it to be 
marked; and a recent ruling of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue 
plainly and explicitly states that any hiding of the seal or stamp is a 
violation of the law, and subjects the violator to a punishment. I do 
not know how much. What is the difference between laying himself 
liable to a fine for a violation of the stamp law as it is now and laying 
himself liable to a fine for taking oft" the stamp, as he would under the 
Wadsworth bill? 

Mr. Miller. Increase the penalty. 

Mr. Knight. I want to say to tlie committee now that in my judg- 
ment the higher the penalty the less possibility there is of enforcing 
the law. It is almost impossible to procure the evidence, and, besides, 
to fine a man a thousand dollars for selling 15 cents' worth of oleo- 
margarine for butter only defeats the ends of justice. 

Senator Allen. It seems to me there is an insuperable objection to 
your proposition, Mr. Miller. Suppose the retail dealer has his goods 
in 2 or 3 pound packages, with the wrapi)er properly stamped with the 
word " butterine," what is to hinder him, when he gets 100 or 200 
pounds, from taking those packages down cellar and taking off the 
wrapper, and running the stuff through the machine and recasting it 
and selling it as butter? 

Mr. Miller. I do not think he would do so. 

Mr. Tompkins. That kind of work is done with liquor all the time. 

Mr. . It seems to nie that the greatest preventive of frauds of 

this kind would be a reduction in the retail dealer's tax. I think that 
would reduce 99 j)er cent of the frauds. 

Mr. Knight. So far as the enforcement of the law by the Internal 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 533 

Revenue Department is concerned in regard to branding, or in regard 
to selling oleomargarine for butter, there is not the slightest interest 
in that Department on that question. I am speaking from experience. 

Senator Dolliver. Why is it that the Government has an interest 
in the enforcement of the whisky tax? 

Mr. Knight. Whenever a man finds out illicit whisky, he attaches 
00 per cent of the tax; but in the case of oleomargarine he does not 
attach any of the tax. The point of this 10 per cent tax is to fix it so 
that if he colors it in imitation of butter, he will have to pay enough to 
relatively cost the retailer a figure that will not leave him an incentive 
to take his chances under State laws. The minute that you descend 
into the internal revenue with a tax on it and say you will collect a 
tax of 10 cents on every pound, they will collect it. We know that. 
There is our position about enforcement; but they care nothing for the 
police measures. 

Senator Dolliver. They enforce the provisions as to packages of 
tobacco, I suppose, as to size and weight ? 

Mr. Knight. I am not well informed on tobacco laws, but they 
require a stamp of so much on every package containing so many 
pounds. 

Senator Dolliver, They regulate the size of the package. 

Mr. Knight. Yes; they simply require that that amount of revenue 
goes on. 

Senator Allen. They require an adhesive stamp. 

Mr. Knight. In any other internal-revenue article there is abso- 
lutely nothing in the shape of imitation that causes people to throw off 
the stamj). What incentive has a man to remove the stamp from cigars 
or tobacco? Xone at all. 

Mr. Miller. The putting of a stamp upon a package is what we 
want. We would like to have that to day. 

Senator Allen. You would be willing to put on a regular adhesive 
stamp ? 

Mr. Miller. Y"es, sir. 

Mr. Ihrigh. Does Mr. Knight want to insinuate that our revenue 
otficers throughout the country do not attend to their duties? 

Mr. Knight. Yes; and in confirmation of that I would like to read 
from the Commissioner's report. 

Senator Allen. I do not think we want to go into that. 

Mr. SCHELL. In reply to Senator Allen's question, I think I can em- 
phasize the point quite a good deal. He wants to know what would 
prevent the taking olf of the wrapper and remixing the stufl" down in the 
cellar. I presented here yesterday, as the Senator will recall, a list 
representing 1,083 consumers who buy directly from one of my clients, 
and they all unite in asking that this Grout bill be defeated. If this 
bill become a law, they will be unable to buy, and we will be unable to 
manufacture for them or to export any of the product colored. 

Senator Dolliver. The man down cellar would be handling the oleo- 
margarine, and the margin between the retail price of it and the price 
of real butter would be practically wiped out, and there would be no 
incentive to fraud. 

Mr. Schell. The dishonest retailer would have If cents and the S 
cents extra tax that is put on, which would make 9f cents extra induce- 
ment for fraud. He could easily take the uncolored product to his cel- 
lar and work it over with the proper color. There is no law to prevent, 
and a ruling of the Department that would allow him to do so with safety. 



534 OLEOMARGARINE. 

]VIr. Tompkins. Why not put a revenue stamp on all of them, whether 
butter or oleomargarine? 

Mr. Knight. The first time the tax is attempted to be evaded you 
will find the Department down on him. 

Mr. SCHELL. We insist that an adhesive stamp on each package, 
with a heavy penalty attached for obliterating it or taking it off, will 
reduce the whole fraudulent business to boarding houses and hotels. 
We do not claim anything more. All we want for the manufacturers 
is that the article be sold absolutely on its merits, so that the public 
will know what it is getting wlien it Ijuys. 

Senator Hansbrough. In regard to the collection of the tax, I may 
as well read two or three lines from the House report : 

Representative Bailey. Do you tbiuk tbat this law is enforced as well as any other 
internal-revenue law? 

Commissioner Wilson. With respect to collectin<j the tax, better; with respect to 
the incidental matters, so far as the pure-food law is concerned, no. 

Mr. Knight. That was the Commissioner's testimony before the 
House committee. 

ADDITIONAL STATEMENT OF MR. C. Y. KNIGHT. 

Senator Hansbrough. The committee will listen to Mr. Knight, for 
five minutes, I think he said. 

Mr. Knight. To begin with, I will say that when process butter first 
came out and was being manufactured there were, as Mr. Jelke read yes- 
terday, a great many patents taken out for its making, just as there 
were when they first made olemargariue. Those same i)atents were 
brought out and are now on tile at the Pateut Otfice. The first process 
butter that was made was made from about as rank stuff, I suppose, as 
anybody could conceive of. The goods were gathered up in the coun- 
try, as they are now. But at that time they had lain a much longer 
time than is now customary. It was then the custom of country store- 
keepers to kee]) everything lying around until they got a barrel full 
before sending it off. But today — I am telling the absolute truth, 
without prejudice in the matter — in the system of manufacturing proc- 
ess butter it is not permitted to get out of condition, with rare excep- 
tions. There is no doubt, as has been stated to the committee by a 
gentleman from Philadelphia, that there is some awful stuff' that goes 
into process butter. They say that fat is not easily contaminated, and 
when it is once contaminated there never has been an acid discovered 
that will successfully bring it back. You can no more bring back 
dairy butter to its original sweet condition than you can bring back 
contaminated fat of any kind. They have tried it. They have made 
experiments with alkalis, etc., but it only saponifies the fat, makes it 
soapy and fluffy, and takes the life out, so that it is soft like lard. 

The butter is collected and taken to the central factories; there 
it is melted in a temperature from 102 to 120^ in large tanks by the 
use of hot water and steam. Those vats are placed on a slant; they 
are crisscrossed with pipes with hot water running through them, and 
the fat melts and is drawn off into a vat. That fat is left there in the 
vat so that the casein and water may be precipitated, leaving a clear 
amber oil on top, and taking the casein and water and salt out under- 
neath. That water and salt and casein are drawn off" from the bot- 
tom, leaving the clear oil on top. There are various methods for get- 
ting out what may remain in the shape of casein that does not pre- 
cipitate immediately. The process used to be to leave that fat at a 



OLEOMARGARINE. 585 

temperature of about 102 ami 108'^ for two or three days, and then 
whatever residue would not i^recipitate was drawn from the top 
instead of the bottom to get the fat from the top. They have various 
methods now for i)recipitatiug the casein, but those are business secrets. 
They are mechanical, not involving the use of acids at all. It is those 
matters that the manufaciurers of process butter keep secret — the 
methods of finally precipitatiug what remains of the casein in the 
body of the oil. 1 liave been through a great many factories in the 
United States, and seen their methods, one after the other, and was 
offered $5,0U0 for a description of the method of clarifying the oil 
finally. Of course, it was given to me in confidence, and 1 would as 
soon steal -$5,000 from a man as 1 would give away his secret. But I 
give you my word of honor that there is no acid used in that clarifica- 
tion. It is simply a mechanical method which has been discovered, 
the construction of which probably cost $5,000 to $0,000. It is merely 
a centrifugal arrangement, but that centrifugal arrangment has been 
studied for years on the part of these i)eople. But no acid is used for 
that purpose, so far as I know. It was always left for gravity to per- 
form that function. 

After that oil is clarified it is taken out and put into what is called 
an air-blast churn. I have forgotten what they call those things. But 
it is a conical- shaped arrangement, holding probably 200 or 300 gallons 
of that oil, and with an air blast or an air pipe coming from the bottom. 
They take, say, 100 gallons of milk which has been ripened, and then 
they put in an emulsion of 500 gallons of butter oil. Then the air is 
turned on at a pressure of 108 to 110 degrees, so as not to cool the 
liquid oil. That makes the most nearly perfect emulsion. They have 
never been able to find so perfect an emulsion as the air blast. That 
mixes the butter oil and emulsion together and puts back into the but- 
ter the casein and moisture taken out by the precipitation as it was 
before melting. 

After it is blown five or ten minutes with that air, so that the milk 
and oil are thoroughly mixed, it is dropped suddenly into ice water in 
tanks. The object of that ice is to bring back the grain into the but- 
ter, because the minute it was melted it lost its grain and looked like 
lard. In that condition it could never go on the market at all, any 
more than oleomargarine would. So the grain is put back. When it 
is dropped into the water it congeals so quickly that the particles of 
milk and oil practically stick together. If any of you have been in a 
shot tower and seen how they drop lead from the top of the tower into 
the bottom of the tank, that is the same process that is used here. The 
globules of milk congeal. Then they skim it oft", take out, salt, and 
work it. It does not need to be churned. It has been churned in that 
conical-shaped concern. 

After that it is salted and worked, and put up just as ordinary but- 
ter is. 

1 would say, in this connection, that the butter that is used in mak- 
ing that process butter is of various grades. They have inspectors, 
who take out the different grades of butter and classify it, and they 
make different grades of process butter from the different grades of 
dairy butter. With the finest grades of process butter they take the 
finest country butter, and they classify it into grades — first, second, 
and third grades. These butters that come in are of all shapes and 
colors But they are all butters that are largely' made in the summer 
time, so that they are largely of a natural color, and very little color is 
required to bring them up to the natural color, because the butter from 



536 OLEOMARGARINE. 

whicli it is made is of the natural color, or it has been artificially colored 
by the producer. 

So that you see an anticolor law can not be made to apply to an 
article, which already has a natural color, that is put on the market. 
This process butter largely goes on the market in the winter. The 
stock is very largely bought up in the summer, frozen, and stored away. 
At the same time there is a good deal of winter butter. In the winter 
there are a good many people who ship their butter by rail, and there 
is a good deal of butter that is not shipped in the summer because the 
higher prices of butter in the winter makes it desirable for people who 
do not make it in the summer to make it in the winter in certain sections 
of the country, 

I am not here to tell you that no undesirable butter goes into process 
butter, because I know there is. I know there is some rank butter j)ut 
into it. But the grades are classified as I have stated. 

Senator Dolliver. What about its keeping? 

Mr. Knight. I do not think there is a great deal of difference 
between the process and the other butters in their keeping qualities. 
I have not discovered that there is. There was a time, for instance, 
in the making of process butter when the oil was kept three days in 
the tank to precipitate the brine. 

Mr. Springer. Have you any means of knowing what relation the 
quantity of process butter bears to the whole quantity of butter? 

Mr. Knight. About three fourths of 1 ])er cent. The amount of 
process butter last year was between 9,000,000 and 10,000,000 pounds. 

Senator Dolliver. Bow does it sell on the market? 

Mr. Knight. The value of process butter is based entirely upon the 
value of the materials that enter into it. There is some margin, but I 
do not know how much: about 3 or 4 cents a ])Ound I should judge. 
There is a considerable loss between the stock from which process but- 
ter is made and the manufactured article for this reason, that the 
country butter usually contains a great amount of moisture and over- 
loss, as we call it, and, then, butter that goes on the market is contami- 
nated to some extent; so tliat where the original butter has 85 per cent 
of butter oil the butter by which jirocess butter is made will contain 
only about 80 ]ier cent, so that there is a loss of 5 per cent between the 
two articles in the way of shrinkage. 

Senator Dolliver. Is the final product of the highest grade sub- 
stantially equal, in market value and in the public estimation, to the 
creamery butter ? 

Mr. Knight. There is a difference in price of 2 to 4 cents a pound 
usually. 

Senator Dolliver. Are dealers deceived in it? 

Mr. Knight. I do not believe that jobbers are deceived in it at all, 
any more than they are in oleomargarine. I believe that every jobber 
knows every process butter manufactured in the United States. I 
believe that to be true. I do not believe that there is one pound of 
process butter sold as process butter to where there are three or four 
pounds sold as butter alone. There has never been a distinction made 
in the general market between butter and butter. There are creamery 
butter, dairy butter, and different butters, but the consumer does not 
usually make the distinction. He goes and asks for butter, and if 
butter is shown him he buys it largely by his own judgment and taste. 
You never can get the melted taste out of that butter. After butter is 
once melted it has that old taste, and an exi)ert can always tell it. 

Mr. Springer. I presented the other day a letter from John F. Dab- 



OLEOMARGAKINE. 587 

ney, of Danville, 111., who stated that be sold about 5,000 xiouiids of 
rancid butter on hand, the kind that is used in making ])rocess butter. 
That represents the amount in one county of Illinois. If he gathered 
up that amount in one connty the average amount gathered up in the 
whole State, of 100 counties, would probably amount to 500,000 [)ounds. 

Mr. Knight. That is no criterion at all, because be may have a big 
trade in that county, and the other counties, many of them, might 
produce a very small amount of that kind of butter. Besides, the 
whole amount of all the butter gathered up in the counties of Illinois 
does not go into process butter. They make their selections. 

Mr. Springer. Do the creameries take any of this? 

Mr. Knight. No; they do not do that at all — not one in a thousand* 

Senator Allen. Much of it is worked over by dealers. 

Mr. Knight. That may be true. 

Mr. Jelke. In the sale of this process butter is the retail dealer 
deceived or is the consumer deceived f 

Mr. Knight. That is something that I think you will have to investi- 
gate to find out. I want to say, in this connection and in connection 
with this bill, that I do believe consumers are sometimes deceived, 
and I will say frequently — led to believe that this process butter is 
creamery butter. That is one of the things that, when the Grout bill 
is passed and oleomargarine is a distinct product from butter, will tend 
to take away our business. If they can go out and convince the public 
that by getting this oleomargarine they have an absolutely pure prod- 
uct and that there is no danger of getting any rancid butter or any- 
thing that is worked over, they have got to convince the i)ublic and 
prove to the public that when they are buying pure butter they are 
getting something which is wholesome. 

Senator Dolliyer. You agree with Secretary Wilson when he 
says 

Mr. Knight, I agree with the Secretary when he says that some- 
thing has got to be done. The anticolor law does not apply to it, 
because it is already C(»lored by nature. How are you going to do it? 
We can not make a color distinction. I will say that the dairy inter- 
ests are in favor of any kind of an internal revenue law that will reach 
it. We would be in favor of an anticolor law if the article were not 
already colored. These gentlemen here are howling about a 10 ( ent 
, tax. They know that if there was a 10 cent tax put on colored butter 
it would exclude all process butter. 

Mr. Miller. We do not believe In unjust taxation of any kind. 

Mr. Schell. Where is the most of this i)roeess butter made? 

Mr. Knight. There are factories in Philadelphia and in different 
parts of Pennsylvania; there are one or two in Baltimore, five or six 
in Chicago, two or three or four in Ohio, a few in Michigan, one or two 
in Iowa, one in Minnesota, some in Nebraska, and some in Kansas. 

Mr. Miller. Is it not a fact that most of it is made in Elgin, 111.? 

Mr. Knight. No; there is only one factory there. It has developed 
there a great deal in the last few years because the whole process has 
developed in that time. 

Mr. Miller. I know that Weaver & Barber, of Chicago, scour our 
country. 

Senator Dollia^er. I suj^pose that the general production of cream- 
ery butter has left the average ])Oor farmer without any market. 
. Mr. Knight. Yes; that is true. That is a fact. I do not put this out 
as an argument in favor of butter. It is a fact that the manufacture of 
process butter has increased the price of the farmers' butter practically 



538 OLEOMARGAKINE. 

almost 100 per cent. It is worth from 5 to 10 cents a pound more than 
it was. It is a fact also that the people used to eat this butter with the 
filth in it, whereas now the filth is taken out of it, if it ever was in it; 
but whatever filth was in it used to be consumed. 

Mr. Jelke. It is made on the farm. 

Mr. Knight. I want to point to another conclusion. I think you will 
all agree that butter made under any kind of favorable circumstances, 
where the cows have eaten the natural grass or prepared food, is better 
than butter that is left lying around and has become rancid and then 
sent to Chicago to be made into oleomargarine in the winter. Every 
year the retail dealer gets out his oleomargarine license, and his cus- 
tomers, who have been buying butter all the time, suddenly change 
their minds, and he consequently does not buy any n)ore butter at all. 
Our butter piles in our cellars, stands there three or four weeks, depre- 
ciating from 3 to 5 cents on every pound; there is no sale for it. There 
is where there is a tremendous loss to the dairymen. 

Senator Dolliver. That is a very interesting statement. 

IMr. Knight. I think I will have to tell you how I happened to go 
into the factories. Mr. Pierson, of the Agricultural Department, came 
out West and asked the manufacturers of process butter to let him 
inspect their plants. The process-butter makers did not want him to 
inspect their plants, for the reason that he was publishing bulletins of 
everything he had got hold of, and they did not want their secret in 
regard to their machinery to get out. But I was told that I might go 
through the factories at any time I wanted to, and that I might take all 
the time I wanted to. So I have been through the factories whenever I 
have wanted to. I have been through one of them a dozen times. I have 
got every process; I know every temperature that oil is subjected to; I 
know the details of every piece of machinery; I know every churn; I 
have seen the butter when it was put in there; I know everything 
from A to Z. I know it suificiently so that I was offered $5,000 for my 
information by a man who knew that that concern was making the 
finest kind of process butter in the country. I have been in other 
process factories besides that one. 

Mr. Springer. Have you any means to suggest by which fraud upon 
consumers can be prevented in the sale to them of process butter when 
they think they are buying creamerj^ butter? 

Mr. Knight. The great trouble so far has been that the chemists 
have been unable to discern in their analyses the difference between 
process butter and creamery butter or any other kind. Butter is but- 
ter. The same kind of casein enters into both, the same kind of fat, 
the same kind of acid, the same amount of salt. 

Senator Dolliver. Are these bacteria present? 

Mr. Knight. Those worms occur in everything. Bacteria is life. 
Everything contains bacteria. Without bacteria there would be no 
flavor in anything. This culture you talk about, the more you have the 
better it is. Bacteria are used in the process of making process butter 
to give it an absolutely j)ure flavor, notwithstanding it is oftentimes an 
artificial flavor. It is introduced there to give a uniformed flavor; and 
at the same time it is a mild flavor. It is nothing more nor less than 
that. 

Mr. Tompkins. If the people knew that, they would have as much 
prejudice against it as they would have against oleomargarine. 

Mr. Knight. I do not think so, because all fermentation is a growth, 
of bacteria. Let me explain to you about this, gentlemen. There are 
bacteria and bacteria, all kinds of bacteria. Bacteria are in the air. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 539 

Bacteria are in milk. They enter the milk from tlie air as soon as it 
comes from the cow, and start a growth which predominates until the 
milk comes up to that state of ripeness when it is tit to churn. The 
idea of pure culture is that we get normal bacteria, and we try to keep 
all others out of that milk. For instance, milk may be Pasteurized, or 
taken to the creamery and skimmed before there is any bacteriological 
development in there. Then the bacteria have such strength that tliey 
multiply and occupy the whole iield and crowd out all others, and in 
that way we get a desirable davor that is pleasant and uniform. The 
best plan of producing flavor is to take the milk of a new cow. Pasteur- 
ize it, sterilize it, and use that as a basis for the growth of this culture; 
put it in there because there are no other bacteria then in there; and 
then you cultivate your germ; then churn it into the newly skimmed 
cream, and that goes through it and starts the bacterial growth which 
makes it of uniform flavor. That process is used for the purpose of 
obtaining a uniform flavor, as uniformity is desirable in all other things. 

Senator Hansbrougit. How are bacteria cultivated in Limburger 
cheese! 

Mr. Knight. It is a bacterial growth. 

Senator Hansbrough. Of course, I understand that, but I ask the 
question seriously. 

Senator Dolliver. It certainly is not microscopic. 

]\Ir. Tompkins. It is parallel with oleomargarine. Everybody admits 
that it is wholesome. I quite agree that it is not unwholesome. But I 
think that if the public had to be informed that it is necessary for but- 
ter to be impregnated with bacteria the public would be prejudiced 
against that butter. We need a ])rocess of bacterial puriflcation. 
Colonel Waring, of Xew York, has invented such a process. I have 
seen him take the worst sort of sewage and put it through his purify- 
ing process, and as the water came out at the other end the residual 
product was perfectly pure, and 1 have seen him drink it without preju- 
dice, but I think the i)ublic would object to that. At the same time 
that water, after its puriflcation by his process, is better water than the 
cities furnish, provided the process be carried far enough. I acknowl- 
edge it is offensive to see a man drink it, much less drink it yourself. 
Prejudices apply to all these processes, even if the result obtained is 
perfect. It is nothing but prejudice. But in another case where that 
sentiment and prejudice exist, if you make a requirement against one 
you ought to make it against the other. 

Mr. Knight. Let me tell you something about these bacteria, which 
you say are an artificial culture. It is not necessary to use them. 
Exactly the same results can be obtained from skimmed milk. There 
is not one creamery in a hundred that uses them. 

Mr. Tompkins. That might do in making butter, but they do use it, 
and there is a prejudice against it. 

Mr. Knight. I want to take issue on that, because I am in the butter 
trade and am the publisher of a paper devoted to the business. I do 
not believe there is any such prejudice. The amount of the artificial 
culture is merely a drop in a tincupful. 

Mr. Tompkins. Uow many bacteria are there in a drop? 

Mr. Knight. There might be 4:,()()(),000. There is nothing there but 
the milk. That drop starts the whole thing and the rest is develop- 
ment. 

The committee adjourned until Saturday, January 12, lOOl, at 10.30 
a. m. 



540 oleomargarine. 

Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, 

United States Senate, 
WoshiH(/ton, D. C, Jamiary 12, 1901. 
The committee met at 10.30 a. m. 

Present: Senators Proctor (chairman), Money, Dolliver, Bate, and 
Hansbroagli; also, Charles Y. Knight, secretary Xatioual Dairy Union; 
Mr. Schell, Mr. Miller, Mr. Jelke, and others. 

The Chairman. If there is anybody who desires to go on this morn- 
ing, he may proceed. 

STATEMENT OF GEORGE E. PAUL, OF PHILADELPHIA, PA. 

Mr. Paul. Gentlemen, to start with, I will have to give my experience 
as a dealer in butter, oleomargarine, etc., from the time that I started 
in business in Philadelphia. I started in the produce business in Phil- 
adelphia in 1871, At that time, or prior to that, I was a merchant in 
Ohio, shipping large quantities of butter to Philadelphia. That quality 
of butter was eagerly sought after in the Philadelphia market at that 
time. The Philadelphia market was a peculiar market, accepting rolls 
and prints as the principal butter. The different colored butter that 
was coming onto the market at that time was from fresh- milked cows, 
and also from green-fed cattle. Other cattle that were not fed so well 
l)roduced white butter. 

Senator Money. You had several grades of color? 

Mr. Paul. Yes, sir. 

Senator Money. In natural butter'? 

Mr. Paul. Natural butter; yes, sir. 

Senator Money. Which shade was the dominant color? 

Mr. Paul. White. 

Senator Money. White was the predominant shade? 

Mr. Paul. Yes, sir. 

Senator ^Money. White would be called tlie color of butter, then? 

Mr. Paul. Yes, sir; and that butter was eagerly sought after in that 
time of the year back in the early seventies. Of course later on we 
had a butter produced in New York State that was held from summer 
until si)riug, which was. pretty highly colored, owing to the grass-fed 
cattle. That butter is practically out of the market at the present 
time, owing to the existence of creameries. Solid packed butter, which 
is the predominant butter ot the West, was never sought after in the 
Philadelphia markets, and yet to this day prints and rolls are the prin- 
cipal butter in Philadelphia. iSTearby butter in the neighborhood of 
Philadelphia is the very line butter made in the United States. We 
do not except anything. 

Senator Money. What do you mean by prints and rolls? 

Mr. Paul. Prints are 1 pound packages which were put up by the 
farmers' wives, and they used to bring them into the market and sell 
them to the different gentlemen for their flue butter. 

Senator Money. What are the rolls? 

Mr. Paul. One pound, U-pound — any sized roll of country butter. 

Senator Money. It is the same butter? 

Mr. Paul. The same butter; yes, sir. This grade of butter con- 
tinued coming along to the market for quite a while; but on account of 
a proportion of poor butter from the West coining in there, it became 
difficult to dispose of this butter at a proflt to the ])eople wlio purchased 
it. On the top of the packages there would ])robab]y be good rolls, 
and in the bottom and in the center there would be white, cheesy, and 



OLEOMARGARINE. 541 

milky rolls which lost to the purchaser more than they made of good 
butter that was on top of the packages. 

In the spring of the year, as I have been saying, we had this New 
York State butter, that had been speculated iu and held over, and the 
holding of that butter had produced a peculiar flavor. We used to call 
it a tlshy tlavor. About the years 1877, 1878, or 1879 oleomargarine 
was introduced in the market. It was uniform in color, uniform in size 
of packages, and uniform in rolls. It was very nice, tine looking goods, 
sweet and fresh as the summer -made goods. It drove that class of 
butter out of the market; and I may say that class of butter was finally 
driven into the creameries that are in existence at the present time. 

Senator Money. I do not want to interrupt you, so as to cause you 
to lose the thread of your argument, but I want information on this 
subject. What became of that butter? You say it was driven out of 
the market. Where did it go? 

Mr. Paul. Those small dairies were driven into the creameries. 
They delivered the milk to the creameries. 

Senator Money. The material went into the creameries? 

Mr. Paul. Yes, sir; the milk went into the creameries. The intro- 
duction of oleomargarine showed these people that the people of the 
country wanted something fresh and sweet all the time; that they did 
not want summer butter palmed otF on them in winter as fresh butter. 
People had been accustomed to that old flavor or taste, but at the pres- 
ent time you can not get people to eat it. There is a sort of butyric 
acid arises in old butter, and while it is not strong in flavor, it has a 
sort of nauseating taste. After you eat it it ijroduces gas, and a sort 
of fishy, nasty taste will arise from it. That class of butter is practi- 
cally driven out of the market by the introduction of oleomargarine. 

That continued, as I said befow', and we were large shippers of this 
Ohio butter, shipping probably 50,000 pounds of Ohio rolled butter 
into the market. I was sent to Ohio as a representative of our firm to 
sell our goods. Of course it was my disposition to do all I possibly 
could to place our butter on the market and receive the very highest 
price for it. I continued along in that line of business until 1881, prac- 
tically breaking up the men that I sold butter to, aud breaking up the 
people that I sokl butter for, for the simple reason that these people 
in the country, when they would bring their butter to the markets, 
would expect to sell it. 

The woman who used to bring the poorest butter to the market was 
the best customer at our store. We could not discriminate and say 
to Mrs. Jones, "Your butter is not so good as Mrs. Smith's, and we 
will have to discriminate and give you 5 cents a pound less for your 
butter than what Mrs. Smith receives." Therefore our butter was sent 
to the market in all these conceivable shapes and styles, the good, bad, 
and indifferent together. I continued in this kind of business until 
1881. In 1881 I went to the National Butter and Cheese Makers' Asso- 
ciation, at Milwaukee, and was placed on the committee there with a 
gentleman from Wisconsin, and another one from Boston, I think, to 
examine the diflerent qualities of butter, etc. I came back to Chicago 
aud stopped one day in an establishment manufacturing oleomargarine. 
I asked for a consignment of oleomargarine. At that time they were 
sending goods in consignments. The gentleman asked me whether we 
were selling oleomargarine. I told him no, and I explained my situa- 
tion exactly. I told him the quality of our butter was such that we 
were compelled to get something that would give satisfaction to the 
trade, give satisfaction to the poor people, and aftbrd a profit to the 



542 • OLEOMARGARINE. 

•people who were selliug these goods. He said he would be very glad 
to ship me some of the goods. lSin(3e then I have been a seller of oleo- 
margarine in the city ot Philadelphia — since 1881 continuously, except 
probably a few months when the law was so severe that I had to quit. 

Senator Money. What law? 

Mr. Paul Our State law. The State law, though, from 1881 to 1885 
was4)f no jiccount at all. The gentlemen who were here the other day 
representing the butter interests were the largest handlers of oleomar- 
garine nt that time. From 1881, probably, to 1885 the competition in 
oleomargarine became so great and the profit became so small that 
these peojjle who are fighting oleomargarine to-day were the cause of 
having the national law made at that time. It was not made for the 
regulation of oleomargarine, but it was made to drive it out entirely. 
They put a 2-cent tax on the product and a license of $G00 for the 
manufacturing of the goods, $i80for the wholesaler and $48 for the 
retailer; and no man wanted to go into the business. Very few of the 
commission men of our State pay that much rent for their buildings, 
for their storerooms. Ihey can not afford to do so, on account of their 
expenses and the smallness of their profits, etc. The competition of 
oleomargarine had become so great that there was very little profit in 
it. They thought they would drive it out by putting on this excessive 
tax, as they called it at that time. A prohibitory law was passed in 
Pennsylvania, but they believed that law was unconstitutional, and. 
some of them continued along until 1886. When the 1886 United 
States internal-revenue law went into effect we immediately took out 
a license there and commenced selling oleomargarine as the Chicago 
Butterine Company of Philadelphia, and we have continued from that 
time up to the present time. We have sold it for what it was. The 
people have bought it for what it was. We had been harassed on the 
street by these men continually. 

Senator Money. In what way? 

Mr. Paul. By bringing suits against us under the State law. 

Mr. KniGtHT. Mr. Paul, will you pardon an interruption? 

Mr. Paul. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Knight. Were you not violating the State law? 

Mr. Paul. Yes, sir; the prohibitory law; but we believed it uncon- 
stitutional. 

Mr. Knight. Had not the courts pronounced it constitutional? 

Mr. Paul. No, sir; they had not. 

Mr. Knight. What law was that? 

Mr. Paul. The State law of Pennsylvania. 

Mr. Knight. Passed at what tinae? 

Mr. Paul. Passed in 1885 or 1886, I don't know which. 

Mr. Knight. The courts have since passed on it and pronounced it 
constitutional, have they not? 

Mr. Paul. No, sir. 

Mr. Knight. Did not the Pennsylvania court pass on it? 

Mr. Paul. IS^o, sir. 

Senator Money. How many States have legislated on this subject? 
Can you tell me that, Mr. Knight ? 

Mr. Knight. Thirty-two States have the anticolor law. I was under 
the impression that the supreme court of Pennsylvania had passed on 
the law JMr. Paul refers to. 

Mr. Paul. I will come to that. In 1889 they forced this to an 
issue, under this State law. The first package we sold in 1889 was 
sold to a detective. I recollect when the gentleman came into our 



OLEOMAKGARINE. 543 

store. lie let on that he was a huckster. He came in tapping his leg, 
etc., and asked me if we were selling oleomargarine. I said we were. 
I turned him over to my brother, and my brother said: "Do you want 
to buy some goods?" He said he did. He bought one ])ackagc, and 
immediately suit was brought on that first package of goods that we 
sold. The case was decided against us before the magistrate, and was 
carried up to the common pleas court, before Judge Keed, of Philadel- 
phia. The decision was handed down in December, 181)0, in our favor, 
showing that the interstate commerce law was constitutiona], aud- 
allowing the original package to be brought into the State of Pennsyl- 
vania and to be sold for what it was, in the shape and size that was 
regulated by the internal-revenue law. This resulted in a good trade 
for us. Immediately two of the firms who were before you last week 
took out their special license and commenced selling the goods. They 
were quite prominent houses in Philadelphia. Tliey commenced sell- 
ing goods quite freely until in the month of A])ril, 18t)0, this organiza- 
tion of people who had been fighting us considered that the law was 
unconstitutional, and they immediately went to Chicago — two of the 
prominent firms who were here, and two of the prominent firms we were 
fighting, and they were also ofiBcers of the Batter Protective Associa- 
tion, I believe it is called. They went to Chicago and called together 
the manufacturers of Chicago and asked them if they would allow them 
to sell their product in Philadelphia. They showed to them where 
they would be able to dispose of a great many goods. They got the 
right to sell the goods as distributing agent. 

One of these other jiarties who had taken out a special license, when 
he found he had to buy his goods wholesale through the agents in Phil- 
adelphia, immediately went to work to enforce the State prohibitory 
law. During the months of April and May I suppose there were fifty or 
seventy-five retail licenses taken out through the influence of these 
other gentlemen who had gone to Chicago. This one old gentleman 
became incensed because he had to buy his goods through the agents 
in Philadelphia, who were his enemies in business. He came to me in 
my office, and he said to me, " Mr. Paul, must I buy my goods from 
you people and from these other people who have been appointed here 
as distributing agents in Philadelphia!" I said, "The understanding 
is we are to be the wholesale agents for These goods here in this mar- 
ket at the present time until the market gets settled, and we are to give 
up all our jobbing interests. We must sell our goods to the wholesale 
trade." He said, " I would willingly buy my goods from you, but if I 
have got to buy my goods from these other people who have been my 
friends, I will go in and fight them to the teeth. If you were standing 
in the middle of the street, and those people were on the other side of 
the street," said he, "if I have got to knock you down I am going to 
knock you down. I am going to bring suit right away against you, and 
I am going to carry it up to the higher courts." Immediately suit was 
brought against us, with the same result, before Judge Hare, who is con- 
sidered one of the best constitutional judges we had in Philadelphia. 

Mr. Knight. What year was that"? 

Mr. Paul. I think it was in 189L. That case was carried into the 
State supreme court: but other suits had been brought against other 
persons who came in after that — for instance, Mr, Schollenbarger. Then 
our attorneys and the Butter Protective Association and the State's 
attorneys agreed on a case stated, taking up first the Schollenbarger 
case, although the Paul case, or the Chicago Butterine Company case, 
was also taken up at the same time. Mr. Schollenbarger's name being 



544 OLEOMARGARINE. 

first on the list, he got the preference, and the case is known as the 
Scholleubarger case. The supreme court of the State of Pennsylvania 
decided adversely to us. 

Mr. Knight, it decided the State law to be constitutional 

Mr. Paul. It decided the State law was constitutional. We carried 
that case to the Supreme Court of the United States. In the mean- 
time they persecuted our firm to the extent of 41 cases. These same 
men who were down here talking against oleomargarine had been sell- 
ers of oleomargarine up to that time; but because they could not just 
buy it as they expected to buy it they commenced to persecute us. 

Senator MoiNEY. You mean prosecute, do you not? 

Mr. Paul. Yes; but it was persecution. 

Mr. Knight. That was after the supreme court of your State had 
declared the law constitutional? 

Mr. Paul. It was after the supreme court had decided that the law 
was constitutional, and after that time until we carried that case to the 
Supreme Court of the United States we located on the other side of 
the river, in Camden. We remained in Camden nearly two years, until 
our case was decided in our favor in the Supreme Court of the United 
States. Then weimmediatelybroughtourgoodsbackand wecommenced 
to sell oleomargarine for what it was. Then they went before the legis- 
lature at Harrisburg and had a law passed taxing the manufacturers of 
oleomargarine $1,000 as a State license, taxing the wholesaler $500 in 
addition to the United States tax, the retailer $100, the restaurant 
keeper and hotel keeper $50, and the poor butterine-house keeper, $10; 
but they did not stop at that. They went to work and said, "You dare 
not sell it colored in imitation of butter." We believed that law to be 
just as unconstitutional as the former law, and therefore we were sell- 
ing the goods to the trade. 

Mr. Knight. Mr. Paul, you maintain, do you, that you do not have to 
comply with a law until it has been passed on by the Supreme Court of 
the United States! 

Mr. Paul. Well, we consider that we have the right to sell these 
goods. 

Senator Money. I do not think that question is admissible here. It 
does not have any efl'ect or bearing on this question before us. 

Mr. Knight. It only brings out the attitude of dealers in oleomar- 
garine in connection with the laws. Senator. The facts are that any 
law that we have passed attempting to regulate the traffic is carried to 
the Supreme Court, and it is absolutely ignored and defied until we get 
it through the Supreme Court of the United States, as a rule, and they 
claim to be persecuted if they are ])rosecuted under those laws. 

Senator Money. I understand that, but still it is a matter which is 
perfectly immaterial to the discussion here. 

Mr. Jelke. Do you call a law which imposes upon a retail dealer in 
a corner grocery a special tax of $100 a law to regulate the sale of 
oleomargarine or to prohibit it? 

Mr. Knight. That would be for the courts to pass on, Mr. Jelke. 

Senator Money. We will have no time to hear these colloquies. You 
will have to talk about them on the outside. We want to hear the wit- 
ness here, with only such interruptions as are pertinent to this case. 

Mr. Knight. I thought it was pertinent to bring out that i^oint, 
because that has been our trouble, right in that very connection. 

Senator Money. That does not make a bit of difference. 

Mr. Paul. The animus which was exhibited in this whole business 
was on the part of people who had been violators of the law in the 
extreme. This one i^erson I had in my mind was going about the streets 



OLEOMARGARINE. 545 

of Phihidelpbia making bets of $100 that he would send me to prison, 
and giving $o for the bets. He was betting people to a standstill. He 
could get very few bets, because they all thought I was violating this 
law and that I would finally be sent to prison. Of course he brought 
as many suits as he possibly could. I think there were 41 cases against 
us standing on the <locket when the case was called in the United States 
Supreme Court as to our right to sell goods in the original package. 

1 went to Harrisburg after this regulative law and tlie uncolored law 
were passed. I went before the dairy commissioner and asked him — I 
said: "In regard to that part of the law which refers to coloring oleo- 
margarine like butter, I want to say that butter has no color." I said: 
"You have been taught to color butter by the oleo people. We believe 
that part of the law unconstitutional. Do you intend to enforce that, if 
men sell oleo for oleof " He said: " We can best find that out by going 
across to the attorney-general." I said: " I want to sell oleomargarine, 
but I do not want to be harassed any more like 1 have been for the 
past ten years in Philadelphia." 

I went with him over to the attorney-general and we had a talk with 
the attorney general. He said: "Mr. Paul, it is a matter of opinion 
whether that law is constitutional or not, but we will try a case in Har- 
risburg, one in Pittsburg, and one in Philadelphia. If the cases are 
decided in our favor they will be carried to the higher courts, and if 
they are decided adversely to you you will have to quit selling oleo- 
margarine." We went to work and took out our license. We went to our 
trade and told them jnst exactly the situation of affairs. They imme- 
diately took out their retail tax in the State, and also the United States 
license, and commenced selling the goods. I am told that they had an 
income of at least $60,000 last year in the State of Pennsylvania for 
State licenses, even with that embargo of color on it. 

Now, I want to say this, gentlemen. If you drive oleomargarine out 
by this excessive tax of 10 cents a pound on colored goods, you will 
drive the manufacturing of butter back into the same old rut in which 
it was in 1870 and 1871 aiul 1872, and on up to 1881. You will drive 
the creamery system out of existence. They have been taught how to 
make tine butter by the introduction of oleomargarine. The price of 
butter is such at the present time that it pays the farmer very well for 
what he is getting for his milk and cream. If this Grout bill becomes 
a law the farmers of the country will commence making butter in a 
slipshod way. 

Senator Money. I do not understand exactly how, if oleomargarine 
were driven out of business, the creamery business would be suppressed 
as the best way to make butter and the farmers get a good return. 

Mr. Paul. For the simple reason that on account of competition 
among the trade, among the business people, among the manufacturers 
of process butter, who are active and energetic, more so than farmers, 
they will be bidding higher prices for this renovated butter, much 
higher than the prices for milk and cream that can be made into cream- 
ery butter during the summer months. This butter will be held from 
the summer until the fall and winter in cold-storage places and then 
remilked, rechurned, and brought onto the market again. The first 
creameries that were started got exorbitant prices for their butter in 
the early seventies, but they did not get sufficient to carry on the busi- 
ness. I believe the first prize awarded at the Centennial at Philadel- 
phia was to Mr. Stewart, of Iowa, and he finally failed in business 
because he could not get sufficient goods at the time for the manufac- 
ture of creamery butter. 

Senator Money. He could not get milk and cream enough? 

S. Rep. 2043 35 



546 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. Paul. He could not get milk and cream enougli to make butter 
enough to continue Lis business. 

Senator Money. The price has gone up, has it? 

Mr. Paul. No; the price lias come down, but at the same time every- 
thing else lias come down in proportion, so that they are getting a very 
good price for their butter. 

Senator ]\Ionby. Do you sell butter now*? 

Mr. Paul. Yes, sir; as a commission merchant. I am selling butter, 
eggs, and cheese. 

Senator Money. You sell both butter and oleomargarine'? 

Mr. Paul. Yes, sir. 

If oleomargarine is legislated out of existence by an ex(!essive tax 
you will destroy the creamery system of the United States, It will be 
a step backward, because the renovated butter system will become the 
butter of the day. My reasons for saying so are that during the 
summer months, or when butter is cheap, butter will then be made, 
as I said before, in any slipshod way and held for better prices tinough 
the winter season, and renovated, and forced on the public as butter. 
It will so cripple the creameries now in existence that they will be 
forced to retire or adopt that plan of making their butter. 1 believe 
that the creameries will finally have to adopt the system of making 
butter as the process-butter people are doing at the present time if this 
law is passed, because there will be no money in creamery butter. 

Oleomargarine does not aftect fine butter. It, however, drives poor 
butter out of existence, or makes poor butter makers, owing to the low 
price they receive, sell their milk and cream to the creamery men. The 
creamery men had better stop fighting oleo, because it is their best 
friend. What we want is fancy butter for those who can afford to pay 
for it, and we want oleomargarine as the butter for the poor man. A 
creamery man who can not make better butter than oleomargarine had 
better retire. 

Senator Money. The testimony here by gentlemen on your side has 
been that you can not tell the difference; and Senator Allen said he 
had been eating oleomargarine here all winter and did not know it. 

Mr. Paul. That probably is taste with some people, but a fine but- 
ter is the finest thing that goes into a man's stomach. There is so 
much of it, however, that is not fine that these people want to foist 
onto the public as fine butter. 

Senator Allen. How can a man tell whether he is eating poor but- 
ter or oleomargarine? 

Mr. Paul. On the same principle — how can a man tell that an egg 
is counterfeit? 

Senator Money. I suppose that I have eaten pounds of oleomarga- 
rine, but I never knew it. I don't know that I ever ate a mouthful of 
it, but they tell me since I have been here I am eating it all the time, 
although 1 am boarding at the Senate restaurant, the best restaurant 
in town. 

Mr. Paul. I would not eat it on my table ; I will tell you that. 

Senator Money. Could you tell whether it was butter or not? 

Mr. Paul. Yes, sir; I can tell. In 1893 I took a trip West with my 
little family, and after we left Denver the butter that was on the table 
was not fit to eat. Where we got oleomargarine it was all right. I 
stopped in a certain hotel in one of the Western cities, and when we sat 
down at the table 1 said to my daughter, "Helen, this is oleo." She 
said: "Well, it is a plagued sight better than the butter we had down 
at Pueblo." So that is the diff'erence. People will not consume so 
much poor butter. For instance, in my little family at home, consist- 



oleomargakinp:. . 547 

u\g of my wife aiul daugbter and one servant and myself, we consume 
on our table 3 pounds of butter per week, the very finest that I can 
get, because I like fine butter, and because I believe 1 can afford to pay 
for it; but if 1 could not 1 would buy fine oleomargarine. 

If we have oleomargarine with the regulative law now enforced by 
the United States, and the States repeal their useless prohibitory and 
nonsensical color laws, you will find competition will force dealers to 
sell oleomargarine for what it is. 1 clnim that competition will do all 
this if you will allow the people to sell the goods. When a retailer 
must pay $148 a year to sell oleomargarine, as he must in Philadelphia, 
and a wholesaler must pay 1980 a year, there are always chances for 
a man to commit fraud under those circumstances. If a 10 cent tax is 
put on there is much more chance for fraud. 

Senator Money. Of course we can not regulate the State legislation. 
That is a subject we can not deal with. 

Mr. Paul. I understand that. 

It is imi)ossible to sell uncolored oleomargarine or uncolored butter 
for the table or for family use at the present time. We have a regula- 
tive uncolored law in the State of Pennsylvania, with an excessive 
State tax, which, so far as selling uncolored oleo is concerned, is pro- 
hibitory. For ourselves I would say that the proportion of uncolored 
oleo that we sell at the present time is about 1 pound to 1,000 pounds of 
colored oleomargarine. 

Senator Money. How would it be as to the uncolored butter and 
colored butter? 

Mr. Paul. We can not sell uncolored butter for any other purpose 
than for baking purposes. 

Senator Money. I do not care what it is for. What would be the 
proportion of uncolored ahd colored butter that you would selH You 
have given us the proportion of colored and uncolored oleomargarine. 
W^hat would be the proportion of colored and uncolored butter? 

Mr. Paul. There is just about that proportion of uncolored butter 
coming into the market — about 1 pound in 1,000 i)ounds. 

Senator Money. It is all sold, is it? 

Mr. Paul. Yes, sir. You see, it is all colored in the factories. 

Senator Money. I mean all the uncolored butter is sold? 

Mr. Paul. The uncolored butter is bought up by the manufacturers 
of process butter. They are the best buyers of uncolored butter at the 
jiresent time. They are the best buyers we have. 

Senator Money. I meant to the consumer. 

Mr. Paul. The consumer will not buy uncolored butter any more. 
A few cracker bakers may buy it. As I stated yesterday, what consti- 
tutes flrst-class butter on the Philadelphia market, according to the 
Philadelphia Produce Exchange, is this: Forty- five points in flavor, 25 
in body, 15 in color, 10 in salt, and 5 in general appearance, making 100 
points. Now, by referring to this memorandum of the annual report of 
the Philadelphia Produce Exchange of January, 1900, extras in the 
way of creamery butter show an average of 95 points, or higher. There 
is required 15 per cent to make that butter extra by being colored. If 
15 per cent was taken out of that butter it could not be sold at 

Senator Money. You mean below the present prices? 

Mr. Paul. Yes. 

Senator Money. I confess I do not understand your grading there. 

Mr. Paul. These are official reports. 

Senator Money. I know, but I do not understand what you mean by 
butter having so many points. 



548 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. Paul. It is in relation to making- sales of butter on the Phila- 
delphia Produce Exchange. The butter is examined by a gentleman 
who has been appointed for that purpose — an inspector. 

Senator Money. You mean that 100 is the best quality'? 

Mr. Paul. Yes, sir. 

Senator Money. One hundred is taken as a basis, and the flavor 
would count as 45 points? 

Mr Paul. Yes, sir; in quality. Then it must have 25 per cent in 
body, in texture. That refers to its being firm, elastic, etc. Then it 
must have 3 5 points in color. If you had mixed goods — that is, if you 
had a lot of butter that was mixed in color — it would be graded down. 

I have not the prices for last year. They have not been com])iled 
yet; but this is from the Philadelphia Produce Exchange report for 
January, 1900, giving the highest and lowest price of tine butter during 
the different months of the year. Those prices are as follows : In Janu- 
ary, 1899, the highest ]»ri('e was 22 cents and the lowest price 19 cents 
for Pennsylvania goods. The same prices prevailed on Western goods. 
In February the prices were 20 cents and It) cents; in March, 22A cents 
and 20 cents; in April, 22} cents and 17i cents; in May, 19^ cents and 
17^ cents; in June, 19 cents and IS cents; in 'July, 19 cents and 18^ 
cents; in August, 21 cents and I8i cents; in September, 23 cents and 21 
cents; in October, 24 cents and 23 cents; in November, 27 cents and 
24A cents; in December, 28i cents and 27 cents. 

These are the official prices of butter on the Philadelphia Produce 
Exchange during the year ls99. The prices for Western butter were 
the same — an average of about 23 cents i)er pound for the highest and 
20;^ cents for the lowest, making an average of almost 22i cents per 
pound during the entire year. 

Senator Money, Have you the oleomargarine list there? 

Mr. Paul. Xo, sir; I liave not. 

Mr. Knioht. Mr. Paul, is there any published market price on oleo- 
margarine? In any market reports that you can find, is there any 
regular quoted price for oleomargarine? 

Mr. Paul. I will answer that question by saying that the exchanges 
are dominated by butter people, and they will not allow the price of 
oleomargarine to be posted up. 

Mr. Knight. But I mean in the newspapers. 

Mr. Paul. Of course they do not get it from anybody. They do not 
inquire for it, and they do not want it. 

Senator Money. It is like certain stocks that are not listed. It is 
sold on the curb. 

Mr. Paul. This goes to show that the amount of oleomargarine being 
sold in Philadelphia causes a good price to be received for butter in all 
seasons of the vear. The State of Pennsylvania manufactures about 
90,000,000 pounds of butter a year. The State consumes about 200,000,000 
pounds a year. According to the statistics in the Revenue Department 
there are between 11,000,000 and 12,000,000 poundsof oleomargarine sold 
in the State of Pennsylvania in a year. Therefore there are between 
90,000,000 and 100,000,000 pounds of foreign butter that comes into the 
State of Pennsylvania to supply the demands of that State alone. 

Senator Bate. How do you get at that tact? 

Mr. Paul. From the State board of agriculture at Harrisburg. 

Senator Bate. It is estimated, I suppose? 

Mr. Paul. I suppose it is estimated; yes, sir. 

Senator Money. They get the returns on it? 

Mr. Paul. They get the returns from the Internal Eevenue Depart- 
ment on oleomargarine. 



OLEOMAKGARINE. 549 

Senator Money. Have you any figures about New York? That is a 
great butter State. 

Mr. Paul. 1 have not. We think we have got a very good State for 
making butter. We claim that we make the best butter in the world 
right around PbiladeJphia. They are getting $1 a pound around Phila- 
delphia, the year round, for their butter, and from $1 down to 75 and 
55 and 35 cents. 

Senator Money. It is the same thing in New York and, I believe, in 
Vermont and Massachusetts. 

Mr. Knight. I think the 90,000,000 pounds is based on the census 
of 1890. 

Mr. Paul I have never figured that out. That is from the depart- 
ment of agriculture at Harrisburg. 

Mr. Knight. We have nothing from this census yet. 

Mr. Miller. I have the agricultural statement here. It does not 
include the last ten years, but I would like to read the figures show- 
ing the increase in the amount of butter produced. The total amount 
of butter made in the United States in 1850 was 313,345,000 pounds; 
in 1800, 419,081,000 pounds; in 1870, 514,092,0(10 pounds; in 1880, 
806,77-1,000 pounds; in 1890, 1,205,508,000 pounds; and from an esti- 
mate made by tlie Secretary of Agriculture the other day the produc- 
tion for 1900 will be 1,500,000 i)ounds, showing a steady increase since 
1850. 

Mr. Paul. It is impossible to furnish cheap butter to supply the 
working classes of Philadelphia, or any other city, unless they use oleo- 
margarine. The working people of the agricultural district of Penn- 
sylvania — in the part of the country where I was brought up, near 
Carlisle, Cumberland County — on an average do not make $100 a year. 

Senator Money. What do you mean by working people — the farm 
laborers "? 

Mr. Paul. Yes. sir; the farm laborers. Machinery has driven the 
laborer out of existence almost. 

Senator Money. Somebody has to work the macliines, 

Mr. Paul. Yes; but you do not require as many of them as were 
required to do the manual labor. For instance, you used to go into a 
prosperous little village and you would find a shoemaker and two or 
three blacksmiths and a carpenter. You would find a miller and a 
boot and shoe maker and a tailor. Those men have gone out of exist- 
ence practically. You will find cobblers there. These people are com- 
pelled to buy butter at these exorbitant prices, and they can hardly 
afford to do it. 

Senator Hansbrough. Is the proportion of idle men in that commu- 
nity any greater now than it was ten or twenty or twenty-five years 
ago? 

Mr. Paul. Yes, sir. 

Senator Hansbrough. There are more idle men? 

Mr. Paul. Yes, sir; more idle men. 

Senator Hansbrough. Is there not a greater demand for labor now 
than there was then? 

Mr. Paul. No, sir; there is very little. A great many of the men 
of that country are going into the cities. 

Mr. Schell. I do not think Mr. Caul just understood the question. 
I think he wishes in his reply to state, if I may interrupt him 

Mr. Paul. Certainly. 

Mr. Schell. That there is not the demand for labor in these locali- 
ties that there was years ago, and that there consequently would be 



550 OLEOMARGARINE. 

more idle men; that they have been shifted to other centers where they 
found employment. Is that correct? 

Mr. Paul. Yes, sir. 

Senator Bate. As a matter of fact, machinery has done away witb 
manual labor to a certain extent. 

Senator Hansbrough. Still the proi)ortion that is employed to-day 
is greater than it was in years past? There are more hands at work 
throughout the country, generally speaking, than there were ten or 
twenty or twenty-tive years ago? 

Senator Money. The population has doubled in that time. 

Senator Hansbrough. I am speaking proportionately, Senator. 

Mr. Paul The proportion of poor laborers, both in the cities and in 
the country, is alarmingly great. I have made the snggestion there in 
Philadelphia that if I were to advertise for 5,000 men at $1 a day, 360 
days work in the year, the next motiiing I would have the streets in 
front of my place crowded so much tiiat nobody could get into the 
place. For instance, a few years ago J wanted to distribute a lot of 
circulars, and I i)ut an advertisement in the paper, "Wanted — Persons 
to address -0,000 envelopes," and asking them to state the price they 
would address them for. In the next morning's mail I had 286 answers, 
offering to do it at from 10 to 55 cents a thousand. That will show you 
the amount of labor that is unemjdoyed. 

Mr. Knight. The displacing of a pound of butter by a pound of 
oleomargarine drives labor from the farms to the city, does it not? 

Mr. Paul. No, sir; it does not. 

Mr. Knight. Why not? 

Mr. Paul. For the simple renson that they have to have as much 
labor on the farm as they had before to milk their cows. 

Mr. Knight. If you take the business of making butter from the 
farm and transfer it to the oleomargarine factory in the city, where is 
your laborer employed? 

Mr. Paul. You do not transfer it to the oleomargarine interests. 
You transfer that butter in the shape of milk to the creameries. 

Mr. Knight. But your oleomargarine sujiplants the creamery butter. 

Mr. Paul. No, sir; it does not supplant creamery butter. It only 
supplants iioor butter. We do not ask as much for oleomargarine as 
is paid for creamery butter. 

Senator Money. What do you get for your oleomargarine? There 
seems to be three grades of it. What do you get for it? 

Mr. Paul. We are handling the high-grade goods, and we sell the 
goods at 15 cents a pound. 

Senator Money. Is that the best you have? 

Mr. Paul. Y^es, sir. 

Senator .AIoney. What is the next best? 

Mr. Paul. There are grades of oleo that are sold as low as 10 cents 
a pound. 

Senator Money. But you only handle the flrst-class goods? 

Mr. Paul. Y'es, sir. 

Senator Hansbrough. The best grade sells for 15 cents a pound 
wholesale ? 

Mr. Paul. Y^es, sir. 

Senator Hansbrough. You sell to the retailer? 

Mr. Paul. Yes, sir. 

Senator Hansbrough. Can you give us an idea of how much they 
get at retail per i)ound? 

Mr. Paul. They are selling those goods at about 20 to 22 cents per 
pound as oleomargarine. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 551 

Senator Money. What is tbe finest grade of butter worth in your 
market? I mean the creamery butter, not that fancy stufi* that comes 
and is sokl, as you say, at $1. 

Mr. Pail. A fancy creamery butter has been selling in the neigh- 
borhood of 20 to 28 cents all winter. The last two weeks we have had 
a slump in the market and prices are down to 23 or 24 cents. 

Mr. Knight. Wliat was it a year ago? 

Mr. Paul. I think about the same price. 

Mr. Knight. Twenty- three or 24 cents! 

Mr. Paul. I think it was higher than that, 26 or 27 cents; but the 
proportion of oleomargarine sold then was larger than it is at the 
present time. 

Mr. Knight. I presume that is true. I do not know what the sta- 
tistics are. 

Mr. Pail. Yes, sir. Whenever butter is high, we are selling more 
oleo. Whenever butter is low, we are selling less oleo, so that whenever 
they have a low-priced butter they attribute it to the oleomargarine 
sold in the market, but that is not the case. Whenever there is a good 
market for butter, we have a good market for oleomargarine. 

Senator Money. What you want the committee to understand is that 
the closer oleomargarine and butter get in price the more the people 
prefer the butter? 

Mr. Paul. Certainly. 

Senator Money. But as the difference gets wider, they have to get 
the oleomargarine because they can not pay for the butter? 

Mr. Paul. Certainly; that is it exactly. 

Mr. Knight. Is it not a fact that when a man starts in to milk a cow 
and she is fresh for the year, he has got to go through and milk her 
anyhow, no matter what the i)rice is? 

Mr. Paul. Of course they milk their cows. 

Mr Knight. If he goes through one year and butter is only 14 cents 
a pound, does he not get disgusted and say the next year he will not 
milk cows ? 

Mr. Paul. They do not in our country. 

Mr. Knight. They do out in our country; and the next year, when 
he quits milking his cows and the supply of butter is short, up goes 
the price, and he can not get a fresh cow in the middle of the season to 
produce that butter with. 

Mr. Paul. Do you not consider the price quoted here as a very good 
price for creamery butter? 

Mr. Knight. What is that? 

Mr. Paul. An average of about 21 cents the year round. Do you 
not consider that a good, paying price? 

Mr. Knight. It has not been that for some time. 

Mr. Paul. This is the second year. This last year it is higher 
than that. 

Mr. Knight. We have got the statistics right here for a number of 
years. 

Mr. Paul. I will ask you whether you do not consider it a very good 
price ? 

Mr. Knight. I think 21 cents might be a very good average price, 
but it has not run that way. 

Senator Hansbrough. What is there for us this afternoon? Is 
there anybody else to appear on your side this afternoon, Mr. Schell? 

Mr. Schell. I do not know, Senator. I understood that Secretary 
Gage had been notified to appear. 



552 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

The Chairman. He has not answered, but he may come Monday. 
There are none of you to be heard, you say? 

Mr. SCHELL. There are none that 1 know of. 

The Chairman. Tlieu we will consider the hearings closed except as 
to Secretary Gage. 

Mr. Miller. There are one or two gentlemen who would like to be 
heard on Monday. 

The Chairman. Have they anything diflerent from what you have 
already said? 

Mr. Miller. I think they have; yes, sir. 

(The committee, at 12 m., adjourned until Monday. Januar3^ 14, 1901, 
at 10.30 a. m.) 



Monday, January 14, 1901. 

The committee met at 10.30 o'clock a. m. 

Present: Senators Proctor (chairman), Hansbrough, Foster, Money, 
Allen, and Dolliver. 

Also, Charles Y. Knight, secretary of the National Dairy Union; 
Hon. William M. Springer, of Springfield, 111., representing the National 
Live Stock Association; Frank W. Tillingliast, representing the Ver- 
mont Manufacturing Company, of Providence, K. I.; Charles E. Schell, 
representing the Ohio Butterine Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio; John 
F, Jelke, rei)resenting Braun & Fitts, of Chicago, 111.; W. E. Miller, 
representing Armour & Co., Kansas City, jNIo., and others. 

(In response to an inquiry by the chairman, the gentlemen present 
stated that they knew of no one who had not yet ai)peared before the 
committee who desired to be heard by it on the pending bill.) 

ADDITIONAL STATEMENT OF CHARLES Y. KNIGHT. 

Mr. Knight. I have something here in the shape of documentary 
evidence to which I would like to call the attention of tlie committee. 

The Acting Chairman (Senator x\llen). File it with the reporter. 

Mr. Knight. I can hardly file this, can I, Senator I It is very volumi- 
nous. I thought I would simply call your attention to the material 
parts of it, and let them go into the record. 

The Acting Chairman. What is it? 

Mr. Knight. There was a question between Mr. Jelke and me here 
last Thursday. I stated that his firm, Braun & Fitts, defended cer- 
tain cases which I had brought against dealers in the city of Chicago 
for selling oleomargarine as butter. He denied it. I stated that I 
knew that his man, Lowrie, was on the bonds of those ])eo]>le, and had 
continually gone on the bonds of those people, and appeared in court 
every day. He denied that, as the record will show. I further made 
the statement that I had communicated with this man Lowrie over the 
telephone regarding the matter, and that I knew he had been on their 
bonds. That was disputed. 

Now, I have here the original bonds of A. M. Wright, who was prose- 
cuted for selling oleomargarine for butter. 

The Acting Chairman. These are sureties on appearance bonds'? 

3Ir. Knight. Yes; on appeal ance bonds. 

The Acting Chairman. How many are there of them? 

Mr. Knight. There are four. I have the originals herein four cases. 

The Acting Chairman. Does Mr. Lowrie's name appear upon those 
bonds? 

Mr. Knight. Mr. Lowrie's name appears upon these bonds five or 



OLEOMARGAKINE, 553 

six times each, in continuances, having been there at each hearing. 
What is more, Mr. Lowrie's name ai)i)ears upon the bonds where that 
man was ])rosecuted for selling oleomargarine for butter. 

Senator Dolliver. You refer to this ''pu^© grass" butter man? 

Mr. Knight. Yes; and tlie evidence was that he had handled noth- 
ing but oleomargarine. When he came into court the last time, either 
Mr. Lowrie or his agent went on his bond, and I have the original bond 
right here. There it is — " William Broadwell." Tliere are the papers 
in that case. 

Mr. Jelke. Was that a prosecution for selling oleomargarine for 
butter, Mr. Knight? 

Mr. Knight. Here is what the record says: ''Broadwell. Selling 
oleomargarine as butter." Look at that. I would like to have the 
committee look at it and observe it. And that is on all these bonds 
here — "Selling oleomargarine as butter." Here is another one of A. M. 
Wright's bonds that he is on. 

Mr. Jelke. What was done with those cases? Were the parties 
convicted for selling oleomargarine as butter? 

Mr. Knight. The facts in the cases were never denied. The defend- 
ants never raised the point that they did not sell oleomargarine as 
butter, as was alleged. 

(Senator Proctor resumed the chair as chairman of the committee.) 

Senator Allen. 1 think Mr. Knight's only object in referring to this 
matter was to show that Mr. Lowrie, as a matter of fact, signed these 
bonds. 

Mr. Knight (to Mr. Jelke). You disputed the fact. 

Mr. Jelke. I would like to have Mr. Lowrie heard on that matter. 
I am not sufficiently familiar with the details to discuss it myself. I 
know that Mr. Lowrie had no instructions from our com])any to defend 
any dealer for selling oleomargarine as butter, and has never had. I 
can state that positively. 

Mr. Knight. Well, he did it, at any rate. 

Mr. Jelke. How many of those bonds are there altogether? 

Mr. Knight. I have the originals here in four cases. Mr. Lowrie 
appeared on these bonds a number of times. Not only that, but here 
is the number. Let me give you the dates, please, Senator; because I 
regard this as being somewhat important. 

Mr. Schell. Those are merely continuances. 

Mr. Knight. Y'"es; but I simply want to show the number of times 
he appeared on those bonds. 

Senator .Money. What is the use of doing that when everybody 
admits that it is true? 

Mr. Knight. Well, all right; I will let it go at that. 

Senator Money. It is admitted that it was done. Y'ou have the 
proof there. 

Mr. Knight. But Mr. Jelke denied that this was done. 

Now, in that connection I want to state that two of these are cases 
where Braun & Fitts's agent appeared on the bonds, and two are cases 
where William J. Moxley & Co.'s agent appeared oti the bonds. And 
I will say that, according to information which I think is trustworthy, 
those two concerns made during the month of December, 1891), one-third 
of all the oleomargarine manufactured in the United States. Their 
combined product was 3,r»(M),()0() pounds, whereas the combined product 
of the whole liG manufacturers of oleomargarine who were in the busi- 
ness at that time was ia,(H)(),00(). So that th^se two concerns which 
have been backing up these defenses are making pretty nearly iVS per 
cent of all the oleomargarine that is made. 



554 OLEOMARGARINE. 

SeDator Allen. I understand, Senator Proctor, that the hearings are 
substantially closed, unless the Secretary of the Treasury desires to be 
heard. 

The Chairman. Yes. 

Mr. Jelke. If Mr. Knight is through, 1 would like to submit a couple 
of telegrams which I have received in regard to what was called the 
Produce Exchange, of Cincinnati, alleged communications from which 
were presented here by Mr. Knight. 

Mr. Knight. Xo; I beg your pardon; they came to the chairman of 
the committee. 

Mr. Jelke. Oh, was that it't 

Mr. Knight. Yes. 

Mr. Jelke At any rate, in regard to this "Produce Exchange" of 
Cincinnati, 1 wouhl like to submit these two telegrams, which it will 
only take a moment to read. The first is from my father. He is a man 
71 years of age, and is getting too far along in life to use any deception, 
if it were ever necessary for anybody to do so [reading] : 

Thei'e is no bona tide produce exchanue in Cincinnati. Some years ago it was 
abandoned and merged in Chamber Commerce. Recently two attempts were made 
to bave Chamber of Commerce indorse Gront bill. Both voted down. Then a few 
butter dealers, acting under foreign instructions, organized this fake exchange, for 
the sole purpose of making a false showing of support to Grout l)ill. 

Tliis is a telegram from the superintendent of the Cincinnati Cham- 
ber of Commerce, Charles B. Murray: 

Replying to inquiry, there is no produce exchange in this city. The Chamber of 
Commerce board of <lirectors adopted expressions opposing Grout l)ill tax of 10 cents 
on colored oleomargarine. 

Now, Mr. Knight, what i<lea have you as to how much oleomargarine 
we or anyone else could sell if the police power of the States is invested 
absolutely in them by Congress to regulate this traffic, whereas they, 
in 32 States, have prohibited the sale of colored oleomargarine? 

Mr. Knight. 1 think you would sell just as much as you have any 
legal right to sell. That is the only way I can answer that question, 
Mr. Jelke, not knowing the figures. 

Mr. Jelke. But you seem to intimate that if we paid the 10 cents 
a pound tax you would allow us to sell it. 

Mr. Knight. If we had some way to keep you peojde from doing 
what is not the j^roper thing and the right thing to do — forming a con- 
spiracy to violate these laws, or, rather, to defend those who violate 
them — we would have very little trouble. The ordinary retailer, when 
he is prosecuted, would very soon obey the law if you people did not 
come back of him with all of your capital and all of your attorneys and 
all your guarantees. 

Mr. Jelke. That is your opinion. 

Mr. Knight. That is my oi)inion of it. Now, as I have the floor, I 
just want to say a few words in connection with another statement that 
was contradicted here. This is a letter from the Chicago Butter and 
Egg Board. I will read it. 

Chicago Butter and Egg Boahd, 

Chicago, January 12, 1901. 
At the regular meeting of the Chicage Butter and Egg Board, held .January 12, 
1901, the following statement was presented by George W. Linn, president of the 
Illinois Dairy Union, and generally discussed by the members of the board, and by 
a unanimous vote it was declared to lie the sentiment of the individual members, 
as nearly every member has been familiar with the unfair and unlawful methods 
pursued by the dealers in oleomargarine for years. 

John W. Low, President. 
Charles E. McNeill, Secretary. 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 555 

Chicago, January 12, 1901. 
Whereas w«s are informed by newspaper reports and. other sources that the 
manufacturers of oleomargarine are inclined to deny the assertion of the officers of 
the National Dairy Union that the retail trade sell oleomargarine almost exclusively 
as butter; and 

Whereas from our long experience in competition with this class of goods we have 
repeatedly and continually been brought face to face with the fact that fully 75 per 
cent, and possibly as high as 95 per cent, goes to the consumer as pure butter, we, 
as an organization and as individuals, desire to go on record as corroborating the 
statement made in that particular by the officers of the National Dairy Union. 

C. H. Weaver & Co. 

Wayne Low. 

Geo. W. Linn Company. 

.J. Dixon Aveky & Sons. 

Merrill &, Eldridge. 

Moody, Kinc; & Cook. 

\N. S. Moore .& Co. 

Geo. C. Callahan & Co. 

Gallagher Bros. 

M. L. Brown & Co. 

J. H. White «fc Co. 

Earl Bros. 

S. L. Brodie. 

SCHLOSSER Bros, 

Spangenherg & Co. 

Geo. Middendorf & Co. 

O. E. Whitcomb «& Son. 

Mr. Jelke. Mr. Knight, is it not a foct that C. H, Weaver & Co., 
who signed that statement, are one of the largest, if not the largest, 
manufacturers of process butter in the United States? 

Mr. Knight. Yes, sir; and so far as I know they are not violating 
any law. I desire also to read you this quotation from the market 
report of Saturday, January 12, 1901. This is the official report of the 
Chicago market, published by Howard, Baitels & Co., and is used by 
the butter trade generally. 

Receipts May 1. 1896, to .January 16, 1897, 1,083,130. 

A demoralized feeling was shown at the closing of the week and prices some 2 to 
3 cents lower. All the week trade has dragged very slowly, and receivers were 
unable to close out their consignments. Goods kept piling up — not very freely, but 
to a greater extent than dealers cared to have on their hands. The home trade was 
not sufficient to make any impression on the stock, and there has been scarcely any 
order demand. The receipts have been fair and show some increase over last week^ 
but comprised a greater proportion of roll and packing stock, which came forward 
more freely. Other markets have all ruled dull and weaker, and possibly this 
accounts for the increased receipts here. 

It has not been so much a matter of price as it has been to sell. Of course dealers 
wished to sustain the market as long as they could, but they daily undersold the 
quotations when they had an opportunity to sell. 

To-day the market was dull, and further concessions were made by holders to 
effect sales. Dealers believe the only way to place the market on a solid basis is to 
make prices that will enable them to clean up late accumulations and to encourage 
buying or at least consumption. 

It is generally admitted by dealers that the demoralized condition of the butter 
market at present is due to the use of butterine. Dealers estimated that at least 75 
per cent of the retailers are selling butterine. 

Mr. MiLLEE. Is It not a fact that the open weather accounts for the 
dull butterine and butter business? 

Mr. Knight. The open weather? I do not know, Mr. Miller. 

Mr. Miller. Well, it is a fact. 

Mr. Knight. Now, I would like to ask for information regarding the 
condition of the matter between Collector Coyne and myself. There 
has been some testimony sent out to Mr. Coyne for him to pass upon, 
I believe. 



556 OLEOMAKGAKINE. 

Senator Allen. That statement was sent oat the other day. I sup- 
pose a response will be made. 

Mr. Knight. I am not going to be in Washington all the time, and 
I do not know what course Mr. Coyne will take. But in case there is 
any answer made, I have a statement here which I will not read, but 
which I will leave with the committee. I do not ask that it shall go 
into the report. 

Senator Allen. Hand it to the clerk, then. 

Mr. Knight (after complying with Senator Allen's request). I have 
here a number of statistics and facts — not arguments, or anything out- 
side of facts — that J should like to file with the committee. Here, for 
instance, are some facts which you gentlemen will want — a detailed 
statement of the number of oleomargarine dealers in the various States, 
for instance, and the number who are doing business in States where 
it is contrary to law to sell colored oleomargarine, and the number who 
are doing business in States where it is legal to do it. There are quite 
a number ot other things here which I think the committee will find of 
value. 

Senator Dolliver. What is the basis of your statistics? 

Mr. Knight. The Government reports. All of them come from Gov- 
ernment reports. 

Senator Money. We will get that information from official sources, 
Mr. Kniglit, and would very much rather have it in that way. 

Mr. Knight. These figures are from official sources. 

Senator Money. I know it; but they coine through you. We would 
rather have them through the regular official channel. We are at lib- 
erty to call on the Departments for all the information they have, you 
know. 

Mr. Knight. The only thing was that I wanted to call attention to 
those things here. 

Senator Money. That may be. 

Mr. Knight. I will at least ask permission to file this map [exhibit- 
ing map], to be printed in the proceedings. There is a diagram there 
showing the price of butter, and a map showing the laws of various 
States. 

Senator Dolliver. Is that official? 

Mr. Knight. One is from Senator Mason's report and the other is 
from the Agricultural Department. They are both official. Here is a 
resolution passed by the Chicago Butter and Egg Board. 

Senator Allen. Will inserting these things delay the printing of 
this report? 

Mr. Knight. No, Senator. I think you will find that they are all 
made up and in the possession of the Government Printing Office. 

[The papers referred to above are as follows:] 



OLEOMARGARINE. 



557 




558 



OLEOMARGARINE 



MONTHLY JRODUCTION 

OLEOMARGARINE 

m THE UNITED STATES. 


MONTSLY AVERAGE PEICES 

OF 

BUTTER 

IN NEW YORK. 


MONTH 


< 

> 


MILLION POUNDS- 
i-'rOCOt^OlOS^OOCDOl-' 


CENTS PER POUND 

1- 1- H- to ro to tN5 to CO CO 
iii.o:ooorOfc^cnic»oto 


i^^ 


.w: 


\\s- 










































JANUARY 

FEBRUARY 

MARCH 

APRIL 

M,'>.Y 

JUNE 

JULY 

AUGUST 

S EPT EM B ER 

OCTOBER 

NOVEMBER 


65 

CD 

o 








































y 












— , 




1 








— 

































~'^" 








— 


— 


— 

















— 




' 








— 


— 


— 










— 1 


— 1 




— 





, 










_< 

























■ ' 




■L 


■ ■ 


— 




— 





' 










— 




■-^ 






— 




— 


— 








































































































































,j 
































> 






...:.. i .It, 
































1 








aXNUARV^ 

FEBRUARY 

MARCH 

APRIL 

MAY 

JUNE 

JULY 

AUGUST 

SEFTEMBEIR 

OCTOBER 

NOVEMBER 


65 

CO 




) 








































zc 




1±^ 


zz. 


zi: 








zz 


zz 




:z: 








^ 


^ 


^ 




=f4E[^ 


— 




— 


— 


— ' 


= 








zz 




^ 


— 








— 


zz. 












































.,■ 1 ■,., 1 ,,i,),. 


^^ 




— 


— 


— 


— 













— , 










^_ 







::::■':'■ :',:,:,h;::: 


"^^ 























— 


— 


— 


— 




— +- 







1 ; [...:. 


,,i 










































































> 




3anuaRy''^ 
february 

MARCH 

APRIL. 

MAY 

JUNE. 

JULY 

AUGUST 

SEPTEMBER 

OCTOBER 

NOVCMBER 

DECEMBER 


5 

CD 


: ,| I j„„., .!.. ..I 


















































































































! 1 || 


























,^ 
















































































































































































































-^ 








































i ,,; ,i , ,t , ,.;..,: 


.,1 






























v^ 










,.:\ 
































JANUARY 

FEBRUARY 

MARCH 

APRIU 

MAY 

JUNE. 

JULY 

AUGUST 

SEPTEMBER 


65 

CD 
CaJ 












































































n 
































i ' ' 


.. ,,i,t 






















1.— 




..^ 






•, : . 1 1 






























' ' 


LZ"f^ 


































' 


[-■ 
























































V 


— . 


— 


■ 1 .■ 1 1 : 1 




























'111 






























f 






NOVEMBER! 1 
DECEMBER 1 1 


i • 


1 










































































r±r±„' i ! '■■■ 


J — ' 


' 


— 










— 




— 






rq 


> 


— 


— 


— 1 


FEBRUARY 

MARCH 

APRIU 

MAY 

JUNE 

JULY 

AUGUST 

SEPTEMBER 

OCTOBER 

NOVEMBER 


00 
CD 


z^pz 


if,:::,:] 


1 


' 


— 










— 




.^ 










— 


— 


— 












































— 


1 


— 










1 




._ 










1 








~f~~-t- i !,'.', 


1 1 


1 


— 










— 




^— 1 










— 


- — 1 


— 




... \ 
















































































































































jAMu>RV 
february 

MARCH 

APRIL 

MAV 

JUNE 

JULY 

AUGUST 

SEPTEMBER 

OCTOBER 

NOVEMBER 


65 

CD 












































1 
























r- 














, • , ,) 
























y 






















































— 








































































































































































































:i 
























V 


















































1 , ,j 


,1 






































January 

FEBRUARY 

MARCH 

APRIL 

MAY 

JUNE 

JULY 

AUGUST 

SEPTEMBER 

OCTOBER 

NOVEMBER 


65 

CD 
05 












































; 






































! ; ,t 
















































































■ ' 










































■, 1 ,1 


















































































) 


























































































































































: ' ,1 






















-— 














jAnuarV" 
february 

MARCH 

APRIU 

MAV 

JUNE 

JULY 

AUGUST 

SEPTEMBER 

OCTOBER 

NOVEMBER 

DECEMBER 


65 

CD 




1 
























































y 




















































































t i ) ! 








































































• \ 


1 


































;■ ' 1 ; 1 


















"^ 
















i ! , ; 1 






















k 














N 
































1 
































































FEBRUARY 

MARCH 

APRIL 

MAY 

JUNE 

JULY 

AUGUST 

SEPTEMBER 

OCTOBER 

NOVEMBER 


65 

CD 

00 


' ! ■ ' 1 








































































• ' J 




















^ 
























































































' ' i ■ 1 , 




































... 1 . '■■■■■( 




















■> 




































^ 














■ i i ' "i /: \^^ 




















^^^ 


















































































- 


1 
































JAN JAR V 

FEBRUARY 

MARCH 

APRIU ■ 

MAV 

JUNE 

JULY 

AUGUST 

SEPTEMBER 

OCTOBER 

NOVEMBER 

DECEMBER 


65 

CD 
CD 


















































































^ 
















































' 1 ' 


















s 


































( 
















i 




















.^ 
















\v\ 






























; , . 1.1... ..... 






















































1 




■] 






















SQNnod NOmilM 


H^h^^_co^oco^^[^3CoCo 

i|:^0:>00OC0,|^0:0COt0 

aNnod yid sinio 







Fig. 15.- 



-Diagram showing monthly average prices of butter and total monthly production of oleo- 
margarine for the years 1890 to 1899. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 559 

Now, there is another matter that has been in question here. Mr. 
Miller made the statement to you that some 40 or 50 pounds of oleo 
oil came from the caul tat of a steer. 1 have here Iowa Agricultural 
Bulletin No. 20, showing the weight of 18 fatted steers fed at that 
station, and the amount of caul fat therein, as taken out by Swift & 
Oo.,of Cliicago, and reported to Director James Wilson, now Secretary 
of Agriculture. That bulletin sliows that the average amount of 
caul fat in steers weighing on an average 1,508 pounds was 37.66 
pounds. The statement made before the Agricultural Committee of 
the Seuate 

Senator Allen. That is a pretty good steer. 

Mr. Knight. The statement made before the Seuate Committee on 
Agriculture in 1886 by Elmer E. Washburn, a live-stock dealer in Chi- 
cago, showed ihat from 148,803 head of cattle slaughtered in that city 
by one of the largest ])acking concerns, there was an average of 61.5 
pounds of fat in those animals used in oleo oil; and that those 61.5 
pounds made 28.1 pounds of oleo oil, which goes to prove that there is 
less than 1 })ound of oleo oil to 2 pounds of fat. 

The oleomargarine people, in all of their claims before this committee 
and in other ])laces, have stated that the fat used from the steer or 
cattle was only the fattest and choicest caul fat; and Mr. Miller made 
the statement to you that if they used any other it would be tallowy. 

According to this report of Secretary Wilson, there are on an aver- 
age but 37.66 pounds of caul fat to the steer of 1,508 pounds, and it is 
well known that cattle that are marketed will not average over 1,200 
pounds. That would be a heavy average, would it not? 

Senator Allen. I should think it would be a full average, at least. 

Mr. Knight. Under those circumstances, 1 think you can go to the 
bottom of the thing, and tind that they can not make more than 15 
pounds of oleo oil from the caul fat of the average animal. Counting 
15 pounds to the average animal, and counting 5,000,000 cattle slaugh- 
tered last year, they have recourse to caul fat for the making of but 
75,000,000 pounds of oleo oil. There were 112,000,000 pounds of oleo 
oil exported, and 24,4(i0,000 pounds used in oleomargarine, a total, I 
think, of over 166.000,000 pounds, with a capacity of but 75,000,000 
IDOunds of oleo oil from caul fat. 

Senator Dolliver. I supposed they used all the fat. 

Mr. Knight. They must do it in order to get out everything, I should 
say. Now, those are simply statistics, gentlemen. 

Senator Dolliver. Would that lift them out entirely ? 

Mr. Knight. Not at 28 pounds to the head; no, sir. 

Senator Allen. Many of these animals, as I understand, are calves 
and other animals that have not much fat in them. 

Mr. Knight. On an average, according to Mr. Washburn's state- 
ment, they get an average of 28.1 pounds of oleo oil from each animal. 

Mr. Miller. That was one special lot. 

Mr. Knight. Oh, no. One hundred and forty-seven thousand head. 

Senator Money. Whose report is that? 

Mr. Knight. That is the report of Elmer E. Washburn, a live-stock 
dealer of Chicago, who appeared on behalf of the oleomargarine makers. 
It is in that record. 

Senator Money. I suppose you want to discredit that report by those 
figures, do you? 

Mr. Knight. No; I am not discrediting it at all. 

Senator Money. Oh, yes; you make it 15 pounds, and he says it 
is 28. 



560 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. Knight. No: I say caul fat. He does not say caul fat. He has 
some figures there giving- the amount of oleo oil made from those ani- 
mals at -I.S.I pounds. Now, if you can get 2S.I pounds of oleo oil direct 
from the animal, from o,0()(),0()() animals you are getting 140,000,000 
pounds. But we have records of 100,000,000 pounds which are used. 
Now, where does it come from? 

Mr. ScHELL. Well, we are willing to have the matter investigated. 

Mr. Knight. Oh, rather than have it investigated, I will cut out the 
whole thing, on account of time. I do not propose to put in anything 
here that is going to continue these hearings. 

Senator Money. You are entirely willing to conclude the hearings, 
provided you have the last word? 

Mr. Knight. Oh, no. 

Senator Money. Whenever anybody has made a speech on the other 
side you have come in here with a whole lot of fresh matter. That is 
what you have been doing all the time. After it has been announced 
that your side has closed, and the majority of the committee has voted 
to close the hearings, and every tinie anybody else said anything, you 
came out here with a lot of new matter; and then you want the jiro- 
ceedings closed. 

Mr. Knihgt. Oh, no. 

Senator Money. That is a fact; that is the record of the committee. 
Now, I have not the slightest objection to hearing everything you have 
to say. You have brought out some very interesting matter there. 
But, still, it is a fact that you happen to be here, and you take the floor 
and bring out a lot of new things and then propose to shut down on 
the investigation. 

Mr. Knight. No; I made the statement before the committee that 
if what I said was to prolong the hearings, I would shut oft" right 
away. 

Senator Money. You never shut off as long as anybody says any- 
thing on the other side; I have noticed that. Now, you can give us all 
the information you have. I am willing to stay here and listen to you 
for a week ; but 

VI r. Knight. Well, Senator, will you put to the committee the sug- 
gestion that I made regarding the condensation or the briefing of this 
testimony? 

Senator Allen. I think the committee will take up this matter and 
edit it. I have no doubt the chairman will attend to that. 

Senator Money. As Senator Allen very truthfully said, an immense 
amount of what has been said here is merely cumulative evidence. The 
same things have been stated over and over again by the people on 
both sides. 

Mr. Knight. I suggested. Senator Proctor, that we should take up 
on our side the testimony which has been submitted, and point out our 
strong points. My suggestion was that we should make it in the shape 
of an index rather than a brief, and not make an argument at all, but 
simply call attention to the facts which we claimed to have proven. 
It was my idea to state the different points we made, and under those 
heads to group the statements of the people who have appeared here 
and addressed your couimittee. 

The Chairman. That would facilitate matters very much indeed, I 
think. 

[After informal discussion it was agreed, and so announced by the 
chairman, that after the printing of the testimony both sides would be 
expected, within a reasonable time, to brief the case according to their 



OLEOMARGARINE. 561 

respective views, calling attention to tbose particular parts of the tes- 
timony deemed important.! 

Mr. Knight agreed to present, in due time, the views of his side in 
favor of the bill. Mr. Schell agreed, for his clients, to furnish a brief 
resume of the proceedings before the committee, and to furnish a brief 
on the constitutional questions involved, as he had theretofore promised 
members of the committee. 

It was thereu]ion announced by the chairman that after the honora- 
ble Secretary of the Treasury and Hon. James W. Wadsworth, a 
member of the House of Representatives, should have been heard, the 
hearings on the pending bill would be closed. 

The committee thereupon, at 11.40 o'clock, took a recess until 12.15 
o'clock p. m. 

At the ex]uration of the recess the committee resumed its session. 

Present: Senators Hansbrough (acting chairman), Warren, Foster, 
Bate, Money, Heitfeld, Allen, and Dolliver. 

Also, Charles Y. Knight, secretary of the National Dairy Union; 
Hon. William M. Springer. of Springfield, 111., representing the National 
Live Stock Association; Frank W. Tillinghast, representing the Ver- 
mont ^lanutacturing Company, of Providence, R. I.; Charles E. Schell, 
representing the Ohio Butterine Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio; John 
F. Jelke, representing Braun & Fitts, Chicago, 111. ; W. E. Miller, repre- 
senting Armour & Co., Kansas City, Mo., and others. 

STATEMENT OF HON. LYMAN J. GAGE, SECRETARY OF THE 

TREASURY. 

The Acting Chairman (Senator Hansbrough). Gentlemen of the 
committee. Secretary Gage was invited to appear before the committee 
to answer some questions that were to be put by Senator Money, I 
understand. 

Senator Money. No; I donot care to trouble the Secretary. I merely 
asked that he be invited here, as the Secretary of the Treasury, to 
express (if he saw lit) his views on the pending bill, which is a revenue 
measure. At all events, it purports to be a revenue measure. 

Senator Bate. Of course you have seen the bill, Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary Gage. Yes, sir. I always respond to the invitations of 
the committees, whether it is agreeable or not. I would prefer to 
answer <iuestions, if any gentleman wishes to ask them. If, however, 
you wish me to state my views of the bill, I can do so very brietly. 

Senator Allen. I should think that would be better, Mr. Secretary. 
We should be very glad to hear your views of the bill. 

Secretary Gage. Of course I only feel at liberty to state my views 
as the Secretary of the Treasury, and only upon that part of the bill 
whicu involves the question of revenue. I might have personal views 
which go far beyond those; but you would jDrobably not care much 
about them. 

There is, in my opinion, an objection to the bill on either theory. If 
it is a revenue producer, it is sui)ertluou8; we do not need it. If it is 
not a revenue producer, then the title of the bill is a misnomer, and it 
is inoperative in the name of revenue. It seems to me that on either 
theory there are serious objections to it. 

I think that covers all I care to say directly on the subject. 

Senator Money. That is pretty good. 

Senator Foster. It is right to the point, Mr. Secretary. 

S. Rep. 2043 36 



562 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

Senator Allen. Have you some statistical matter there, Mr. Secre- 
tary, wbicli you desire to submit? 

Secretary Gagp:. No, sir. 

The A( TING Chairman. Do any members of the committt-e desire 
to ask the Secretary auy questions'? 

Senator Foster. I suppose the points you have made bear directly 
on the question of revenue, and. not at all on the merits of the bill 
otherwise? 

Secretary Gage. So far, I have not expressed any views on the merits 
of the bill. 

Senator Money. You only speak of it as a revenue measure? 

Secretary Gage. Only as a revenue measure. 

The Acting Chairman. Mr. Secretary, can you tell us what has 
been tht- experience, in a general way, of your Department in the col- 
lection of the revenue on oleomargarine? You know, of course, that 
there is now a 2-ceut tax on it. 

Secretary Gage. Yes, sir; 1 think the revenue is well collected. 
There has been considerable discussion of that subject between the 
Commissioner of Internal Kevenue (especially Commissioner Wilson) 
and myself, at different times; and we think we are cheated to some 
extent, as we are in all revenue matters. 

The Acting Chairman. There is bound to be a certain percentage 
of loss, of course. 

Secretary Gage. There is bound to be a certain ])erceutage of loss. 
That is evidenced by tlie fact that we receive "conscience money" from 
people who say they have defrauded the revenue department, and it has 
come to be a matter of conscience with them. 

Senator Foster. Then you think there is "moonshine butterine" 
made? 

Secretary (tAGE. Undoubtedly. Judging by the best means of infor- 
mation we have (and we have to guess at it to some extent, for, of course, 
the unknown is not known) we estimate that we are cheated out of per- 
haps 7 or 8 per cent of the revenue. 

Senator Allen. I suppose there is no surplus in the conscience fund, 
is there? 

Secretary Gage. No; and there never will be. [Laughter.] That is 
the only fund which will never be troubled with a surplus. 

Senator Money. In collecting other revenue taxes, like that on 
whisky, for instance, is the loss as great as on oleomai'garine? 

Secretary Gage. Yes; I should suppose it is about the same percent- 
age. That loss occurs mostly in the "mooushiniug" business. In the 
large establishments it is probable that the tax is absolutely and fully 
collected. 

Senator Bate. Then I suppose the losses in oleomargarine internal- 
revenue collections are about on a par with the losses in all other reve- 
nue collections? 

Secretary Gage. Well, they are on a par with the losses in most of 
the revenue collections. There is not auy great disparity. 

The Acting Chairman. Mr. Secretary, what about the percentage 
of prosecutions, as compared with the prosecutions in other lines? 

Secretary Gage. Offenses against the oleomargarine internal revenue 
law are as vigorously prosecuted as any of the other offenses against 
the revenue laws, when they come to our knowledge. It is the duty of 
the collector of internal revenue in each district to use his agents and 
inspect as thoroughly and carefully as he can the manufacturers of 
oleomargarine and dealers in it, and to see that they are paying the 



OLEOMARGAKINE. 563 

revenue. Complaints frequently come to us that they are passing it 
off as butter. We always inquire into sucli matters. While the internal 
revenue department does not consider itself clothed with police duties, 
exactly (its duty being- to collect the revenue), we pursue all cases of 
persons violating the regulations in regard to stamping and marking 
the product when they are brought to our attention; aud there have 
been a great many prosecutions. 

1 have here a letter which I picked up this morning, dated November 
24, 11)00, which illustrates something. It is a letter from one of our 
agents in Cleveland, Ohio, addressed to Commissioner Wilson. This 
agent was directed to inquire into the dealings of a certain gentleman 
in a small Ohio town, because the report of one of the manufacturers 
of butterine set forth sales to this gentleman, whom we will call Mr. 
Brown for the purposes of the illustration. You know, gentlemen, that 
all of the manufacturers have to report their entire sales to the Dei)art- 
ment; and the report of this particular manufacturer came along, show- 
ing the sale of 2l,'8 pounds of butterine, in three ditferent lots, to this 
Mr. Brown, in this town in Ohio. jMr. Brown had no license to sell 
butterine, and we made an investigation. We found that he was not 
selling butterine, but was simply ordering it for sundry persons, in 
their behalf, and ordering it to be sent to them direct for consumption. 
Kow, it is a somewhat singular fact that these paities for whom Mr. 
Brown acted were all dealers in milk, and were selling all their milk 
to Mr. Brown, who was in the cheese business. 

Senator Allen. Mr. Secretary, was that a mere cover, or was it a 
bona tide transaction upon Mr. Brown's part? 

Secretary Gage. Oh, it was entirely in good faith. Mr. Brown lived 
in this village, and these milk dealers brought him all their milk, and 
they wanted butterine. 

Senator Allen. Of course you will recognize the fact that if Mr. 
Brown, in collusion with these other parties, was simply resorting to 
that device as a method of avoiding the tax law, he would be guilty of 
violating the tax law and should be prosecuted? 

Secretary Gage. Oh, yes. He did not retail the butterine; he made 
no profit on it. He simply acted in their behalf. 

The Acting Chairman. Were the ])artiesfor whom he acted in the 
retail business, or simply consumers? 

Secretary Gage. They were simply consumers — fanners. 

Senator Allen. Is your ins])ecting force in these districts adequate 
to investigate and prosecute these cases? 

Secretary Gage. Well, fairly so. We have a good many of what 
are called revenue agents under the collectors of internal revenue. 
They pay attention to all the departments of revenue. We do not have 
special agents to inquire into the butterine business who are separate 
and distinct from the agents who look after violations of other branches 
of revenue. 

The Acting Chairman. ISTo; I understand that. 

Secretary Gage. They watch the tobacco dealer; they watch the 
whisky dealer; they watch the brewer; and they watch the oleomar- 
garine man. They plan to cover them all, and to drop in aud inspect, 
aud catch them if they can. 

Senator Allen. They depend largely on outside sources for their 
information, do they not? 

Secretary Gage. A good deal. They get a good many "tips" from 
the outside. 



564 OLEOMARGARINE. 

The Acting- Chairman. Your revenue agents, Mr. Secretary, are 
expected to visit these tactories and to take observations with respect 
to the quality ot the ingredients constituting oleomargarine, are they 
not? 

Secretary Gage. Yes, sir. 

The Acting Chairman. What are their opportunities for observa- 
tion in that direction'? 

Secretary Gage. Oh, they are anqde in these large establishments. 
They are all open to our agents. 

Senator Ba'ie. Have you scientific inspectors to investigate what 
the component parts of this product are? 

Secretary Gage. No; I do not think we have. We pnt it to the 
test frequently, however. We get sami)les and have analyses made of 
the product. That is to say, we have done so in the past; I do not 
know what we are doing just at this moment. 

Senator Allen. Your agents, however, are not all experts in the 
examination of oleomargarine, are they? 

Secretary Gage. Oh, no — no. 

Senator Allen. So that they might be imposed upon, as well as the 
ordinary intelligent citizen? 

Secretary (tAGE. Very easily. 

Senator Allen. They might walk into a place and call for butter, 
and oleomargarine might be handed to them as butter; and unless they 
took it to some person competent to make an analysis of it, they might 
not know the difference? 

Secretary Gage. That is quite true. 

Senator Bate. Do you keep agents at any of these large establish- 
ments? 

Secretary Gage. I do not think we do keep any regular watch on 
them. 

Senator Allen. You take the same precautions respecting this 
article that you do regarding liquors? 

Secretary Gage. Except that we do keep gangers — men who gauge 
the quantities of liquor — or storekeepers, in the bonded warehouses. 
We go a little further with the liquors, because the temptation to evade 
the law is immensely greater. 

Senator Allen. Then you do not keep such agents in these large 
establishments which manufacture oleomargarine? 

Secretary Gage. No. 

Senator Money. These storekeepers take note of the quantity of 
liquor made, do they? 

Secretary Gage. They take simply the proof and the quantity. 

Senator Allen. Of course the liquor can not go out without the 
consent of the Government? 

Secretary Gage. No, sir; but the tax on liquor is $1.10 a gallon, 
while that on butterine is 2 cents per pound, so that the temptation 
is very much greater in the one case than in the other. 

Senator Allen. The only thing with which you are concerned is 
the tax? 

Secretary Gage. That is the main thing, of course. 

Senator Money. The remark you have just made, Mr. Secretary, 
suggests this question : You say the greater the tax the greater the 
incentive to fraud. Tlie same rule would apply here, would it not? 

Secretary Gage. Undoubtedly. 

The Acting Chairman. Do the instructions of your Department, 
Mr. Secretary, require the agents who visit these manufactories to 
report to you with respect to the purity of the ingredients used ? 



OLEOMARGARINE. 565 

Secretary Ga ge. 'So ; I do not think so. 

Tlie Acting Chairman. So that you have no means of knowing 
exactly what constitutes oleomargarine? 

Secretary Gage. Except by inspecting the processes and methods 
of the manufacturers. 

The Acting Chairman. And the product itself, I presume? 

Secretary Gage. And they make a general exaMiination of the product 
itself. 

Senator Allen. I suppose the processes of manufacture are as dif- 
ferent as the shades of color, are they not? 

Secretary Gage. I do not exactly know how many methods of com- 
pounding the nianuf icturers have. I think, however, that they follow 
pretty closely the same general line. 

Senator D(^llivkr. Mr. Secretary, have you a sufficient revenue force 
to look after the observance of that portion of the olt^omargariue law 
which relates to the putting up of the packages and the quantities in 
which it may be sold under these licenses? 

Secretary Gage. Well, I think, i)erhaps, we have not. Xo; I do not 
think we have. 

Senator Dolliver. We had here the other day packages of oleomar- 
garine said to have been bought in retail stores in Chicago, in which 
the mark, the name required by law to be affixed, was turned under in 
such a way as not to be noticeable. 

Secretary Gage. Yes, 

Senator J^olliver. Then there were other packages on which the 
mark was placed in such an obscure way that it would require a person 
of good eyesight, in some instances, to notice it. The packages were 
very faintly marked. We also had statements in regard to quantities 
being bought above the amount permitted by the law to be sold by the 
retailer, aiul the general impression was left on the minds of the com- 
mittee that your revenue collectors were somewhat indifferent, at least 
in some cities, after they had collected their tax The impression was 
also left that they were without adequate force to give attention to all 
these details. 

Secretary Gage. There is no doubt that the Department has its main 
eye to the revenue, for that is really its business. It is not clothed, 
except indirectly, with what you may call police power. Besides, there 
are places where the force would be entirely inadequate. Take the city 
of Chicago, for instance. 1 think there are 4,000 retail dealers there, 
and it is impossible with a dozen men to keep a close watch over 4,000 
dealers scattered over 20 square miles. But when we do fiml them 
infringing the law, we make it troublesome for them. 

Mr. Springer. Mr. Chair. nan, may I submit a question to the Sec- 
retary ? 

The Acting Chairman. Yes, sir; if it is agreeable to him. 

Secretary Gage. Certainly. 

Mr. Springer. The difficulties which have been called to the atten- 
tion of the committee in regard to the selling of oleomargarine or but- 
terine seem to relate to the tact that the retail dealer may break the 
original package and deal it out in smaller quantities to suit the desires 
of the purchaser; and in so doing he can sell oleomargarine or butter- 
ine to a consumer who presumes that he is buying butter. 

Now, 1 desire to ask you whether it would be possible to make such 
rules and regulations (if the law so authorized) requiring the selling of 
oleomargarine to the consumer by the agent of the manufactuier or the 
retail dealer in the original package, without breaking even the stamp 
itself around the original i)ackage, that the selling of oleomargarine for 



566 OLEOMARGARINE. 

butter would be prevented, and it would have to be sold for what it 
really is? 

Secretary Gage. I think so. 1 have read the amendment or substi- 
tute bill recommended by the minority rex)ort of the House committee. 

The Acting Chairman. That is what is known as the Wads worth bill? 

Secretary Gage. It provides a method of i)utting up oleomargarine 
in packages of 1 pound or not more than Impounds, I believe. Am I right? 

Mr. Springer. Yes, sir; that is right. 

Secretary Gage. They are, as I understand, required to be separate 
and distinct from each other, with the revenue stamp wound around 
them and sealed as effectively as a box of cigars is with its stamp. I 
can not imagine any reason why that would not be a very effective 
means of preventing the dealer from opening packages and selling the 
product as butter. The abuse in that respect would be reduced to an 
infinitesimal amount. Of course the dealer could cut a package in 
two, obliterate the stamp, and sell half a pound at a time as butter. 

Senator ]\Ioney. That is i)ossible witli cigars and evervthing else, is 
it not? 

Secretary Gage. It is possible in every department; but the temp- 
tation would be so small and the penalties so great that my opinion is 
that such dece])tion would scarcely be practiced at all. 

Mr. Springer. That is to say, if the dealer is required to sell it to 
the consumer in the original packages and is not allowed to break them? 

Secretary Gage. That is what I mean. 

Mr. Springer. It would almost do away with the possibility of fraud 
on the consumer? 

Secretary Gage. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Knight. Mr. Chairman, may I ask a question, please? 

The Acting Chairman. Do you consent to answer a question by 
Mr. Knight, who is the secretary of the Dairymen's Association? 

Secretary Gage. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Knight. There is a penalty, is there not, Mr. Secretary, for fail- 
ing to stamp the retailers' ])ackages now? 

Secretary Gage. You mean for failing to stamp the word 'HUeo- 
margarine" on the wrapper? 

Mr. Knight. Yes, sir. 

Secretary Gage. There is. 

Mr. Knight. And that penalty is quite severe, is it not? 

Secretary Gage. Yes, sir; it is. 

Mr. Knight. And it is a fact, is it not, that the Commissioner of 
Internal I'evenue has also made a ruling to the eflect that it is an 
evasion of the law to conceal the marks or to place them on paper of 
the same color as the ink? 

Secretary Gage. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Knight. Now, what is the difference between the two classes of 
evasions — one of removing the stamp and the other of failing to affix 
the stamp? 

Secretary Gage. I think there is a great deal of difference. Under 
the proposition which we have just been discussing the package of 
oleomargarine itself will have dee])ly imprinted into it the word "Oleo- 
margarine." It would make very little difference, indeed, whether the 
wrapjier had a stamp on it or not. The stamp on the j)roduct itself 
would have to be clear and distinct, and it would have to be imprinted 
by the manufac^turer. Once fairly imi^rinted, it ccmld only be obliter- 
ated by the dealer taking it and mixing it up, packing it in a tub, call- 
ing it butter, and then retailing it as butter. He could do that if he 
did not get caught at it. He could evade in that way the proposition 



OLEOMARGARINE. 567 

we have just been talking about, as he can evade tlie present law by 
having- his wrappers printed just on the border line between reada- 
bility and obscurity. And many do undoubtedly try to keep just on 
that border line, where they can say to the revenue agents, "'It is 
printed," and to the man who buys it, "It is not printed." 

Mr. Knight. I see. 

Secretary Gage. There is a border line that is hazardous for us and 
hazardous for them, tcTo; but it exists in every other branch of the 
business. 

Senator Allen. Is not that a jjractical evasion of the law as it now 
stands? 

Secretary Gage. They do evade it in that way; yes, sir. 

Senator Allen. Should not tliey be i>rosecuted t 

Secretary Gage. We do prosecute them where it is a fair, clear 
violation. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Mr. Secretary, if the manufacturers were directed 
to put up their original 1 and 2 pound packages in such manner as the 
Department prescribed, could they not be put up in such a way that it 
would be almost impossible to have any fraud perpetrated until the 
package itself was broken? 

Secretary Gage. The package would have to be broken first. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Then, if the manufacturer himself put up the 
product in original packages in the way prescribed, would there be 
very much danger of anyone's attempting to break those original 
packages? 

Secretary Gage. I think very little. That is my judgment. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Now, Mr. Secretary, as to the 7 per cent of fraud 
which you estimated might i)Ossibly exist at the present time, is any 
part of that attributed to the present manufacturers known to the 
Department, and who are paying the .5 cent tax? You have no diffi- 
culty with fraud in that line, have you? 

Secretary Gage. None at all. 

The Acting Chairman. That is, so far as the manufacturers are 
concerned ? 

Secretary Gage. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ScHELL. And if the sale of packages were limited to those 
inclosed by adhesive revenue stamps it would compel the collector to 
properly enforce the law to protect his revenue, would it not? 

Secretary Gage. Yes; it would. 

The Acting Chairman. Unless members of the committee have 
further questions to ask the Secretary, we will conclude the hearing — 
or unless you have some further statement to make, Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary Gage. No, sir. 

The Acting Chairman. The (jouunittee is very much obliged to 
you, Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary Gage. I thank you for your courtesy, gentlemen. 

(Tliereupon, at 12.45 o'clock p. m., the committee adjourned until 
Tuesday, January 15, 1901, at 10.30 o'clock a. m. 



Washington, D. C, Jamiari/ 15, 1901. 

The committee met at 11 a. m. 

Present: Senators Proctor (chairman), Foster, Heitfeld, Money, War- 
ren, and Bate. 

Also, Hon. William W. Grout, Representative from Vermont; Hon. 
J. W. Wadsworth, Kepresentative from New York; Mr. Tillinghast, 
Mr. Schell. Mr. Jelke, Mr. Miller, and others. 



568 OLEOMARGAKINE. 

Mr. SCHELL. If the committee please, I want to read two telegrams 
which I received last night. The first one is: 

Cincinnati, Ohio, January 14, 1901. 
Charles E. Schell (trv Shoreham), 

Wasliington, D. C. : 
Sentiiueut of labor unions on Grout bill questioned in papers. Get hearing for 
Cincinnati representative. 

•Michael Kennedy, 
Secrefary of liuihling Trades Vnion. 

With the permission of the committee, I want to wire back to him 
saying that the hearings are closed, and if he wants to send on a paper 
it will be piinted, but he can not be heard personally. 

Senator Foster. I think that had better be done. 

Mr. Schell. I have also a telegram fiom Freidman & Co., of 
Chicago, the largest handlers of neutral, I suppose, in the country. 
They are also manufacturers of oleomargarine. Their telegram is as 
follows: 

Union Stock Yahds, Illinois, 

January 14, 1901: 
C. E. Schell 

(Care Senate Committee on Agriculture), 

Senate Chamher, Washiiigton, D. C: 
We have exerted every effort to sell uncolored butteriue in the States where color- 
ing is prohibited, and tind it absolutely impossible. 

Eriedman & Co. 

I can say, further, for Friedman & Co. that I am attorney for them in 
Ohio, and that they do not protect their customers in selling oleomar- 
garine for butter. 

STATEMENT OF HON. J. W. WADSWORTH, OF NEW YORK. 

Mr. Wadsworth. Mr. Chairman, I am simply here, in the absence of 
Mr. Lorimer and at the request of others, to give you what may be called 
an ocular demonstration of the practical working of the substitute bill 
offered by the minority of the Committee on Agriculture of the House. 
That is all; 1 do not care to go into any other points unless the com- 
mittee wish me to. 

I think we all admit, Mr. Chairman, that the present law, allowing 
oleomargarine to be sold in large bulk, is perhaps an incentive to fraud. 
The fraud is not committed by tlie manufacturers at all. It is committed 
by the retail butter dealers. The retail oleomargarine dealer can not 
commit fraud, because he sells it with his sign up, open and above board. 
It is committed by the retail butter dealer, and he is tempted to do it 
on account of the wholesale price of oleomargarine and the retail price 
of butter. The minority of the Committee on Agriculture of the House 
are just as much in earnest in their desire to reduce this fraud to a 
minimum as are the majority of that committee. There is siini)ly an 
honest difference of opinion as to the best means of accomplishing the 
best results. 

After we had examined the thing carefully and found that the proof 
was that oleomargarine is a wholesome and nutritious product, and is 
therefore entitled to a i)lace among the food products of the country, 
we considered one or two measures. We thought the Grout bill was 
altogether too radical and too drastic, and we did not approve of it. 
Finally, after consultation with some people in the West, Mr. Wilson, 
of the Elgin Dairy Reporter, I think it is called, and other i>eoi)le, we 
made up our minds that this was the best way of reducing the fraud to 



OLEOMAEGAKINE. 569 

a minimum. We went to tlie Internal IJevenne Commissioner and 
requested him to have his law otticer amend the law which is now in 
existence, the law of 1880, so as to cover the points which we naade — 
that is, to tell the manufacturer to manufacture and sell only in l-pound 
or 2-poand prints. 

Kow, I have here before you these samples, because I think these will 
show you in a better way than language just the practical working of 
it. That [indicating] is a 2-pound print. We tirst compel the manu- 
facturer to impi int on the brick or roll, or whatever you call it, the word 
''Oleomargarine.'' That should be in one word. The factory has no 
stamp titted on that, but the dei)th of those letters and the size of those 
letters, if you will read the substitute bill, are to be determined by the 
Commissioner of Internal Kevenue. The word "' )leomargarine" is first 
stamped on that brick; then we compel the manufacturer to wrap it up 
in thin paper like that, on which is to be printed the word "Oleomarga- 
rine" and the name and address of the manufacturer. Theie is the tirst 
wrapping. He is then to put around that wrapping this second wrap- 
ping of paper, or, 1 believe, they have some wrappings of thin wood 
pulp on which the word " Oleomargarine" is again printed, and around 
which the revenue stamp — that gieen band represents the revenue 
stamp — is to go. It is to go completely aiound,just like a hogshead of 
tobacco. When he sends that out to the retail dealer or the wholesale 
dealer the law provides that he shall pack it in boxes or crates, and on 
the crate is to be printed the word "Oleomargarine," the number of his 
factory, and so on. The size of the print and all that is left under the 
Commissioner of Internal Revenue, with the approval of the Secretary 
of the Treasury. Now, he ships it out that way. It has to go that way 
to the dealer. 

We put in a proviso in the bill which I think will at least convince 
you gentlemen of the sincerity of our pui)ose to stop this fraud. We 
say: 

Retail dealers in oleomargarine shall sell only the original package to wliich the 
tax-])aid staui]) is affixed, and shall sell only from the original pacliage or boxes in 
which they receive the pound or 2- pound prints, briclis, rolls, or lumps. 

In other words, when you go in and ask for a i)ound of oleomargarine, 
he has that box in evidence. lie has got to take his butter right out 
of that, with this stamp on the outside, with the stamp around it, with 
the printed word "Oleomargarine" there, and printed on the inside 
wrapper, and stamj)ed on the article itself. 

Senator Warren. If the dealer is dishonest and he takes this and 
melts it up or pf)unds it up into another mass, and then does it up into 
packages and sells it tor butter, you provide for that, I suppose? 

Senator Foster. That is a fraud on the revenue, of course. 

Mr. Wadsworth. Yes; we have not altered tiie license fee of $(500 
a year to the manufacturer, $480 to the wholsesale dealer, $48 to the 
retail dealer, or the tax of 2 cents a ])ound. That all remains. All 
the penalties provided by the act of 18815 remain. 

Senator Warren. Do you increase the penalties at all*? 

Mr. Wadsworth. I tiiink they are not increased over those fixed in 
the original act. Of course, it is possible for a dishonest man to take 
that and do as you say. Murder is committed in this country. Lar- 
ceny is committed in this country. There is a law against it, but the 
peculiar part of it is that the fraud is not committed by the oleomar- 
garine dealer. It is committed by the butter dealer. Senator Money, 
you introduced a bill wliich you call the Wadsworth bill. We aban- 
doned that as not going far enough. I want to say that very frankly to 



570 OLEOMARGARINE. , 

yon, because it was open to tlie same objections exactly as tbe original 
bill that allowed this thing to be sold in too large qnantities. 

Senator Money. Looking at it from another point of view, we 
impose upon an honest, legitimate industry an additional tax in that 
wrapper. I do not know how much tliat will cost to put the product 
up in a changed form. Can any of you gentlemen tell me that? 

Mr. Jelkb. About half a cent a pound. 

Mr. Wadsworth. Therefore thp tax is 2i cents a pound. 

Senator Foster. I do not suppose those wrappers cost a fifth of a 
cent. 

Mr. Jelke. It is not merely the expense of the paper. You must 
include also the printing and handling of the pajier. 

Mr. Wadsworth. It is the handling and packing. Senator. As the 
law is now, they pack it into a big tub. They shove it in or scoop it in, 
and there is very little work attached to it; but in this case all this 
wrap])ing has to be done. I should think it would be worth half a cent 
a pound. 

Mr. Jelke. I should hardly think half a cent a pound would cover it, 
for this reason: We now pack oO pounds into a solid packed tub. Tn 
printing it in the 1 or 2 pound blocks there is a certain amount of 
moisture eliminated from it. You can not make out of 50 i)oands of 
solid-packed oleomargarine 25 2 pound ])rints or 50 1 -pound prints. 
The pressing of the oleomargarine into that form eliminates a certain 
amount of moisture. 

Senator Foster. It would be more attractive in the 1 or 2-pound 
prints than it would the other way? 

Mr. Jelke. Yes; very much more attractive. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. It is generally understood in the factories that 
prints cost half a cent a pound more than the tubs. 

Senator Foster. I suppose it would sell for perhaps that much more 
in that shape than it would when it is scooped out of a tub. 

Mr. Jelke. Tliat is undoubtedly so. 

Senator Foster. Is that all, Mr. Wadswoith? 

Mr. W^ADSWORTH. That is all, unless the committee want to ask 
something. I simply wanted to show the practical operation of the law. 

ADDITIONAL STATEMENT OF HON. W. W. GROUT. 

Mr. Grout. I would like to submit just a word, if the committee will 
hear me, illustrating tlie workings of this substitute bill. 

Senator Proctor. We will hear you. 

Senator Money. Let me ask a question before you begin. Mr. Wads- 
worth, did the minority of the House committee consider the expediency 
of making a provision in regard to renovated butter? 

Mr. Wadsworth. No, sir; that was not brought up before us at all. 

Mr. Grout. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, Mr. Wadsworth says he 
regrets the absence of Mr, Lorimer, whose scheme I understand this to be, 
but he has made the plan quite plain, I think, as to the purpose it would 
serve. I am not going to say but that so far as the retail dealer is con- 
cerned this might somewhat limit his ability to work this oft' as butter, 
but only a little, a very little, as I will show you later. I presume you 
have been told in this investigation that a large part of oleomargarine 
is disposed of to purchasers who know just what it is. 1 have not been 
present all the time during these hearings, but I saw a letter to that 
effect written by an oleomargarine manufacturer from Rhode Island 
to the chairman of this committee, to the effect that over forty-odd per 



OLEOMARGARINE. 571 

cent of tbe oleomargarine sold the i)erson receiving it knew precisely 
what it was. The writer referred in that letter, as I understood it, to 
the hotel keei»er, the restaurant keeper, the boarding-house keeper, the 
mine owner, the lumberman, and that class of men, who buy in bulk 
large quantities of oleomargarine from the manufacturer direct, some- 
times through the intervention of a wholesale dealer, possibly, and that 
this was over 40 per cent of the entire product. 

Now, this proposed substitute would not affect at all that class of 
trade. It does not reach it at all, because while they are obliged to 
carry it into their camj) — into their hotel, if you please — in this pack- 
age, and have its stamp put upon it, yet it is not sold, and so the pro- 
vision which the gentleman read in closing would not apply. That 
provision relates to the retailer alone. 

Mr. Wadswokth. That is what I said. 

Mr. Grout. Exactly; that is the provision in your substitute. It 
relates alone to the retailer. It does not touch this large class which 
handle probably two thirds of all the oleomargarine that is put out. It 
is through the hotel man, 1 repeat again, and the restaurant keeper and 
boarding house keeper that it is worked off upon an unsuspecting public 
more than in any other way. 

Senator Warren, May I ask you a question? 

Mr. Grout. Certainly. 

Senator Warren. You do not propose to ineveut the use of oleo- 
margarine in the boarding house and in the hotel in cooking and in 
every other form except where it is placed before the boarder to be put 
upon his bread? 

Mr. Grout. We do not propose to prevent its use at all if sold in a 
form to apprise the person using it what it is. 

Senator Warren. Yon assume they will go on using it for that 
purpose? 

Mr. (tRout. All the bill before you aims at is to have this stulf go 
on the market and be consumed for just what it is. That is all the bill 
we ask. We do not prohibit the use of it for cooking or anything else. 

Senator Warren. As far as the consumi)tion of it is concerned, the 
individual sale at the hotels, if a hotel desires to use oleomargarine, no 
matter whether it is cohned or not, the guests will each one be a tank 
for oleomargarine to some extent, through the cooking and otherwise. 

Mr. Gkout. Yes, unquestionably; but the color of butter will not 
show as in the chicken hash which a gentleman ordered in my presence 
in an eating house in this city not long since while we were lunching 
together. I am just as morally certain that it was cooked in oleomar- 
garine as I could be of anything, and he became satisfied of it, too. It 
will, 1 say, not carry the color of butter if you will pass this bill. 

Mr. VVadsworth. How did you satisfy him? 

Mr. Grout, By comparing it with a s])ecimen on the table which we 
knew was oleomargarine, in color, as contradistinguished from a lump 
of butter on the table much less highly colored. 

Mr. Wadsworth. In color only? 

Mr. Grout, Yes, sir; because the color of the article in the hash 
corresi)onded exactly with the oleo before us. 

j\lr. Wadsworih. That comparison was only by color? 

Mr. Grout. That is all. I will not say that it was absolutely con- 
clusive in that case, but we were entirely satistied. 

ISow, not to be diverted from the ])oint 1 was making, what is there 
to prevent the hotel man from cutting this up in little striiigiets as 
wide and half as long as your finger, putting it upon your butter plate, 



572 OLEOMARGARINE. 

and selling it to you at 85 a day or 14 a day, or whatever you may 
chance to pay for board, for butter? 

Mr. Wadsworth. lie can not get it from the retail dealer except as 
oleomargarine. 

Mr. Grout. Ah, but he does not take it from the retail dealer. He 
gets it straight from the manufactory or through the wholesaler. 

Mr. Wadsworth. Very well; he can not get it from the manufac- 
tory, he can not get it from the wholesale dealer, he can not get it 
from the retail dealer, except in that form. 

Mr. Grout. Precisely so. 

Mr. Wadsworth. L»-t him take that to a hotel, and he immediately 
puts himself in the hands of his help. He quarrels with a waiter or a 
cook and dismisses him, and the man turns on him and says, "You 
have been selling oleomargarine to your customers tor butter." That 
is the objection. 

Mr. Grout. You will not find a first class hotel, I believe, in the city 
of Washington but you will know, when .vou talk this matter over with 
them, that they feed oleomargarine to the help, and that will account 
for its entrance into the house; and once in the house its uses can not 
be so easily traced. 

Senator Warren. If it is your idea to protect the hotel guests and 
the restaurant guests from oleomargarine, has it suggested itself to you 
in what way you will protect them from the use of oleomargarine that 
is un colored ? 

Mr. Grout, Why, the color tells the whole story. If they bring an 
uncolored article on the table the guest knows it is not butter. He 
knows it is hog fat or cattle fat. 

Senator Warren. A great many men do not eat butter at all on 
bread; others eat little. Xo one eats much in that way, but everyone 
eats a great deal that is used in cooking. 

Mr. Grout. Very well. 

Senator Warren. So that it seems to me if you take the matter of 
color only, and only prohibit as to color, you are not reaching the con- 
sumer, and he is the one we are trying to reach. You are not reaching 
the matter of the consumer getting oleomargarine instead of fresh but- 
ter, except as it may come before him, put upon his plate. The great 
mass of butter that is used for cooking, it seems to me, is not reached 
by this bill. 

Mr. Grout. It would not reach the butter that goes into pie crust 
or into shortening cake, but fat is frequently, almost always, used for 
that instead of butter, and the hotel man uses fat almost exclusively for 
that purpose. I am not saying that it would al)8olutely exclude the 
use of it for cooking purposes. There is no pietense that it would, and 
yet there are many kinds of cooking in which it betrays its color, as it 
did in the chicken hash the other day, that I referred to. If it were 
seasoned or made suitable for some people to eat with the shortening, 
and that were an uncolored article, it would falsely ])retend to be but- 
ter; and the same with whatever may be put on your toast in the name 
of butter. 

Senator Money. Is not the butter and oleomargarine color the same 
thing "^ 

Mr. Grout. How is that, sir? 

Senator Money. Is it not true that the butter and the oleomargarine 
that is offered are colored the same? 

Mr. Grout. Y^es, sir; sometimes butter is colored. There is no 
debate about that. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 573 

Senator Money, How can we distinguish them? 

Mr. (iROUT. 1 did not intend to go into that, and I do not care to 
now. If the committee want me to do so, however, I am willing- to 
stand here and have a conversation, and a long one, on that subject of 
coloring butter. I expressed myself fully in my opening statement on 
that subject and I do not think I need repeat it, but still if you desire 
I will gladly dis<'uss it with you. 

Senator Mt)NEV. I have no desire to hear anything further about it, 
except you made the statement, and it was in answer to that statement, 
that you detected oleomargarine by its color in the hash, that I asked 
you the question. 

Mr. Grout. Precisely. 

Senator Money. Then I wanted to ask you if the same color did not 
enter into the butter that enters into the oleomargarine? 

Mr. Grout. Yes, sir; it does. It belongs to butter. Yellow is the 
natural color of butter and always has been, and if you allow them to 
color oleo just like butter, that enables them to make you believe it is 
butter whether you spread it on your bread or see it in chicken hash. 

Senator Money. It has been testitied here that ihe natural color of 
butter is white. 

Mr. Grout. Can that be possible? Excuse me, but I should not 
suppose anyone would make that claim. 1 had always understood that 
butter is always yellow. The cow makes it yellow. 

Mr. Wadsworth. What is the color of the butter that Delmonico 
uses in New York"? 

Mr. Grout. I do not think Delmonico uses white butter. 

Mr Wadsworth. And it is unsalted ? 

Mr. Grout. Yes, but not white butter. He uses butter, very likely, 
without any coloring matter, and my own taste aj^proves that. Tastes 
vary as to degrees of the yellowness for butter, or which should belong 
to butter, and of course it is colored to meet tiiose varying tastes; but 
it is all the time a butter color. It is only a little more colored or a 
little less. It is always in some degree yellow. Nobody ever saw but- 
ter but what it was in some degree yellow. 

Senator Warren. You speak of a case of chicken hash. You would 
naturally be an expert, and es])ecially so at this time when your mind 
is turned toward this. Do you think the yu'esence of oleomargarine in 
that chicken hash you speak of would easily be detected by an ordinary 
boarder ? 

Mr. Grout. Not without the clue which we had in the difference of 
color between the butter and the oleo, which we had before us, both of 
which were in the house. Of course chicken hash would be more 
palatable to the man who ordered it if it disclosed the use of butter in 
serving it up than it would if it disclosed a white grease simply like 
lard or oleo without color. And so, as in this case, oleomargarine is 
put into cooking where it will show to give the guest the impression 
that they have made a free use of butter in serving chicken hash or 
whatever, and it goes off at the rate of $5 a day, or whatever price may 
be paid. 

Senator Warren. It seems to me that the oleomargarine in the 
chicken hash would be less discoverable if it was white than if it was 
colored. I do not want to take from your argument, but what I am 
getting at is the purpose of this bill. I want to get at whether the 
purpose is to protect the buttermen, whether it is to protect the board- 
ing-house men, and the percentage of protection ; whether it is one-half 
of the consumers and one half of the buttermen, or two thirds one 



57J: OLEOMARGARINE. 

way and one-third the other way. That is why I am askiu^ these 
questions. 

Mr. Grout. I can not divide the protection arithmetically. It would 
be impossible to do so; but 1 may say in brief 

Senator Foster. To i)rotect the public. 

Mr. Grout. Precisely so, Mr. Senator. It is for the protection of 
the public. It is for the protection, also, of an honest industry against 
a fraudulent product. It is for the j)rotection of everybody who uses 
butter in any form, and for the protection of the hard-working men 
and women who i)roduce it at small profit. 

Mr, Wadsworth. VVho says oleomargarine is a fraudulent product? 

Mr. Grout. I do; it is sold as butter. 

Senator Warren. Y^ou have given it a great deal of attention. The 
bill does not go far enough, it seems to me, if this is to protect the 
public. If this is a fraudulent product, and if three-fourths, perhaps, 
of the oleomargarine that is used is used in cooking, and a man must 
take it anyway, whether he will or not, it does not seem to me we are 
protecting the ])ublic in tliis matter. That is what I want to get at. 

Mr. Grout. I am glad you have asked how it ])rotects. It protects 
the public in this wa.\ , by strii)ping from oleomargarine the dress of 
butter, so that it can not longer impose itself on the public as butter. 
Put this 10-cent tax on the colored article and it will become unprofit- 
able to color it. Do this and it will no longer be sold as butter, but 
will go upon the market uncolored, so that it shall deceive nobody. 

Senator Warren. But it will be used all the more for cooking pur- 
poses. 

Mr. Grout. Perhaps so, where it can be concealed; but where it can 
not be (concealed they will have to use butter instead of oleomargarine. 
If you call for buttered toast, they will not bring you toast with hogs' 
fat upon it. They will bring toast with genuine butter upon it, and 
the color tells you wliat it is. This will be accomplished by reducing 
the total profits on the oleomargarine business from $13,(>00,00() to 
$3,000,000 annually. Yes, gentlemen, you may laugh, but between the 
consumer of oleomargarine and the cost of the product there was last 
year from |1l',000,000 to $15,000,000 profit, and there is no escape from 
the fact. I think it perfectly safe to call it $i;3,000,000, 

Mr. Tillinghast. There is no foundation for the statement. 

Mr. Grout. I will make it clear right here in just a moment. This 
article costs 7 cents a pound to manufacture. 

Mr. Tillinghast. How do you know that ? 

Mr. Grout. On the statement of a prospectus issued by the builders 
of a new oleo factory in this city ; on the statement also of not Philip 
D. Armour himself, but a man representing his concern, some six or 
eight years ago, that it did not exceed 5 cents a pound — materials are 
more expensive now — in a local investigation up in the State of New 
York by the New York State Dairy Union. In New York they enforce 
their color law more thoroughly and completely than in any other 
State, but still there are infractions of the law there. On the strength 
of those statements, the last of which was made under oath, I say that 
it does not cost over 7 cents a i)ound now to manufacture it, and it is 
worked oft on the public, through the hotel men, the restaurant keep- 
ers, the boarding-house keepers, and retailers for the price of butter, 
anywhere from 18 to 30 cents a i)ound. We may call it on an average 
22 cents a pound, and that is i)erfectly within bounds. When 1 pay $5 
a (lay or $4 a day at a hotel where oleo is used, they are selling the 
stuff to me at the i)rice of butter, and the great bulk of it is worked off 



OLEOMARGARINE. 575 

in that intangible, niitraceable way. Take tlie difference between 7 
cents and -J"J cents and you have 1.") cents. There were 104,000,000 
pounds of oleomargarine manuiactured and stamped last year. 

Mr. Wadsworth. Where is your tax license fee and all that! 

Mr. Grout. I tliank the gentleman for the reminder. Add the tax 
to the cost of the product and it makes it 9 cents. That will leave a 
margin of 13 cents i)rofit on every pound with the selling ])rice at 22 
cents, which is a low figure. There were 104,000, Oi)0 pounds manufac- 
tured and stamped last year and two or three million pounds more not 
stamped. Now, there is your $13,.")20,000 ])rotit on the i)roduct of last 
year between the cost of production and the price paid by the man who 
consumes it. There is no escape from this conclusion, my friends. 

Now, if you take what they claim to be true, that, as one manufac- 
turer puts it, the gieat middle class wants oleomargarine, prefer it to 
butter, and take what the oleo folks say about the dirt and tilth and 
all that sort of thing in butter, which they talk about to help make 
oleomargarine palatable — I say if it be true that anyone wants oleo- 
margarine at butter i)rices they can manufacture oleomargarine and 
pay the 10 cents tax and still not have it cost more than it is costing- 
to-day. But I do not believe it to be true. I believe it is not true that 
people want oleomargarine in jneference to butter at the price of 
butter, and that when you will institute measures which will insure 
the article going upon the market for exactly what it is, all will prefer 
butter, excepting those, perhaps, who want a very cheap article. And 
under the last clause in the last section of the bill, which proposes to 
reduce the tax on uncolored oleomargarine to one-fourth of 1 cent ])er 
pound, they can have it at less than one-half what it costs them now. 

1 am not going to claim here now that oleomargarine is unwholesome 
or unnutritious. There is no question, however, that it is more difficult 
of digestion than butter, because butter melts at 02^ and oleomargarine 
does not melt short of from 101° to 107°. That is the fact about it, 
correctly expressed. 1 refer you to the testimony which was taken 
before the House Committee on Agriculture, in which that fact is dis- 
tinctly stated by Governor Hoard; and it is not only chemically but 
absolutely true it is because of the stearin or parattin that it carries. 
Paraffin, however, has become so expensive that they do not use it now. 
Stearin has been used within the last few years in oleomargarine. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Not to any extent. 

Mr. Grout. The New York agriculture department found 10 per 
cent of paraffin in 6 GO-pound tubs; but leaving that out, it is not 
used now because of its great cost. Stearin is used, and that is what 
you make tallow candles out of. 

Mr. Till iNGH AST. Paraffin was never used by any manufacturers 
in this country since oleomargarine was made, and if it was found in 
oleomaragine it was put there by an enemy to the oleomargarine 
industry. 

]Mr. Grout. It was found in the course of some experiments made 
by the assistant secretary of agriculture, whatever his name may be — 
Cracke, I think. The report of the secretary of agriculture for New 
York of that year tells you all about it. It was some oleomargarine 
they captured that was being sold for butter, and on inspection they 
found this paraffin. 

Mr. Wadsworth. It seems to me you ought not brand a trade on 
account of the black sheep in it. Will you condemn the butter business 
on account of the black sheep in it? I suppose there are some who will 
palm off process butter for creamery butter. 



576 OLEOMAflGARINE. 

Mr. Grout. I expect the jjeiitlemaii knows better about black sheep 
thau I do. All I know is that in the oleo business they are all black 
sheep. I (lid not care, however, to be drawn into a j^eneial discussion 
of this whole oleo question. I only sought to reply to the particular 
points raised by the gentleman from New York in connection with this 
substitute bill. But if 1 were to say what 1 thought about it, I would 
not exculpate, as the gentleman seems swift to do, the oleomargarine 
manufacturers from complicity in this fraud. They are as deeply 
steeped in it as the retailer is. You take up the testimony which was 
taken before the Committee on Agriculture in the House and you will 
find that they say to the retail trade in their printed circulars, "iSell 
our goods and we will stand between you and all expenses, fines, 
costs, and the like." More than one concern issued such a circular in 
Chicago. Now, if that does not mean that they are ready to back'the 
retailer in practicing this fraud, I would like to know what it does 
mean. 

But, as I say, I did not intend to go into that, gentlemen; 1 have 
been drawn into it, as you will witness. What I wanted to refer to was 
this system of stamping this article will not prevent disposition of oleo- 
margarine through the mediumshi}) which the bulk of it is now worked 
off upon an unsuspecting public, namely, the hotels, restaurants, and 
boarding houses, from cutting this up into strips and serving it on the 
table, and in cooking also, making the guest believe that he is eating 
a well-seasoned dish, or a dish well seasoned with butter instead of with 
ordinary grease. That is the oidy point I wished to answer in the 
gentleman's statement, and to show that while it may touch, perhaps, 
the retail trade and contravene in some slight degree the fraud prac- 
ticed by them. It would not be effectual with them, for what is there 
to prevent the retailer from packing these 2-pound lumps into a butter 
firkin and selling it for butter? 

Senator Money. You said the only way to discover whether it was 
oleomargarine or butter was by the color. Do you mean to say to the 
committee, Mr. Grout, that a consumer of oleomargarine or butter at 
a table can not discover it in any other way than by the color ? 

Mr. (rROUT. The color would not ordinarily help. It helped us in 
the last case I cited, because its color corresponded with the oleo before 
ns and did not correspond with the butter. The oleo was highly colored, 
and the butter not so highly. Oleomargarine can be detected only by 
very careful tasting. If one takes it with his food he will not discover 
whether it is oleomargarine or butter. 

Senator Money. I mean if he takes butter on his plate. You do not 
think the ordinary consumer can distinguish? 

Mr. Grout. No, sir; it would pass as butter unless you taste very 
carefully and wait for the after effect in the mouth. There is only a 
very slight flavor of butter in oleo, and sometimes in the poorer 
grades none at all, and that is what betrays its character. 

Senator Money. If it is wholesome and nutritious and nobody can 
tell it from butter, what is the difference? 

Mr. Grout. The difference is that it is not butter; the difference is 
that it is foisted upon the people for that which it is not, at an enor- 
mous profit, and as a counterfeit. The same difference that there is 
between good money and counterfeit money — butter is the genuine 
article, oleomargarine is the counterfeit. 

Senator Money. We have had circulars of the retail dealers in which 
they offer three grades of oleomargarine, for 11, V2, and 13 cents a 
j)ound, and butter from 22 cents up. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 577 

Mr, (tkout. Yes. 

Senator ^[oni:y. l^ow about tbe digestibility. I know nothing about 
oleomargarine, because I may have eateu it and I may not; but I have 
a member of my family who can not digest butter at all, and conse- 
quently when he is at home he does not eat butter. We can not get 
oleomargarine in my State. I do not suppose there is a pound of it 
sold in the State; but when he comes to Washington he hunts up 
oleomargarine because he can eat it and can digest it. It may be an 
idiosyncrasy of his stomach, but there must be some digestibility 
about it. 

Mr. Grout. Under this bill he could get it for one-half what he gets 
it for now, lacking the color which the article now has, and color only 
feeds the eye, anyway. 

Senator Warren. You were speakingabout])rotectingthe consumer. 
You have, no doubt, given this so called sabstitnte bill attention. Is 
there anything in that which makes the hotel keeper liable for serving 
it as bntter';? 

Mr. GrROUT. That would be a matter of local regulation. We do not 
attempt to enter into that here; we hardly could do so for want of juris- 
diction. That is a matter for i)olice regulation in the States. The first 
section of the bill gives those laws supreme control, whatever they may 
be, when once enacted. 

Senator Warren. If I understand you, and I am seeking light, your 
criticism of this proposed substitute bill is that, while it would cover 
the family pnrchaser who goes to a grocer and buys a pound or two 
pounds, ii would not cover the great mass of the people, growing greater 
all the time, who eat at restaurants and hotels. It would still be in the 
power of the restaurant keeper and hotel keeper to deceive his guests. 

Mr. Grout. Yes. 

Senator Warren. And there is no way to reach him for imposing 
upon his customers. 

Mr. Grout. Excepting the law which we prescribe in this bill. We 
make it unprofitable for him to buy oleomargarine instead of bntter. 
He now pays for it, say, 12 cents per pound. This lO-cent tax instead 
of 2 would make it cost him at least liO cents per pound, and he would 
buy butter. The bill deals with the snbject fundamentally. 

Senator Warren. If I understand you in doing the best you can in 
this matter, you seek to protect the consumer at the hotel and the res- 
taurant so far as the butter that is brought to him and placed in front 
of him is concerned. All others you allow could be protected with 
other legislation. You do not attempt to reach the use of oleomargarine 
for cooking, etc.! 

Mr. Groi T. That would be beyond our jurisdiction. That is a mat- 
ter of State regulation. The first section of this bill gives the States 
supreme authoritj'. The States may go on and institute just such 
methods in the exercise of their police power as they see tit to rectify 
all those things, and undoubtedly they will do so. 

Senator Warren. But your direct purpose is to feel sure that you 
can reach that much of it'? 

Mr. Grout. We reach the whole of it, sir. We claim we reach the 
wliole business, because this bill will take away all temptation to sell 
it for bntter when we take away the profits by putting such a tax u])on 
it as makes it unprofitable to manufacture colored oleomargarine and 
sell it for butter. Then we take away the dress of butter and correct 
the evil. It may fall short of it, but we believe it will work the result 
desired. 

S. Rep. 2043 37 



578 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

Senator Warren. It makes no difference with the cooking part, of 
course? 

Mr. Grout. ]S"o; we can not in this legislation enter into the minu- 
tiae, as I say, of local regulations. It would be beyond our jurisdiction. 

Senator Money. Then the raising of the tax is of no particular 
imiwrtance in protecting the consumer if it is the color that is the 
most important? 

Mr. Grout. It makes unprofitable the sale of colored oleomargarine, 
and when it is not colored it will have to go for what it is. It matters 
but little whether they do their shortening or cooking with oleomarga- 
rine or hogs' fat or beef tallow. There is mighty little difference 
between them. It is all the same; but when they undertake to make 
the public think they have shortened up with butter, the color is want- 
ing, and they can not carry the deceit to that extent. To that extent 
it will prevent its use in cooking. 

Senator Warren. Could they not add a little of the coloring matter 
in the cooking and thereby deceive the guests! 

Mr. Grout. Possibly they could color it so that they could spread 
your toast with it and make you think it was butter. Possibly they 
might recook and color it in quantities, but no one has suggested that 
that is practicable. But everyone can see that the provisions of this 
substitute bill can be evaded by the retailer, to a certain extent, as 
well as the hotel, restaurant, and boarding-house keeper. All the 
retailer would have to do would be buy, say, 200 pounds of oleo, stamped 
like these specimens and delivered to him in a box like this, take off 
the wrappers, and then, with an ordinary butter cutter, mold, or mallet, 
pound these 2-pound lumps into butter firkins and then sell it out of 
the firkins for butter. How easy; and after he had used the box and 
wrappers to kindle the fire, no vestige of oleo would be left on his prem- 
ises. All this is very easy to do under Mr. Wadsworth's substitute. But 
if you take away the color, as this 10-cent tax will do, the game is up. 

Mr. Jelke. The object of your bill, I understand, is to prevent the 
retail dealer 

Mr. Grout. It is to prevent fraud along the whole line. 

Mr. Jelke. Will you permit me to ask a question? 

Mr. Grout. Certainly. 

Mr. Jelke. It is to prevent a fraud in the sale by the retail dealer 
and to protect the consumer against this fraudulent sale? 

Mr. Grout. Yes. 

Mr. Jelke. Is there anyprovision in the bill preventing the purchase, 
by the retailer, of uncolored oleomargarine on which there is but a quar- 
ter of a cent per pound tax 

Mr. Grout. Oh, no. 

Mr. Jelke. And then coloring the oleomargarine himself and making 
9| cents per pound additional profit? 

Mr. Grout. But he would liave to work it all over and melt it in 
order to work in his color. If he colors the uncolored article, which I 
am told is highly impracticable, he would have to have a caldron, kettle, 
or something of that kind to make that transformation, and it cer- 
tainly could be traced; but see how easily he could take that stuff and 
pound it into a 50 pound butter tub and sell it for butter. Who can 
trace him? Wbo can follow him? He burns up this wooden box and 
wrapper in which it came and there is no way to trace it. 

Mr. Jelke. For your own information, Mr. Grout, I would like to say 
that if this roll of oleomargarine were absolutely white, without spoil- 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 579 

ing tlie brick, I could, without melting it, put a few drops of color in it 
right here in this room and produce just that same thing there. 

Mr. Grout. Diffusing the color throughout the whole mass? 

Mr. Jelke. Yes; by taking a ladle and working it. 

Mr. Grout. Well, the ways of this craft, gentlemen, are past find- 
ing out. 

Mr. Miller. Speaking of the use of butterine by hotels, is it not a 
fact that the contention of your side has been right along that there 
was fraud by the retail dealers'? 

Mr. Grout. Yes, sir, 

Mr. Miller. And is it not a fact that you claim all the fraud has 
been practiced by the retail dealers'? You say two-thirds of the but- 
terine sold goes to hotels. 

Mr. Grout. I say that I am not sure it is two-thirds, but it is a very 
large proportion. 1 did not say it went into the hotels, but the claim 
was that a large portion of it went to purchasers who knew just what 
it was. The hotel man knows just what it is. The restaurant man 
knows just what it is. The lumberman and the mine man know just 
what it is, and so on. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Mr. Chairman, just one suggestion on the police 
regulations of the States. Most all of these States which have oleo- 
margarine legislation and the anticolor law have also the police regu- 
lation that boarding-house keepers, hotel keepers, and restaurant 
keepers shall give notice to the guests of those places that they are 
using oleomargarine, if they are using it, under severe penalties if they 
do not do that. That is one of the easiest regulations to maintain in 
the States, as the dairy bureaus have often told me, because any of 
their men may go to any of those places where it is suspected that 
oleomargarine is used and call for a dinner, and after his oleomargarine 
is served to him, he takes a sample out and analyzes it, and he has the 
man caught, unless he has been personally notified to that effect. So 
that any fraud that exists, or might exist, on the part of the hotel pro- 
prietor or restaurant keeper or boarding-house keeper can be, and is, 
provided for, and this bill would be of no assistance to the States in 
enforcing that legislation. They have ample protection in that line. 

Now, gentlemen, just one word in reply to Mr. Grout's statement. 
He says the larger part of this oleomartiarine is worked off in hotels, 
etc. His statement with reference to that has no better foundation 
than the statement with reference to some other things. His means of 
information are not any better than mine, and I do not believe they 
are as good, because he has not given as much attention to it as I have. 
The greater part of the oleomargarine that is sold in this country is sold 
to men who use it in their families, and who buy it for what it is; and 
fraud does not exist to the extent he claims it exists with reference to 
the hotel keepers, restaurant keepers, and boarding-house keepers, and 
if it did, then the police regulations of the States concerning such places 
are amply sufficient to protect that matter. 

Senator Foster. You say they buy it because they want if? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foster. What effect would it have if it was uncolored? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. They would not have it at all. 

Senator Foster. That is tlie same old question. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. The same old question that has been discussed so 
often. 

Mr. SOHELL. Just one question. I presented here a list of 1,083 con- 
sumers who buy direct from one of my factories. We also — all of us — 



580 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

Lave an export trade. In 32 different States, including Ohio, where 
two of my factories are located, there is a law absolutely prohibiting 
the manufacture or sale of colored oleomargarine. I would like to 
know how, under this bill, my people can manufacture, either on the 
order of these consumers or for the export trade, colored oleomargarine 
at all, since every time they do it they are pleading guilty to a viola- 
tion of the State statute. 

Mr. Grout. That is a question that enters into the secrets of the 
oleo business, and I do not think anybody could answer it. I must con- 
fess 1 do not see myself how there is any plea of guilty to a charge in 
such a case as stated by him. 

The committee (at 11 o'clock and 45 minutes) adjourned, subject to 
call. 



HEARINGS 



BEFORE THE 



COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 



581 



OLEOMARGABIKE. 



House of Eepresentatives, 
Committee on Agriculture, 
Washington, D. €., March 7, 1900, 

ARGUMENT OF W. D. HOARD. 

Whom do we represent? The united dairy sentiment of the nation. 
That means over 5,000,000 farmers, and an annual cash value in their 
product of over $600,000,000. A vast army of consumers of dairy prod- 
ucts, who are constantly duped and swindled by a counterfeit substitute 
for butter. The consumer is defrauded of his money and the dairy 
farmer of his rightful market, the first being compelled to pay a butter 
price for that which is not butter. 

The consumers and producers of butter ask Congress to enact into 
law House bill 3717, which provides by the first section that all coun- 
terfeit substitutes for butter, when taken into any State or Territory, 
shall be subject to the laws of that State or Territory concerning such 
counterfeit, the same as the Wilson law in regard to liquors, enacted, 
I think, in 1891. It was deemed for the public welfare to enact that 
law. We claim it is for the public welfare to place oleomargarine 
under the operation of a similar law. 

Already thirty-two States have laws on their statute books forbid- 
ding the manufacture and sale of fat mixtures when colored and made 
in the semblance of butter. 

The Oleomargarine combine consists of less than twenty manufactur- 
ers, who have entered into a conspiracy to break down these State laws, 
and, by bribing merchants, by deception of all kinds, by subsidizing city 
newspapers, by employing leading politicians, to so neutralize the effect 
and administration of those laws that they may force their counterfeit 
upon the public. These manufacturers are assuming to override all law. 
They stand behind all infractions of State and national laws, and fur- 
nish money for the defense of their agents when arrested. 

On one side stands one of the greatest of our agricultural interests, 
together with the millions of consumers who are tired of being swindled. 

On the other side stands the oleomargarine trust, engaged in manu- 
facturing a counterfeit, depending on lawbreaking, falsehood, and 
deception for its success, backed up with millions of capital. 

The situation is significant, whether viewed from a political, eco- 
nomic, or patriotic standpoint. 

The second section of this bill provides, first, that on all oleomar- 
garine which stands in its own color and not in the semblance of 
butter, on this mixture the present Federal tax shall be reduced to a 
fourth of one cent a pound. The dairy sentiment of the country would 
be willing that the uncolored compound should be relieved of all taxa- 

583 



584 OLEOMARGAKINE. 

tion. The tax as provided in tliebill, however, is trifling and nominal. 
This is done in the spirit of fairness. If there are any i)ersons wlio 
wish to eat tbis mixture in preference to butter, who ask it because 
they are poor, they would then be enabled to buy it for what it is 
worth. They could not be cheated into paying a butter price for some- 
thing that in no honest sense is butter, or like butter. 

The oleo combine and their apologists and defenders have a great 
deal to say about oleomargarine being a cheap food for the ''poor." 
There is consummate hypocrisy in this plea. You will notice that the 
poor people are not making this plea. It is made for the purpose of 
overreaching the poor. 

The friends of this measure are the true friends of the poor, for they 
ask that the force of law and the burden of onerous taxation be turned 
against the counterfeit, while the article which is not colored to deceive 
can have free course. 

What does oleomargarine cost? Armour tS; Co., of Chicago, testified 
before a Federal district court in New York that, with the 2-cent Federal 
tax added, the cost was less than 7 cents a pound. If it was uncolored, 
the poor could buy it for 10 cents, or at most 12 cents a pound. Yet 
T saw the colored article selling in Ashland, Wis., to the poor, for 28 
cents a pound. 

This plea for the poor, by these exploiters of poverty, finds conspic- 
uous parallel in the history of Judas Iscariot. When the women 
annointed the feet of Christ with alabaster ointment, Judas had a 
great deal to say why the ointment was not sold and the money given 
to the poor. Yet I imagine it is not necessary to inform this commit- 
tee that Judas was a traitor to both Clirist and the poor. 

To give added force to the first section of this bill it is also provided 
in the second section that a tax of 10 cents a pound shall be imposed 
on all oleomargarine in the color or semblance of butter. In plain 
words, this is repressive taxation. In 1886 Congress, in response to 
the demand of the people, placed a tax of 2 cents a pound on this 
counterfeit, and exacted heavy license fees for its manufacture and 
sale. 

This was done in the interest of the public welfare. Congress has 
the undoubted right to exercise this power. It has exercised it in the 
tax on State bank circulation, on filled cheese, and adulterated fiour. 
This is a part only of the duty and policy of internal protection. 

It has been found, through the inefficient administration of State 
laws and the powerful influence of this oleomargarine combination, that 
this protection is insufficient. 

The manufacture of the counterfeit has grown from 31,000,000 pounds 
in 1888 to 83,000,000 in 1899, and, be it remembered, 90 per cent of it 
consumed under the supposition that it is butter. 

This product of 1899 would make 1,383,681 60-pound tubs. If placed 
side by side they would reach 3,400 miles; if loaded into farm wagons, 
a full load in each, they would reach 400 miles in length. The output 
equaled the output of 415,650 cows, worth 112,469,500. 

The hoped-for effect of the legislation asked of Congress is not to 
destroy the oleomargarine industry, but to force it over onto its own 
ground; to comj)el it to be made in its own guise and color. Is there 
anything unjust or unreasonable about this*? 

With a tax of 10 cents a pound on the counterfeit substitute, we 
believe the temj)tation for unjust profits, deceptive sale, dishonorable 
and dangerous conspiring against law, and fraudulent competition with 
an honest industry will be greatly modified. 



OLEOMARGAEHTB!. 585 

A great many people ask why it is not as permissible to color oleo- 
ma rs'aiint? as it is to color butter. I would answer because they are 
not colored for the same ])urpose. Butter in winter is too lii^lit to suit 
the taste of most consumers. The highest value is in fresh butter not 
more than ten days old. The consumer asks that it bear the yellow 
summer color of butter. That is a matter of taste, not deception, for 
it is not colored to resemble something it is not. But oleomargarine is 
colored to make it resemble butter, wliich it is not. It is colored, not 
for the benefit or taste of its consumer, but to deceive the consumer. 

Said President Cleveland, in his message approving the oleomarga- 
rine legislation of 1886: 

Not the least important incident relaterl to this legislation is the defense afforded 
to the consumer against the fraudulent substitution and sale of an imitation for a 
genuine article of food of a very general household use. * ^ * I venture to say 
that hardly a pouud ever entered a poor man's house under its real name and in its 
true character. 

The argument still holds good. Congress was then asked to place a 
tax of 10 cents a pound on the counterfeit. Had it done so, the relief 
would, in my opinion, have been ample and sufficient. But it has been 
proved inadequate, and we ask for the passage of this measure in its 
entirety. 

We are met by certain abstractionists with the question, " Would you 
tax one legitimate industry out of existence for the benefit of another?" 
To this I would answer, No. But the oleomargarine business is not con- 
ducted legitimately. It is based, from manufacture to sale, on wrong 
and illegitimate methods. 

We believe Congress has the right, for the sake of public welfare, 
for the sake of sapi)ressiug fraud and deception in any industry, to tax 
its illegitimate outcome burdensomely, and for this reason are the 
farmers and consumers of the country making their wishes known to 
this Congress on this bill. 

Is oleomargarine a healthful food? There is no way to determine 
this question except by actual trial; not for a day, a week, or a month, 
but for several successive months, and not with strong, robust men 
with plenty of outdoor exercise. 

Chemistry can not answer. For example, the chemist will tell you 
that he finds the same elements in swamp peat that are found in the 
grasses and hays that are fed to our cows, and in approximately the 
same proportion. And the chemist is at a loss to determine from the 
standpoint of his science why cattle should not feed on swamp peat. 
Chemistry can not determine whether any particular substance is 
poisonous or not. It must take a stomach to do that. 

There is no credible evidence to show that oleomargarine is innocu- 
ous; no evidence to show that when eaten continuously in i)lace of 
batter it is not harmful. But there are reports in great abundance to 
the ett'ect that oleomargarine is harmful. 

Mr. Edmund Hill, a member of the Somerset County council, Eng- 
land, reports that the great bulk of oleomargarine, or "margarine" as 
it is called there, is eaten in public institutions, convents, schools, etc. 
At the VVells Asylum, with which he is connected, the inmates receive 
oleomargarine. In the asylums of Dorset, Wells, and Hants — the 
adjoining counties — butter is furnished, and the death rate at Wells is 
30 per cent higher. At the Taunton Hospital there were 11 deaths in 
thirteen months. Oleomargarine was substituted, and in nine months 
the deaths rose to 2L*. 

This accords with the experience in France, where its use in hospi- 



586 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

tals is forbidden. In the United States, in institutions for the blind 
and for girls, it has been noticed that the use of oleomargarine lowered 
the vitality of the inmates very perceptibly. 

There is abundant reason for this. The normal heat of the human 
stomach is 98°. Butter melts at 92°, 6° below the heat of the stomach, 
passes into pancreatic emulsion, and digestion. Nature designed this 
fat in its raw state for food. 

Oleomargarine melts at the varying temperature of 102° to 108°, a 
temperature no healthful stomach ever attains. As a consequence, 
this unnatural foreign fat must be expelled by sheer gastric action and 
force. 

Butter fat is found in the milk of all mammals. It is chemically and 
physically unlike any other fat in existence. It was designed by nature 
for the food and sustenance of infant offspring, having the most deli- 
cate of all digestion. Because of tliis most evident purpose and provi- 
sion of nature, butter forms a healthful and important article of food 
in milk, cream, and in its separated state. 

No matter what paid chemists may say, no counterfeit, even in its 
purest state, is wholesome or healthful. 

But there is another phase of this question. There is absolutely no 
protection for the public against most dangerous introduction of posi- 
tively unhealtliful compounds into oleomargarine. 

The Journal of the American Chemical Society and the department of 
agriculture of New York abound in proof of the adulteration of oleo- 
margarine with paraffin, a substance which the strongest acids even 
are unable to affect. There is no reason on earth why the foulest of 
germ-laden fats should not be used in the making of this compound, 
when once they are deodorized by the aid of chemistry. 

But with butter it is different. Any contamination or hurtful manip- 
ulation is instantly shown in a loss of flavor. Butter always advertises 
its condition. 

It should be considered that the distinction proposed in taxation 
against colored oleomargarine will bring no hardship to the consumer 
who may want this article as a cheap, fat substitute for butter. The 
coloring of it adds nothing to its digestibility or food value, if it have 
a food value. The whole proposition is in a nutshell. Force out the 
color or semblance to butter and you put a stop to its being imposed 
on the consumer for butter. In addition you protect this great army 
of producers, the dairymen of the United States, from competition with 
a fraud and counterfeit. 

It is high time that Congress entered upon this work of protection 
of all honest and legitimate industries against the dishonest greed of 
the counterfeiter and adulterator. 

The Dominion of Canada has taken from us nearly all of our once 
magnificient export trade in dairy products. Canada absolutely pro- 
hibits the making of counterfeit butter or cheese. 

Consequently the Dominion stands high among all foreign consumers 
as to the purity and honesty of its foods. 

Our National Government can proceed repressively only in the way 
of taxation. We believe we are right, fair, and just, and in accordance 
with a wise public policy, in asking of the members of this committee 
an earnest support of House bill 3717. 

One of the most preposterous arguments advanced in support of the 
oleomargarine business is that which is unwittingly put in the mouths 
of the beef and hog raisers by the oleo combine. The Nebraska Farmer 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 587 

ot February 15 exposes tlie fallacy of this argument in an able edi- 
torial, from wliicli we quote the following extract: 

The National Live Stock Association, at its recent meeting at Fort Worth, Tex., 
passed a lengthy and stringent resolution condemning proposed oleomargarine leg- 
islation. This resolution, as it appears in the circular letter sent out over the name 
of President Springer, is a remarkable document — remarkable alike for its arraign- 
ment of one class of agriculturists by another and in its disregard for facts in Its 
general narration. 

Some of the false ''statements of fact" in the general narration are as follows: 

"The 'butter fat' of an average beef animal, for the purpose of making oleomar- 
garine, is worth from $3 to $4 per head more than it was before the advent of oleo- 
margarine, when the same had to be used for tallow; which increased value of the 
beef steer has been added to the market value of the animal, and consequently to the 
profit of the producer. To legislate this article of commerce out of existence, as 
the passage of this law would surely do, would compel slaughterers to use this fat 
for tallow, and depreciate the market value of the beef cattle of this country $3 to 
$4 per head, which would entail a loss on the producers of this country of millions 
of dollars, 

"The use of this fat for the purpose set forth is an encouragement to the producer 
to improve his herd and raise a class of grade or thoroughbred cattle capable of mak- 
ing and carrying this fat, rather than the common or scrub animal, which is so hard 
and unprofitable to fatten; and the cattle raiser or producer has come to know the 
value of this product, and that the amount of the increase in the market value of his 
matured animal depends somewhat on the value of the 'butter fat' carried by the 
animal." 

To show the absurdity of the above statements it is only necessary to call atten- 
tion to the fact that every steer or cow butchered by manufacturers ol oleomargarine, 
if good enough to sell for "dressed beef,'^ is sold with the kidney tallow in the 
quarters. This being true, nothingbut the "gut fat " remains in the packinghouse. 

Therefore every oleo manufacturer that ever lived and all his agents are chronic 
liars, if gut fat of beeves and " butter fat" of oleomargarine are one and the same 
thing. More than this, the gut fat of beeves averaged as many pounds per animal 
in 1890 to 1896 as it does in 1900, and there were " workiiigmen and their dependen- 
cies" (we quote from the resolutions) then as now, and oleo sold as a counterfeit 
and substitute for butter then as now, without ayipearing to add materially to the 
"market value of the animal, and consequently to tbeprolit of the producer.' (Cattle- 
men will please take note that swine men claim that they are the people whosuffer- 
from legislation which hampers the sale of bogus butter. Now, what is your " but- 
t er fat" for oleomargarine? Is it gut fat of cattle o» hogs' fat?) 

The next fact of importance in connection with the resolutions is the ignorance 
of cattle breeding shown in the text, therefore the fair presumption that not live- 
stock breeders, but a packing-house attorney, wrote the resolution. We call atten- 
tion to the statement, "The use of this fat for the purpose set forth (making a 
counterfeit of butter) is an encouragement to the producer to improve his herd and 
raise a class of grade or thoroughbred cattle capable of making and carrying this 
fat, rather than the common or scrub animal," etc. 

Every breeder of cattle understands that the value of improved breeds depends 
on the capacity of the improved animal to give a larger proportion of cuts of good 
meat to the rough fat (gut fat or "butter fat," just as you choose), and that the 
chief objection to the scrub steer or dairy-bred steer is the excess of fat, as com- 
pared with meat cuts, due largely to a failure of the scrub animal to carry the sur- 
plus fat among the meat tissue. Hence the falsehood of the assertion that increase 
of rough fat in beeves encourages improved breeding. 

This resolution seems to have been introduced to the stockmen's convention by 
one C. W. Baker, of Illinois, and it seems to be one of those cases where the stock 
men have been trapped into pulling the packing-house chestnuts out of the fire. 

STATEMENT OF CHARLES Y. KNIGHT. 

My business is that of editor of the Chicago Dairy Produce, a pub- 
lication devoted to the dairy and butter business. I have for tlie 
past three years been secretary of the National Dairy Union, an organ- 
ization of farmers who keep cows, and others engaged in pursuits 
allied therewith. This organization at present comprises about 3(),(K)0 
members who are farmers, and they are scattered all over the United 
States. The organization has for its aim the protection of producers 



588 OLEOMARGARINE. 

and consumers of dairy products against fraud, and its officers serve 
absolutely without further compensation than their actual and neces- 
sary expenses incurred in the discharge of their duty. No officer has 
ever received one cent salary, but upon the other hand they have spent 
hundreds of dollars in expenses while working in the interest of the 
cause, for which no account has ever been rendered the organization. 

I have had charge of the work of organization and the collection of 
facts regarding the oleomargarine traffic of this country, and it is the 
enormous illegal and fraudulent growth of the business during the past 
two years, in face of the best restrictive laws the States have been able 
to devise, that has brought us to Congress as a last resort to ask for 
relief. 

THE ORIGINAL OLEOMARGARINE LAW. 

For the information of the committee, all of the members of which 
may not be familiar with the history of national legislation along 
this line, I will state that fourteen years ago, finding the powers of the 
State helpless to cope against the peculiar character of this fraud, the 
dairymen of this country arose en masse and came to Congress for 
relief, feeling that nothing but Congressional action would save their 
business from absolute ruin. They convinced Congress that national 
legislation was necessary, and the result was that numerous measures 
were introduced for their relief. The matter of legislating against a 
counterfeit article, however, was found to be a complex proposition for 
Congress because of the constitutional restrictions which prevent the 
Congress of the United States exercising i)olice powers except for the 
protection of its revenue receipts, interstate commerce, and other mat- 
ters absolutely within the limits of the Constitution, and after months 
of tedious investigation and effort, what is known as the Hatch bill 
was finally originated by the Committee on Agriculture, and brought 
into the House. 

PROVISIONS OF THE HATCH BILL. 

At that time it was thought, as many have become to believ^e since, 
that the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine could not be permitted 
and at the same time protect the i)ublic against fraud. Acting upon 
this theory the government of Canada did and has ever since abso- 
lutely prohibited the traffic in any character or condition and oleomar- 
garine is not permitted to be sold in that country in any way, shape, or 
manner. France, where oleomargarine originated as a necessity during 
the Franco -Prussian war, found it impossible to protect its people 
against fraud, and even its present law forbidding the sale of that 
article in any store or shop where butter is sold is not considered ade- 
quate — a law which would not stand under our Constitution a week 
because of the great scope of liberty afforded under our form of gov- 
ernment. Germany has also ado{)ted the same plan, which has not 
proven satisfactory, and various other measures are being suggested 
in that country. In fact, Denmark, Australia, Eussia, Italy, Spain, 
and every other European, antipodean, and Asiatic country has found 
the same trouble in endeavoring to control this deceitful substitute for 
butter. 

It will therefore be seen that the Agricultural Committee had before 
it a perplexing problem, and one which it seemed to finally despair of 
solving and at the same time permit the article to survive in commerce, 
the result of which was the recommendation of a measure which would 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 589 

have been pretty close to entire prohibition of the entire traffic had it 
been passed as recommended. I simply cite these facts and conditions 
to give the committe* something of an idea of the great provocations 
which existed at that time, as reflected by these recommendations, it 
having been fonnd almost impossible then to secnre butter whose 
purity could be guaranteed, unless it came direct from the farm to the 
consumer. 

RECOMMENDED A TEN-CENT TAX. 

The recommendations of that committee were many, and the outcome 
of their investigations a complete scheme for the taxation and regula- 
tion of oleomargarine through the Internal-Revenue Department, which 
taxation would put the article within the constitutional control of the 
Government and thereby permit the branding requirements which were 
desired at that time to be enforced by the JSTational Government. A 
tax of 10 cents per pound was recommended, regardless of color, by that 
committee. 

EXPECTED LAW TO BE ENFORCED. 

The Agricultural Committee, however, did not then know as much as 
the public knows to-day about the Internal Eevenue Department. It 
was the impression of Congress that when the revenue law required 
every retailer to brand his package sold the consumer, that this, as well 
as all other provisions of the measure would be enforced. It was because 
of the impression that this branding clause alone would give the public 
protection that the 10-cent tax was finally cut down to 5 cents in the 
House and 2 cents in the Senate, the argument being that the 2-cent 
tax would give about revenue enough to i^ermit the revenue depart- 
ment to pay the expenses of enforcing the branding clause. 

WHAT HAS BEEN THE RESULT? 

We have now had about fourteen years of that 2-cent tax. And what 
has been the result? Has the fraudulent sale of oleomargarine ceased ? 
Not at all ! It only required two or three years to develop the fact 
that the Internal Eevenue Department Mas not in sympathy with any 
measure that required the exercise of a police surveillance where rev- 
enue was not absolutely at stake. For instance, the payment of this 
2-cent tax is enforced of the manufacturer when the oleomargarine is 
produced. No package is permitted to go out of the factory until the 
tax has been paid. So far as the article itself is concerned all its lia- 
bilities to the Government are discharged when that 2-cent tax is paid 
and the proper brands and stamps are i)laced upon the original import- 
ers' packages. It then goes to the retailer to sell to consumers, and it 
loses the Government no money if the retailer does not comply with 
the police regulations requiring each package to be marked. There- 
fore there is no incentive for the Government to follow up the matter 
and see to it that the branding clause is complied with. 

The following communication from the dairy commissioner of Wis- 
consin as to the attitude of the Internal Eevenue Department toward 
this feature of the law of 18SG exactly describes the experience of the 
people of Illinois and many other States in this respect. This letter 
has just been received, and is therefore late evidence: 

Chas. Y. Knight, National Hold, Washington, D. C. 

Drau Sir: Some time ago you asked me concerning the enforcement of the Fed- 
eral oleon)argariue law by the inteiiial-re\ euue department in Michigan. I can only 



590 OLEOMAEGAEINB. 

say that my experience covering the last three years as dairy commissioner fortifies 
me in saying that, outside of the collection of the revenue tax, the Federal authori- 
ties in Michigan do absolutely nothing to enforce the national law. I have person- 
ally offered to furnish the proof for violations of the Federal law, hut no steps were 
ever taken to change existing conditions or to punish such violators. It is a fact 
that scarcely a retailer in Michigan conforms to the requirements of the Federal 
law — a condition which has existed, to my certain knowledge, for the past three 
years. 

Very respectfully, Elliott O. Grosvenor, 

Commissioner. 

And I will further quote from a recent interview with Collector 
Coyne, of the city of Chicago, who was visited by a reporter of the Chi- 
cago Record with j)ackages of oleomargarine which he had purchased 
for butter, not stamped according to law. The Kecord said: 

Internal Revenue Collector Coyne's attention was called to these violations of the 
law yesterday and the wrappers exhibited. He said : 

"I am always willing to prosecute violators of the revenue laws, and I am glad to 
have these cases called to my attention. It is uulortunate that 1 have to depend 
ou the public for my information, however. 1 have 19 counties, including Cook, to 
look after, and the 15 deputies I am allowed have about 2,000 special taxpayers 
in their respective districts. These include breweries, saloons, cigar dealers and 
manufacturers, oleomargarine makers and dealers, and many others. The force is 
not large enough for me to watch every retailer — 2,000 men would be required to do 
that. Nor can the deputies make cases by purchasing butter or its substitute, for 
they have no fund for that. 

" Whenever a citizen comes to me and tells me of a case of this kind I am always 
•willing to do my duty as the law sets it forth. I have been accused by both sides 
of leaning toward the other, but neither party is right in making these charges. If 
I am called before the agricultural commission I shall be glad to tell what I know — 
and that is more than I can tell tbe public in my present position. The books of 
this department are not open to the people, but I can assure yon that many violators 
of the oleomargarine laws have suffered." 

This is not intended as a criticism of the department, but is intro- 
duced to show the utter weakness of the law of 1886, and to prove that 
we have grounds for coming again to Congress for relief. 

WHY THE 10-CENT TAX ON COLORED OLEOMARGARINE? 

We expect to show to the satisfaction of Congress that national 
legislation of the character embraced in H. K. 3717, known as the 
Grout bill, with its 10 cent tax provision, is absolutely essential to 
prevent the almost absolute destruction of an industry bringing to 
the agriculturists of this country fully $500,000,000 per year. 

First. Because oleomargarine, when made in exact imitation in pack- 
age and color of butter, is an ideal counterfeit, furnishing a commodity 
which can be readily, and in nine cases out of ten, with safety, palmed 
off upon the known but unskilled consumer as butter at butter prices, 
as oniy a chemical analysis will, with a degreeof certainty necessary in 
evidence, establish the identity of the substitute. 

Second. Because the large profit resulting from the sale of oleomar- 
garine as butter in itself furnishes incentiv^e to practice fraud and 
means of protection iu case of detection, and to day, with the traffic 
aggregating close to 100,000,000 pounds per year, the sum collected 
through the assessment of even a fraction of a cent per pound as a fund 
for defense is sufficiently large, when judiciously expended through 
organized channels, to render prosecutions so expensive that in many 
of the States the courts have scarcely the capacity to handle offenders, 
so numerous have they become under the persistent and aggressive 
solicitation of the wealthy manufacturers. 

Third. Twenty years of experience has demonstrated the fact that 
oleomargarine, colored in semblance of butter, placed iu the hands 



II 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 501 

of a dealer, can be sold at Lis discretion as either oleomargarine or 
butter. He need not be susceptible to detection in fraud so long- as lie 
confines his dealings to known customers, whom he knows will not 
spend days of time upon the witness stand to convict him of a fraud 
small in detail, but enormous in aggregate; therefore, the only sale 
method for preventing these frauds, so enormous in the aggregate, is 
to prevent the article being placed in the hands of the trade in such 
form that it can be used with ijrofit for deceptive purposes. 

Fourth. This policy has been adopted by 32 States, containing, accord- 
ing to the census of 1890, over 50,0()0,0U0 of the 02,000,000 people of 
tbis country, each of which has passed a law absolutely forbidding 
the sale of oleomargarine colored in semblance of yellow butter. These 
laws have been in force in some States for twelve years, and no State 
has ever repealed one. 

Fifth. The laws of all these 32 States are continually and system- 
atically violated, clandestinely in some and in open defiance in others. 
Oleomargarine manufacturers make no pretense of observing State 
laws where the legal machinery for their enforcement is not absolutely 
invincible, and do not hesitate to come before Congress in protest 
against an act which at best would simply give the States the assist- 
ance of the National Government in protecting their people as they 
desire to be protected. 

Sixth. — The oleomargarine manufacturers, while openly professing a 
desire to have their product sold for what it is, secretly sometimes and 
openly at others, urge dealers to sell it for butter, and circumstances 
connect a number of these manufacturers with some of the most gigan- 
tic and widespread swindles ever perpetrated in business affairs. 

Seventh. The only x)ersons who really profit from the sale of yellow 
oleomargarine are those who i)ractice decei^tion in its sale or are the 
beneficiaries of such deception; the color in the article, conflicting with 
State laws, causes the dealer to hesitate to sell it unless the profit is 
sufficiently large to compensate him for the injury likely to accrue to 
his business in case of prosecution. Manufacturers openly assure 
dealers that there is double the profit in the sale of oleomargarine that 
can be had from the sale of butter — which in itself is evidence that 
there must be something peculiar about the trade, and they do not 
hesitate to openly guarantee protection against the efforts of the State 
to enforce the laws. 

Eighth. The present internal-revenue law, enacted in 1886, has 
entirely failed in its purpose. In this act Congress placed a tax of 2 
cents per pound upon oleomargarine, not as a revenue measure for the 
General Government, but to raise sufficient funds with which to enable 
the Government to enforce the clause requiring the branding of every 
package, even to the sale by the retailer to the consumer. Tliis reve- 
nue has been faithfully collected by the Government. But throughout 
the entire country but one exclusive inspector has ever been furnished 
to see to its enforcement by the internal revenue department. Not only 
does the internal revenue department make no effort to carry out the 
intent of the framers of the law, but those who have endeavored to 
secure the enforcement of such clauses requiring branding by the 
retailer have been led to believe that for the purpose of increasing 
revenue the various collectors wink at such violations. The law of 1880 
now does little else than furnish violators of the State laws the defense 
that their business is "under the supervision of the Government, which 
provides a complete system of regulation." 

Ninth. A system of regulation, to be effective, must be one which 



592 OLEOMAEGAKINE. 

can be applied to tlie respousible manufacturer in whatever part of tlie 
country he may be found. Any tax im[)Osed will be collected. Ko 
regulation prescribed will be enforced by the internal-revenue depart- 
ment unless its violation is likely to impair the revenue. The more 
the branding clause of the 188G law is violated the greater the revenue, 
because the oleomargarine pays the tax whether sold for what it is or 
as butter, and more is sold for butter than oleomargarine. A tax of 
10 cents per pound, if levied, would be collected upon all oleomarga- 
rine, colored to resemble butter. The collection of this tax alone would 
accom[)lish the result of taking out of the counterfeit article the large 
profit now held up before the eyes of the retailers as an incentive to 
commit fraud and violate State laws, and, profits on oleomargarine and 
butter being equalized, each would have a fair chance of sale. 

Tenth. The use of the taxing power of the Government to accomplish 
this result would not be the usurpation of the rights of the States to 
regulate their own affairs. It would simply be the cooperation of the 
General Government with the States upon petition of their ]>eople to 
do a thing they had failed to accomplish individually, and enough people, 
through their legislatures, have already adopted the policy of exclud- 
ing yellow oleomargarine to have the moral force of a constitutional 
amendment, 

Eleventh. The claims of damage to the beef-raising, cotton-growing, 
or hog industries is an impudent and easily exploded argument to 
secure the antagonism of the cattle raisers of the North and cotton 
growers of the South to this measure and induce them to rush to the 
defense of a class of manufacturers who, with their records as law- 
breakers, can hardly have standing before a body of law-makers 
representing States whose statutes they are openly ignoring, boldly 
defying, or secretly evading. 

Twelfth. The policy of prohibiting the coloring of oleomargarine in 
imitation of butter has the approval of the highest authority in the 
decision of the United States Supreme Court in Plumley v. Massachu- 
setts (155th W. S.) in which such a law as is now in force in thirty-two 
States was strongly upheld upon the grounds that it was plainly a reg- 
ulation in the interests of honest dealings, and again in Schollenberger 
V. Pennsylvania^lTlst Federal Keport). Such laws have been before the 
supreme courts of many States and never in a single instant has such 
policy been declared contrary to their constitutions. 

Thirteenth. While the questions of healthfulness might be an inter- 
esting one in this connection, we do not feel called upon to permit our- 
selves to be drawn into a controversy which at best would resolve 
itself into the expensive and time consuming confusion of a war of paid 
experts, which ^^ as thoroughly investigated in 18SG by the Agriculture 
Committee, with a result of recommending a 10 cent tax on all oleomar- 
garine, and is now a matter of record easily accessible to all who 
desire to consult it in the files of the Congressional Record. 

All we ask is that the people be protected in the right to choose 
between the two articles. If the makers of oleomargarine can convince 
the public that their product is all they claim for it, we are willing that 
the people thus convinced should be enabled to purchase that article 
If cents i)er pound cheaper than can be done under the present law. 
Our charge is fraud in selling to the people an article they do not 
intend to buy at the price of what they desire to purchase. Because 
an article may be proven to be healthful is no reason why it should be 
permitted to be fraudulently substituted for another. Can the adultcr- 
iJiLion of pepper with corn meal be excused and defended ux)on the, 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 593 

ground that corn meal is a healthful article of food'? What would be 
said of the defense of a butcher who sold horse meat as beefsteak to 
his customer and set up the plea that the horse flesh was as " uutritious 
aud healthful as beefsteak?" 

CONGRESS QUE LAST RESOET. 

We have not appealed to Congress for aid along the line of discour- 
aging the sale of oleomargarine made in semblance of butter until the 
matter of accomplishing the same result through State legislation 
has been thoroughly tested and proven a failure. And this fact we 
believe to be our strongest argument in favor of Congressional action. 

The various States have tried all kinds of legislation. The attempt 
to control the actions of the retailer with a counterfeit article in his 
hands has been abandoned by practically every one of the leading States. 
Today thirty-two States, with four-fifths (50,117,440) of the population, 
according to the census of 1890, have passed laws absolutely prohibiting 
tlie sale of oleomargarine made in imitation of butter. This issue has 
been fought out in the legislatures of these various States, and these 
measures have received the stamp of approval of their law-making 
bodies and the indorsement of their governors. 

The following compilation of the substance of the dairy laws of the 
United States was published by the Agricultural Department under 
tlie seal of Secretary Wilson a year ago, and copies of the laws in full 
may be had from the Secretary of Agriculture: 

ALABAMA— AN TICOLOR LAW. 

(Approved February 18, 1895.) 

No article which is in imitation of pure yellow butter, and is not made wholly 
from pure milk aud cream, shall be manufactured, sold, or used in any public eating 
place, hospital, or penal institution, etc. ; but oleomargarine, free from color or 
other ingredient lo cause it to look like butter, aud made in such manner as will 
advise the consumer of its real character, is permitted. It must be stamped with 
its name. 

ARIZONA. 

No dairy laws. 

AKKANSAS— MUST BE LABELED. 

(Approved April 2. 1885.) 

Substitutes for butter, whether in wholesale or retail packages, shall be plainly 
labeled "Adulterated butter," "Oleomargarine," or such other names as shall prop- 
erly describe tlieui. In hotels, etc., dishes contaiuing said articles must be plainly 
marked in same manner. 

CALIFORNIA — ANTICOLOR LAW. 

(Approved March 4, 1897.) 

Imitation butter and cheese is defined as any article not produced from pure milk 
or cream, salt, rennet, and harmless coloring matter, which is in semblance of butter 
or cheese and designed as a substitute for such. Shall not be colored to imitate 
butter or cheese, and must be iu such form as will advise consumer of its real char- 
acter. Every package must be plainly marked "Substitute for butter" or "Sub- 
stitute for cheese" and accompanied by a statement giving name of manufacturer, 
ingredients, etc., a copy of which must be given to each purchaser, with verbal 
notice, at the time of sale, in connection with which words like "creamery," "dairy,"' 
etc., are prohibited. Patrons of eating places shall be notified if substitute of 
butter or cheese are used. Prohibited iu State charitable institutions. 

S. Rep. 2043 38 



594 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

COLORADO — ANTICOLOR LAW. 

(Approved April 1, 1895.) 

All articles not produced from pure milk or cream, in imitation of pure cheese or 
yellow butter, are prohibited; but oleomargarine and filled cheese are permitted if 
free from color or other ingredient to cause them to look lite butter or cheese ; they 
must be made in such form and sold in such manner as will advise the consumer of 
their real character. Cheese containing any foreign fats, oleaginous Bubstauces, 
rancid butter, etc., shall be branded "Imitation cheese." 

CONNECTICUT— ANTI-COLOR LAW. 

(Public Acts, 1895.) 

Imitation bntter, defined as any article resembling butter in appearance and not 
made wholly, salt and coloring matter excepted, from cow's milk, is prohibited; 
but oleomargarine or imitation butter, free from color or other ingredient to cause 
it to look like butter, and made in such form and sold in such manner as m ill advise 
consumer of its real character, is permitted. Words like "butter," "dairy," etc., 
shall not form a part of its name or appear on its package. Imitation butter shall 
be sold only in labeled packages, or registered places which display signs, and pur- 
chasers shall be informed orally of the character of the article at the time of sale. 
Use of imitation butter in public eating places, bakeries, etc., must be made known 
by signs. 

DELAWARE— ANTICOLOR LAW. 

(Passed May 8, 1895.) 

The manufactnre or sale of any article not produced from unadulterated milk or 
cream, which is in imitation of pure yellow butter or designed to take the place of 
pure cheese, ia prohibited ; but oleomargarine is permitted if in a distinct form, free 
from butter color and sold in such manner as to show its real character; it shall be 
plainly marked "Oleomargarine." 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA— BRANDING LAW. 

(Approved March 2, 1895.) 

Substances in semblance of butter or cheese, not made exclusively of milk or 
cream, but with the addition of melted butter or any oil, shall be plainly branded 
on each package "Oleomargarine," and a label, similarly printed, must accompany 
each retail sale. 

FLORIDA — MUST NOTIFY GUESTS. 

(Approved February 17, 1881.) 

The sale of any spnrions preparation, purporting to be butter, is prohibited. 
Guests at hotels, etc., must be notified if oleomargarine or other spurious butter is 
used. 

GEORGIA — ANTICOLOR LAW. 

(Approved December 16, 1895.) 

Imitation butter and cheese are defined as any article not produced from pure 
milk or cream — salt, rennet, and coloring matter excepted — in semblance of butter or 
cheese and designed to be used as a substitute for either. Shall not be colored to 
resemble butter or cheese. Every package must be plainly marked " Substitute for 
butter" or "Substitute for cheese," and each sale shall be accompanied by verbal 
notice and by a printed statement that the article is an imitation, the statement 
giving also the name of the producer. The use of these imitations in eating places, 
bakeries, etc., must be made known by signs. 

IDAHO— BRANDING REQUIRED. 

(Approved January 27, 1885.) 

Brand required for sale of oleomargarine or butteriue, imitation butter, or mixture 
imitating butter. These shall not be sold as butter. 



595 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 

ILLINOIS— ANTICOLOR LAW. 

(Approved June 14, 1897.) 

Imitation butter is defined as any article not jiroduced from pure milk or crenm — 
salt, rennet, and colorino^ matter excepted — in semblance of butter and designed to 
be used as a substitute for it. Shall not be colored to resemble butter. All packages 
must be plainly branded "Oleomargarine," "Butterine," "Substitute for butter," or 
"Imitation butter." Each sale shall be accompanied by notice to the purchaser that 
the substitute is imitation butter. 

INDIANA — LABEL LAW. 

Butter other than that made from pure milk, when sold or used in hotels, etc., 
must be plainly labeled "Oleomargarine." 

IOWA— ANTICOLOR LAW. 

(Passed in 1893.) 

Imitation butter or cheese is defined as an article not produced from pure milk or 
cream — salt, rennet, and coloring matter excepted — in semblance of butter or cheese 
and designed to be sold as a substitute for either of them. Shall not be colored to 
resemble butter or cheese. Every package shall be plainly marked " Substitute for 
butter" or "Substitute for cheese," and each sale shall be accompanied by a verbal 
notice and a printed statement that the article is an imitation, the statement giving 
also the address of the maimer. The use of these imitations in hotels, bakeries, etc., 
must be made known by signs. 

KANSAS. 

No law. 

KENTUCKY— ANTICOLOR LAW. 

(Act of 1898.) 

Oleomargarine, 'butterine, or kindred compound, made in snch form and sold in 
such manner as will advise the customer of its real character, and free from color or 
other ingredient to cause it to look like butter, is permitted. 

LOUISIANA — LABEL LAW. 

(Approved Jnly 6, 1888.) 

Such substances as oleomargarine, butterine, bogus butter, etc., shall be plainly 
labeled to indicate their composition. They shall not be sold as butter. 

MAINE — ANTICOLOR LAW. 

(Approved March 27, 1895.) 

Any article in imitation of yellow butter or cheese and not made exclusively of 
milk or cream is prohibited. 

MARYLAND— ANTICOLOR LAW. 

(Passed in 1888.) 

The manufacture, sale, or use in public eating places of any article in imitation 
of and designed to talve the place of pure butter or cheese, and not made wholly from 
milk or cream, is prohibited. Mixtures of any animal fats or animal or vegetable 
oik with milk, cream, or butter shall be unrolored, and marked with names and 
percentages of adulterants, and this informal ion shall be given to purchasers. 

MASSACHUSETTS — ANTICOLOR LAW. 

(Approved June^ll, 1891.) 

An article made wholly or partly out of any fat or oil, etc., not from pure cream, 
and which is in imitation of yellow butter, is prohibited; but oleomargarine, free 
from color or other ingredient to cause it to look like butter, and made in such 
form and sold in such manner as will advise the consumer of its real character, is 



596 OLEOMARGAKIlSrE. 

permitted. It shall not be sold as butter, nor shall words like " dairy," "creamery," 
etc., or the name of any breed of dairy cattle, be used in couuection with it. All 
packages exposed for sale must be plainly marked " Oleomargarine," and labels 
similarly marked must accompany retail sales. Stores where it is sold and wagons 
used for delivery must display signs, and hotels, etc., using it must notify guests. 
Persons selling oleomargarine must be registered and conveyors licensed. 

MICHIGAN — ANTICOLOR LAW. 

(Approved April 15, 1897.) 

Any article not made wholly from milk or cream, and containing melted butter, 
fats, or oils not produced from milk, and which is in imitation of pure butter, is 
prohibited ; but oleomargarine, free from color or any ingredient to cause it to look 
like butter, and made in such form and sold in such manner as will advise the con- 
sumer of its real character is permitted; its sale as butter is prohibited; signs must 
be displayed where it is sold or used, and its original packages must be pbiiitly 
marked " Oleomargarine" if the article contains suet or tallow, or "Butterine" if 
it contains lard ; retail sales shall be made from a package so marked, and a label 
similarly printed and bearing the name of the manufacturer shall be delivered with 
each sale; shall not be used in any public institution. (N. B. — The above law was 
invalidated in 1897 by tlie sui)reme court because of the fact that the enacting clause 
was omitted when it passed the senate.) 

MINNESOTA — ANTICOLOR LAW. 

(Approved 1899.) 

This law prohibits the sale of oleomargarine made in imitation of butter, and 
took the place of the pink law of 1891. 

MISSISSIPPI — LABEL LAW. 
(Approved March 9, 1882.) 

Packages of oleomargarine or similarly manufactured butters shall be plainly 
labeled with the correct name of their contents, and the product shall be sold by 
that name. A privilege tax of $5 is imposed upon persons selling the articles named. 

MISSOURI — ANTICOLOR LAW. 

(Approved April 19, 1895.) 

Imitation butter is defined as every article not produced wholly from pure milk 
or cream, made in semblance of and designed to be used as a substitute for pure 
butter; it shall not be sold as butter; shall not be colored to resemble butter unless 
it is to be sold outside the State; original packa'jjes shall be plainly stamped "Sub- 
stitute for butter;" in hotels, etc., vessels in which it is served must be marked 
"Oleomargarine" or "Impure butter." 

MONTANA — TAXED 10 CENTS A POUND. 
(Penal code of 1895.) 

Any article in semblance of butter or cheese, and not made wholly from milk or 
cream must be plainly labeled " 01eomargarine"or "Imitation cheese," and a printed 
label bearing the same word or words must be delivered to the purchaser with retail 
sales. Places where these articles are sold or used must (lis])l:iy signs, and informa- 
tion as to their character be given if requested. Dealers must pay a license of 10 
cents a pound on each pound sold. 

NEVADA — BRANDING LAW. 
(Approved Feb. 14, 1881.) 

Any article in semblance of butter but not made exclusively of milk or cream, or 
containing melted butter, shall be in packages plainly marked "Oleomargarine." 

NEBRASKA — ANTICOLOR LAW. 

(Approved March 16, 1895. ) 

Imitation butter and cheese are defined as any article made in semblance of and 
designed to be used as a substitute for pure butter or cheese and not produced 



OLEOMARGARINE. 597 

wholly from pure milk or cream, salt, rennet, and harmless coloring matter. These 
artitlejs, including any having melted butter added to them, shall not be eolored to 
resemble butter or cheese; shall be plainly marked "Imitation butter," or "Imita- 
tion cheese;" verbal and printed information of the character of the articles, and 
address of the maker, shall be given at time of sale; signs shall be displayed in 
public eating places where used. 

NEW HAMPSHIRE — ANTICOLOR LAW. 

(Approved March 29, 1895.) 

Any article not made wholly from unadulterated milk or cream, which is in imita- 
tion of pure yellow butter or cheese, is prohibited, unless in packages plainly marked 
"Adulterated butter," "Oleomargarine," or "Imitation cheese." A label printed 
with the words on the original package shall be delivered with each retail sale. 
Oleomargarine, free from color or ingredient to cause it to look like butter, and made 
in such form and sold in such manner as will advise the consumer of its real charac- 
ter, is permitted. Notice of the use of substitutes for butter in hotels, etc., stall be 
given to patrons. 

NEW JERSEY — ANTICOLOR LAW. 

(Approved Maxch 22, 1886.) 

Any article made wholly or partly out of any fat, oil, etc., not from pure milk or 
cream, artificially colored in imitation of pure yellow butter, is prohibited ; but 
oleomargarine and imitation cheese are permitted, if free from artificial color and in 
original package, encircled by a. wide black band bearing the name of the maker 
and having the name of the contents plainly branded on them with a hot iron. 
Ketail sales shall be accompanied by a printed card on which the name of the sub- 
stance and the address of the maker are plainly printed, and the customer shall be 
orally informed, of the character of the article at the time of sale. 

NEW MEXICO. 

No law. 

NEW YORK — ANTICOLOR LAW. 

(Approved April 10, 1893.) 

The terms oleomargarine, butterine, imitation butter, or imitation cheese mean 
any article in the semblance of butter or cheese not the usual product of the dairy 
and not made exclusively from unadulterated milk, or having any oil, lard, melted 
butter, etc., as a component part. Imitation butter. — The manufacture of oleomarga- 
rine or any article in imitation of butter wholly or partly from fats or oils not pro- 
duced from milk, or the sale or the use in hotels, etc., of such articles, is prohibited. 
No article intended as an imitation of butter and containing oils, fats, etc., not from 
milk, or melted butter in any condition, shall be colored yellow. 

NORTH CAROLINA — LABOR LAW. 

(Ratified February 28, 1895.) 

Oleomargarine and butterine are defined as articles manufactured in imitation of 
butter, and which are composed of no ingredient or ingredients in combination with 
butter. Original packages shall be labeled with chemical ingredients and their 
proportions. 

NORTH DAKOTA — ANTICOLOR LAW. 

(Laws of 1899.) 

Law prohibits manufacture and sale of oleomargarine colored in semblance ol 
butter. 

OHIO— ANTICOLOR LAW. 

(Approved May 16, 189-t.) 

Oleomargarine is defined as any substance not pure butter of not less than 80 per 
cent butter fat and made for use as butter. It is permitted if free from coloring mat- 
ter or other ingredient to cause it to look like butter, and made in such form and 
sold in such manner as will advise the consumer of its real character. 



598 oleomargaei]s:e. 

OKLAHOMA. 

No laws. 

OREGON — ANTICOLOR LAW. 
(Filed February 21, 1899.) 
Forbids the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine colored in somLlaiice of butter. 

PENNSYLVANLl — ANTICOLOR LAW. 
(Passed in 1899.) 
Prohibits manufacture and sale of oleomargarine made in semblance of butter. 

RHODE ISLAND — BEANDING LAW. 

(Laws of 1882.) 

Any article not made wholly from milk or cream, but containing any melted butter 
or animal oil or fat not the product of milk, shall be plainly marked "Oleomarga- 
rine," aud a label similarly printed shall be delivered with all retail sales. 

SOUTH CAROLINA — ANTICOLOR LAW. 

(Approved March 9, 1896.) 

Imitation butter and cheese are defined as every article not produced from pure 
milk or cream, with or without salt, rennet, and harmless coloring matter, which is 
in semblance of, and designed to be used, as a substitute for butter or cheese; they 
shall not be colored to resemble butter or cheese; original packages shall be marked 
"Substitute for butter," or "Substitute for cheese;" shall not be sold as genuine 
butter or cheese, nor used in hotels, etc., unless signs are displayed. 

SOUTH DAKOTA— ANTICOLOR LAW. 

(Laws of 1897.) 

Any article not made wholly from pure milk or cream, and in imitation of pure 
butter, is prohibited; but oleomargarine, colored pink aud made in such foim aud 
sold in such manner as will advise the consumer of its real character, is permitted; 
notice of its use in public eating places must be given. 

TENNESSEE — ANTICOLOR LAW. 

|( Act of 1895.) 

Any article which is in imitation of yellow butter and not made exclusively from 
pure milk or cream is prohibited; but oleomargarine, free from color or other 
ingredient to cause it to look like butter, and made in such form and sold in such 
manner hs will advise the cousumer of its true character, aud other imitations if 
uncolored and labeled with their correct names are permitted; wholesale packages 
shall be plainly labeled and a label shall accompany retail sales. 

TEXAS. 

No law. 

UTAH— ANTICOLOR LAW. 

(Approved March_8, 1894.) 

Any article in semblance of butter or cheese, aud not made wholly from milk or 
cream, shall be plainly marked " Oleomargarine butter," or " Imitation cheese," aud 
retail sales shall be made from packages so marked. Such articles shall nut be col- 
ored to resemble butter or cheese. 

VERMONT— riNK LAW. 
(Laws of.l884.) 

The manufacture of any article in imitation of butter or cheese which contains 
any animal fat, or auimal or vegetable oils or acids not produced from pure milk or 
cream, is prohibited. 

Imitation butter. — Imitation butter for use in public eating places, or for sale, shall 
be colored pink. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 599 

VIRGINIA— ANTICOI-OR LAW. 

(Approved January 29, 1898.) 

The manufacture or sale of any article made wholly or partly from any fat or 
oil not produced from unadulterated milk or cream, which is in imitation of pure 
yellow butter, is prohibited; but oleomargarine, butterine, or kindred compound, 
made in such form and sold in such mauner as will advise the consumer of its real 
character, and free from color or other ingredient to cause it to look like butter, is 
permitted. Signs, with the words " Imitation butter used here," shall be displayed 
in eating places, bakeries, etc., where the articles above named are used. 

WASHINGTON— ANTICOLOB LAW. 

(Approved March 11, 1895.) 

No article which is in imitation of pure yellow butter and is not made wholly 
from pure milk or creiuu, with or without harmless coloring matter, shall be manu- 
factured, sold, or used in any public eating house or eleemosynary or penal institu- 
tion, etc., but oleomargarine, free from color or other ingredient to make it look 
like butter, and made in such form and sold in such manner as will advise the 
consumer of its real character, is permitted. 

WEST VIRGINIA— PINK LAW. 
(Approved Febraary 16, 1891.) 

Any substance in semblance of butter or cheese, and not made wholly from impure 
milk or cream, and packages containing such substances, shall be plainly marked; 
printed statements explaining the character of the substance must be given to 
•ousumers. 

Oleomargarine. — Oleomargarine and artificial and adulterated butter shall be 
colored pink. 

WISCONSIN— ANTICOLOR lAW. 

(Laws of 1895.) 

Any article made partly or wholly out of any fat or oil, etc., not from pure milk or 
cream, and in imitation of yellow butter, is prohibited ; but oleomargarine, free 
from color or other ingredient to make it look like butter, and made in such form 
and sold in such manner as will advise the consumer of its real character, is permit- 
ted. It shall not be sold as butter. All packages exposed for sale must be plaiuly 
marked "Oleomargarine." Signs must be displayed in selliug places and on wagons. 
Hotels, etc., using it must notify guests. Use not permitted in charitable or penal 
institutions. 

WYOMING. 

No dairy laws. 

STATES WITH ANTIOOLOR LAWS. 

The population of the States which have passed laws forbidding the 
sale of oleomargarine colored in semblance of butter, as shown by the 
census of 1890, is as follows : 

Population. I Population. 

New York 5,997,853 South Carolina 1,151,149 

Pennsylvania 5,228,014 ! Nebraska 1,058,910 

Illinois 3,826,351 Maryland 1,042,390 

Ohio 3,672,316 I West Virginia 762,794 

Missouri 2,679,184 Connecticut 746,253 

Massachusetts 2,238,943 ' Maine 661,086 

Michigan 2,093,889 Colorado 412,198 

Iowa 1,911,896 New Hampshire 376,530 

Kentucky 1,858,635 Washington 349,390 



Georgia 1,837,353 

Tennessee 1,766,518 

Wisconsin 1,686,880 



Oregon 313,767 

Vermont 332,442 

South Dakota 328,808 



Virginia 1,655,980 Utah 207,905 

ALibauia 1,513,017 North Dakota 182,711 

New Jersev 1,444,933 I Delaware 168,493 

Minnesota' 1, 301, 826 | 

CaUfor.ia 1,208,130 | Total 50,117,440 



000 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 



The States and Territories which have not passed laws forbidding the 
sale of oleomargarine colored in semblance of butter are : 



Population. 

Texas 2,235,523 

Indiana 2,192,404 

North Carolina 1,617,947 

Kansas 1,427,096 

Mississippi 1,289,700 

Arkansas 1, 128, 179 

Louisiana 1, 118,587 

Florida 321,422 

Rhode Island 345,506 

District of Columbia 230, 392 



New Mexico. 

Montana 

Idaho 

Oklahoma... 
Wyoming . . . 

Arizona 

Nevada 



Population. 
153, 593 
132, 156 
84, 385 
61,834 
60, 705 
59, 620 
45, 761 



Total 12,604,790 



MAKE NO PRETENSE OF OBEYING STATE LAWS. 



"Why." you will ask, "if you have State laws in these States do you 
need national legislation?" 

As far back as 1880, when this matter first came before Congress, the 
States had learned of the impo.-^sibility of controlling this traffic through 
State laws. The article oleomargarine when made in semblance of but- 
ter is an absolute counterfeit. The dealer himself could not distinguish 
one from the other should they lose their labels. The retailer carries 
the butter and oleomargarine in the same refrigerator. When butter is 
called for by a customer whom he knows is not likely to be an inspec- 
tor, he can with little fear of detection take the order from the oleo- 
margarine tub instead of the butter tub. Maybe the t^trange or 
uncertain customer will receive pure butter, if he desires to take no 
chances, but upon those of whom he feels certain are not detectives he 
can practice deception day in and day out with little chance of detec- 
tion, and in case of detection it is a very easy matter to plead uninten- 
tional mistake, and thus at least allay the wrath of the customer, who 
has no desire to appear from time to time in court in order to punish 
the dealer for an offense which alone seems insignificant. Then, aside 
from this condition, the former laws gave no protection to the guest of 
the hotel, restaurant, or boarding house, who asks and pays for pure 
butter and is given a counterfeit. 

It was such a condition which provoked the States to an absolute 
prohibition of the traffic in colored oleomargarine. This was not done 
until every effort had been made to enforce the branding laws, and 
until it was demonstrated that the Internal Revenue Department was 
giving no attention to that clause in the national law requiring the 
retailer to brand every package of oleomargarine plainly. 

For a few years these laws forbidding the coloring of oleomargarine 
in semblance of butter were effective. However, they demonstrated to 
to the oleomargarine makers one fact, which the majority probably 
knew before: The success of the oleomargarine business had rested 
wholly upon the ability of the seller to sell at least a portion of the 
goods he handled as butter at butter prices, and upon the success of 
the hotel and restaurant keepers to make their patrons believe they 
were consuming butter. If they were not allowed to color their grease 
in such imitation, and its identity was made known through such lack 
of color, the opportunity for deception and large profits were entirely 
wiped out. The man who really desired oleomargarine insisted upon 
buying it upon the basis of values of tallow, lard, and cotton-seed oil 
instead of paying butter prices. This would result in a business with 



OLEOMARGARINE. 601 

only moderate profits, witli an opportunity for broad competition, which 
seemed small compared with former profits and prices. 

Tbe outcome has been a new policy upon the part of the makers of 
oleomargarine. No place in the country, so far as we are able to ascer- 
tain, are they making an effort to create a market for their goods 
under its own true color and in accordance with State laws. In Illinois 
two years ago, when the anticolor law was first passed and some retail 
dealers made an effort to sell the uncolored article in compliance with 
the law, they were discouraged by an extra charge of 2 cents per 
pound for oleomargarine without coloring in it. It was at this time 
that the firm of Armour & Co.. of Chicago, through the decision of 
Phili]) D. Armour, retired from this business entirely and has not since 
handled a pound of oleomargarine, Mr. Armour giving it out that he 
was a law abiding citizen and would not countenance the violation of 
the laws of his own State. 

The remaining manufacturers, however, throughout the country, 
entirely abandoned any pretense of obeying State laws. They adopted 
the policy of going to the retail dealers and urging them to violate the 
laws of their State. They provide for a defense fund, and whenever 
l)rosecutions are made those prosecuted are defended by the best of 
legal talent, attorneys who have made a study of the question of 
harassing the State and securing continuances or dismissals through 
legal technicalities. The ordinary State's attorney can not cope with 
these experienced practitioners upon this subject, as a rule, and never 
is money spared to make the prosecution as expensive to the State and 
as disagreeable to those connected therewith as possible. 

Therefore, in attempting to enforce its laws the State is not dealing 
with the retailer, who, if unsupported, would remain a law-abiding 
citizen. Upon the other hand, every time an arrest is made the fight 
is taken up by the entire oleomargarine industry, with its millions of 
money and enormous influence among a certain class of politicians who 
at times manage to reach the sacred ear of the judge who presides in 
the case. 

The prosecution of such offenders requires the very highest grade of 
talent, and their conviction exiierience and a statute which will stand 
the onslaught of the most resourceful lawyers. A law may have 
answered for years in regulating other evils, but when contested by 
such ability as is employed by the oleomargarine millions, might be 
picked to pieces and rendered absolutely worthless through the manip- 
ulations and researches of the experienced tricksters. No technical- 
ity is too small for them to take advantage of and make the prosecu- 
tion the expense of a test case in the Supreme Court. 

However, the actual condition of the oleomargarine traffic as it 
exists to-day is probably the best indication of the inability of the 
States to enforce their laws against this subject. 

The oleomargarine makers contend that the people will not eat their 
product unless it has the color of butter. They will not admit that it 
is possible to sell any quantity uncolored. Therefore it is entirely safe 
to assume that the oleomargarine made during the fiscal year ending 
June 30, 1899, was made in semblance of butter almost to a pound. 
The statement of Secretary Gage in response to Congressman Tawney's 
resolution showed where the product of this year had been consumed. 

The table below exhibits the number of pounds sold in each State as 
shown by Secretary Gage's report, the compiler hereof having divided 
the list into two classes; first, showing the amount sold in States 



^02 



OLEOMARGARINE. 



where the sale of oleomargarine made in semblance of butter is abso- 
lutely prohibited, and, second, the States in which it was legal to sell 
such oleomargarine: 

Yellow oleomargarine sold contrary to law in 1899. 



Alabama 

Culiforiiia 

Colorado 

Connecticut 

Delaware 

Georgia 

Illinois 

Iowa 

Kentucky 

Maine 

Maryland 

Massachusetts .. 

Minnesota 

Missouri 

Nebraska 

New Hampshire 
New Jersey 



Number 
of dealers. 



21 



95 
5 

48 

61 

2,020 

3 

217 
17 
58 

108 
30 

231 
73 
19 

296 



Quantity 
sold. 



Pounds. 

226, 053 

74, 923 

1, 123, 5.37 

1.34, 255 

40, 475 

495, 004 

18, 638, 921 

79, 922 

1, 490, 577 

102, 274 

1,791,950 

2, 083, 889 

1, 343, 865 

3, 133, 313 

1,024,985 

445, 583 

5, 875, 976 



New York 

North Dakota . . 

Ohio 

Oregon 

Pennsylvania . . 
South Carolina . 
South Dakota . . 

Tennessee 

Utah 

Vermont 

Virginia 

Washington 

West Virginia . 
Wisconsin 



Total. 



Number 
of dealers. 



14 

18 

1,005 

3 

717 

24 

4 

83 



1 
121 

5 
172 
23 



5,492 



Quantity 
sold. 



Pounds. 

222, 788 

7,710 

8, 830, 969 

41, 250 

11,433,341 

258, 159 

55, 432 

714, 640 

8,450 

2,990 

1, 159, 400 

63. 345 

1, 206, 865 

714, 742 



62, 825, 582 



Oleomargarine sold in States where legal to color. 



Alaska 

Arkansas 

Arizona 

District of Coliuiibia 

I'lorida 

Idaho 

Indiana 

Indian Territory 

Kansas 

Louisiana 

Michigan 



Number 
of dealers. 



5 

35 

5 

61 

82 

3 

306 

21 
186 
140 
109 



Quantity 
sold. 



Pounds. 

18, 080 

380, 389 

78, 707 

816, 848 

590, 225 

58, 224 

3, 923, 228 

152, 278 

1, 658, 544 

1, 043, 502 

2, 092, 521 



Mississippi 

Montana 

Nevada 

New Mexico . . . 
North Carolina. 

Oklahoma 

Rhode Island . . 

Texas 

Wyoming 



Total. 



Number 
of dealers, 



17 



12 
9 
10 
333 
162 
5 



Quantity 
sold. 



Pounds. 

104, 622 

446, 022 

625 

115, 850 

110, 224 

117, 398 

3, 594, 984 

1, 518, 264 

39, 547 



1,501 16,860,142 



Thus it will be seen that 62,825,582 of the total of 79,685,724 pounds 
reported shipped into the various States were sold in violation of the 
laws of the various States. There were but 16,860,142 pounds sold 
legally, and a very large percentage of that was unquestionably sold 
as butter. 

We feel, therefore, that in setting forth the above facts and condi- 
tions we are basing our appeal upon evidence which is unimpeachable. 
The record of the existence of these anticolor laws for years in the 
various States without a single repeal or demand for repeal by the 
actual consumer is evidence that the people are not anxious for oleo- 
margarine colored in semblance of butter. The expansion of the traffic 
the past two years has not been the result of the demand of the people 
for oleomargarine, but is the result of the greed for profit which has 
induced retailers by the thousands to risk prosecution, with a guar- 
anty of protection, in order to secure the large profits in the sale of 
oleomargarine for butter. 

Is it right, therefore, that the will of four-fifths of our people, as 
reflected by their legislatures, should be defied by a few manufac- 
turers of an outlawed article? When an expression of four-fifths of our 
people favors this ijolicy of discouraging the manufacture of colored 



OLEOMARGARINE. 603 

oleomar^ariTie, and no protests come from the actual consumers among 
the reiniiining one fifth, sliould Congress hesitate to accept it as prac- 
tically the unanimous wish of the ])eople that everything possible be 
done to discourage this fraud by whatever means in its i)ower? 

Possibly the most comprehensive way in which to get at the merits 
of our case is to answer the objections to the imposition of a ten-cent 
internal-revenue tax upon oleomargarine colored to resemble butter, 
as urged by Swift & Co., of Chicago, one of the leading manufac- 
turers of that article, who are now doing business in the State of 
Illinois in contravention and defiance of a State law passed with a two- 
thirds majority by the Illinois legislature in 1897. Swift & Co. say, in 
a letter mailed every member of Congress under date of January 27, 
1900; 

THE MAGNITUDE OF THE INDUSTRY. 

" First. Oleomargarine has been manufactured in this country for 
about twenty-five years, and in its manufacture there is now invested 
more than $15,000,000, furnishing employment to many thousand men. 
The wholesale and retail sale and delivery of oleomargarine furnish 
employment to 25,000 men. There is probably $15,000,000 to $20,000,000 
invested in the wholesale and retail trade, separate and apart from the 
manufacture of the article." 

Here, as well as in every other effort to influence Congress by hold- 
ing up to public gaze the "enormous proportions" of the oleomarga- 
rine industry, Swift & Co. have evidently included in what they term 
the "manufacture of oleomargarine" the neutral lard and oleo oil 
industry, which will be treated thoroughly under the department 
devoted to the effect of the Grout bill upon the live-stock interests. 

It is a well-known fact that Messrs. Braun & Fitts and William J, 
Moxley, of Chicago, produce almost if not quite one-third of all the 
oleomargarine manufactured in the United States. The combined 
extreme rating of these firms by Dun is $400,000. "While we do not 
doubt that their resources, from profits earned during the past few years, 
is greatly in excess of this amount, anybody who is acquainted with 
their establishments can readily realize that the rating, so far as money 
actually invested is concerned, is amply liberal. If it took an investment 
of $400,000 to produce one-third of the oleomargarine made in this 
country — not the oleo oil and neutral lard — then their estimate of 
$15,000,000 as the amount invested in the oleomargarine manufacturing 
business is more than twelve times too high. 

SOME ABSURD FIGURES. 

Just contemplate, if you please, the statement of Swift & Co. that 
"there is now more than $15,000,000" invested in the manufacture of 
oleomargarine, "employing many thousand peojile." 

And "the wholesale and retail sale and delivery of oleomargarine 
furnish employment to 20,000 men." Also that "there is probably 
$15,000,000 to $20,000,000 invested in the wholesale and retail trade 
separate and apart from the manufacture of the article." 

If this is true, let us sum up the total cost of handling this product 
of 83,000 pounds made in 1898-99, according to the statement of Swift 
& Co. as to the number of people employed outside of those in the 



604 OLEOMARGARINE. 

factories, and tlie interest upon the capital whicli tliey claim to be in- 
vested : 

Six per cent on $20,000,000 claimed to be invested by wholesale and retail 
dealers $1,200,000 

Six per ceut upon the $15,000,0(.)0 capital employed in niauufacturing, as 
claimed by Swift »& Co fi00,000 

Wages of 25,000 persons engaged in the handling of oleomargarine, at 
$750 per year each 18, 750, 000 

Total cost of one year's biisinrss of handling oleomargarine, out- 
side of wages of factory employees and cost of materials 20,850,000 

Add to this claimed expense the actual expense of manufacture of 
probably 2 cents per pound, $1,000,000; the j>resent 2-cent tax, aggre- 
gating $1,660,000 more, and the average cost of materials, probably 8 
cents per pound, and we have a total cost of 83,000,000 pounds of oleo- 
margarine, according to Swift & Co., as follows: 

Interest on capital, cost of handling, as shown in foregoing table $20, 850, 000 

Cost of manufacturing 1,660,000 

Cost of 2-ceut tax 1, (i60, GOO 

Cost of raw material, at 8 cents por pound 6, 640, 0( 

Paid for wholesale, retail, and niimnlaciurer's licenses (estimated) 300, OCO 

Total cost of 83,000,000 pounds 29,110,000 

Or, to reduce it to pounds and cents, it requires an expenditure of 
35.06 cents to produce a pound of oleomargarine, which, the same tirm 
says a little further along, "sells at an average of 10 cents per pound " ! 

What does Congress think of such an attempt to mislead its members 
upon this matter? 

Were not the statement of Swift & Co. made ridiculous in itself by 
the claims of the importance of the oleomargarine traffic, their plea 
might find an answer in the counterclaim that every man employed in 
the oleomargarine traffic displaces at least three men who hitherto had 
found employment upon the farm, and that the greater the showing 
made by this industry the greater the necessity for Congressional 
action to check a growth which is prima facie illegal. 

THE TNGREDIENTS OF OLEOMARaARINB. 

In their statement Swift & Co. have the following to say regarding 
the ingredients of oleoniagarine: 

Second. Oleomargarine is an absolutely pure and healthful product. It contains 
the following ingredients: 

1. Oleo oil: A selected fat from beef that is obtained from tlie caul fat. This is 
the principal ingredient. This fat is thoroughly washed, thrown into a vat of ice 
water to remove the animal heat, then thoroughly cooked, cooled, and put into 
hydraulic presses, by which the oil is extracted, the residue being' commercially 
known as stearin. 

2. Neutral: This is the leaf lard of the pig. The leaf fat when taken out of the 
animal is thoroughly washed and put into a refrigerator, where it remains twenty- 
four hours. It is then thoroughly cooked. It is absolutely without color, being 
snow white, and has neither taste nor odor. Both pigs and cattle are examined by 
Government inspectors before and after killing, thereby insuring protection against 
disease. England, France, Germany, Holland, and many other foreign countries 
wliere oleomargarine is manufactured more extensively than in the United States 
depend entirely upon American manufacturers for oleo oil and neutral. 

3. Cotton-seed oil: This ingredient is not always used; it is used in limited quan- 
tities in the medium grade. Tlie oil is extracted from selected cotton seed and then 
highly refined. It is a pure, sweet product and is used quite generally for cooking 
purposes. Prominent chemists have asserted that it has the same qualities as and 
is equally digestible with the best of olive oil. 

4. Milk. 

5. Salt. 



OLEOMA EG AEINE. 605 

Specific reports do not sustain the statement abovethatoleooilis the 
principal inoredient of oleomargarine. These proportions we find vary 
according to the interest addressed. When the cotton seed oil interests 
are being appealed to for opposition to this measure, cotton -seed oil is 
a principal ingredient; when the aid of the cattle growers is solicited, 
oleomargaiiue is made almost wholly of oleo oil. 

When tlie oleomargarine interests were before Congress in 1886, one 
of the leading manufacturers gave the Agricultural Committee the fol- 
lowing description of the ingredients of the two principal grades: 

Creamery butterine is usually composed of 25 per cent creamery butter, 40 per cent 
neutral, 20 per cent oleo oil, and the balance milk, cream, and salt. 

Dairy butterine differs from creamery only in the proportions. It is a cheaper 
pro<luct, and its proportion of butter about 10 per cent, neutral 45 percent, and oleo 
oil 25 per cent, the balance being made up of cream, milk, and salt. 

The closest research indicates that 30 per cent on the average is a 
high estimate of the proportion of oleo oil contained in oleomargarine. 
The highest temperature to which such oil can safely be subjected is 
150° F., which does not "cook" anything, not being up to the boiling 
l)oint, and the higher the temperature of the fat in rendering, the poorer 
the grade. 

While cotton-seed oil may not be used always, it is certainly a very 
important ingredient in the lower grades. We have nothing to say 
regarding the healthfulness of cotton-seed oil. The fact that caustic 
soda and potash are used in refining may not be detrimental to its 
healthfulness. 

However, it may be interesting in this connection to read a paragraph 
from a handbook on "The manufacture of cotton seed oil and allied 
products, including cake, meal, foots, soap stock, etc.," published by the 
National Provisioner, of New York City. In describing one grade of oil 
it says, on pages 32-33 : 

The winter oil is a production of the yellow (summer) oil, made by the foregoing 
treatment, together with the supplementary process of filtration, and is obtained by 
the chilling process, the solid matter formed being known as stearin, used in the 
butterine and soap-making industries. 

PROCESS OF MANUFACTUEING OLE OMAR GAJIINB. 

Continuing, Swift & Co. say: 

Third. The process of manufacturing is somewhat as follows: 
The ingredients are churned together for about thirty minutes in a large steel 
churn; after churning, the oleomargarine, which is then in a liquid state, is chilled 
by passing through ice water, worked thoroughly to get out the moisture, packed 
in tubs and cases, branded according to the requirements of the revenue laws, and 
is ready for market. There is a small quantity of coloring matter introduced in 
the product to give it the rich yellow color which has always been a feature of this 
product, and was such feature long before it became a feature of butter. All the 
ingredieuts are strictly pure, clean, and thoroughly cooked, so that there is no need 
of any preservative other than salt, nor is any other ever used. If tlie olemnarga- 
riue is properly made it does not become rancid and will keep in any climate. In 
respect to its purity, cleanliness, and freedom from becoming rancid, it far exceeds 
the best of butter. 

Eegarding the process of manufacture we have nothing to say, 
except, however, to challenge the attempt upon the part of these oleo- 
margarine makers to make it appear that butter is an imitation of 
oleomargarine in color instead of oleomargarine being an imitation of 
butter. 



606 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

This is made clear and the whole fraudulent practices of the oleomar- 
garine makers laid bare by a circular letter sent out April 5, 1899, by 
William J. Moxley, of Chicago. The letter follows: 

[Willliam J. Moxley, manufacturer of fine butterine, 63 and 65 W. Monroe street.] 

Chicago, April 5, 1899. 

NOTICE TO THE TRADE. 

Inclosed find a color card, which is as near the color of our butterine as the 
printer's art can represent. Our aim in sending you this card is to aid you in select- 
ing the proper color suitable to your trade. Mistakes are easily made, but hard to 
remedy. 

In nearly every section of the country there is a ditference in the color of butter, 
and even in certain seasons of the year there is a change, as you will have noticed. 
In winter butter is of a lighter color than in summer. In many sections this is the 
result of the difference in feed or pasture. 

We can give you just what you want at all seasons if we know your requirements. 
As an example, No. 1 has no coloring matter; No. 2 a little coloring, and so on to No. 
8, which is the highest colored goods we turn out. Preserve this card, order the 
color you want by number, and we will send you just what you want. 
Yours, truly, 

W. J. Moxley. 

Is there any necessity of going farther to learn of the reasons why the 
oleomargarine makers are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of 
dollars to defeat laws forbidding the coloring of oleomargarine? 

If Moxley can lind a market for oleomargarine without color at one 
season, why not at another? He gives the whole case away in the one 
statement, that "in winter butter is of a lighter color than in summer," 
and offers to "color to suit" the shade of butter at any season of the 
year or for any section. 

Has it ever been claimed that the tastes of the people varied with the 
season? Would a customer who knew he was buying oleomargarine 
say in December, " No, we don't like such a high color in winter. Please 
make it a little lighter? " 

No, indeed. Any departure from the color of butter at any time of 
year might excite the suspicion that he was not getting pure butter. 
The manufacturer even provides for the chance of a consumer living in 
a section where butter is not highly colored becoming suspicious, and 
advertise to color it " to suit the section." 

Butter has been a staple article of food for more than 4,000 years. It 
is, as a rule, yellow nine months of the year. It is colored in winter and 
fall to preserve a uniformity. It would sell just as well as near white 
as it is ever made, provided it could be kept a uniform shade through- 
out the year. Trade in all commodities requires uniformity. That is 
the most exacting requirement of the butter trade. Conditions can be 
adjusted to tit the degree. If butter were not colored for uniformity 
to the June shade in order to make a uniform color it would have to be 
bleached nine months in the year, which would be imj)racticable or 
impossible. 

There is no deception in coloring butter. It is not colored to make it 
look like anything else. The color doesn't deceive anybody into think- 
ing he is getting a better article than he receives. Everybody knows 
butter is colored, as they know candy is colored. Some say the highly 
colored June butter is richer and more to be desired. The high color, 
however, is not indicative of quality. The season alone creates that, 
new grass imparting a delicious and desirable flavor just as much to 
the light colored butter as to the highly colored. One prominent Sena- 
tor said, in the course of a hearing in Chicago last summer, "But 



OLEOMARGARINE. Qoy 

you color your butter in winter to make it \offK iiKC ^fune butter — 
tbat which is rich and has high flavor." *'It would scarcely oe good 
business to color for that purpose," was the response of tlie witness, 
"because if the buyer thought it to be June butter offered for sale in 
winter he would want to buy it at June butter i)rice8, which are from 
2 to 4 cents a pound lower in winter than fresh made goods." 

So it will be seen that this argument of endeavoring to deceive peo- 
ple into thinking they are getting June butter in winter isn't very goo«l 
logic. 

THE LAW OF 1886 WAS KOT A REVENUE MEASURE. 

Swift & Co., in commeiitmg upon the amount of revenue produced by 
oleomargarine since the present law went into effect, in 1886, say: 

You will note the fact also that since the present oleomargarine law took effect 
it has turned into the Treasury, in less than fifteen years, the large amount of 
$15,942,101.43 taxes. 

We are ])ainfully aware of that fact. This law of 1886 was enacted 
as the only remedy the General Government could afford to check the 
enormous frauds being practiced in the sale of oleomargarine at that 
time. The tax was placed at 2 cents a pound, this being regarded 
to be about the figure needed to raise sufficient revenue to enable the 
Government to enforce the other provisions of the bill. What has 
been the result? No attention whatever has been paid to the intent of 
the law. Revenue collectors have been satisfied to see that the taxes 
were paid. It has not been possible to interest them to any extent 
whatever in the enforcement of the provision requiring the branding 
of packages by the retailer, which was the entire intent of the law 
of 1886. 

The internal-revenue collector of a certain prominent district made 
the statement that it would be poor policy for his department to inter- 
fere with the volume of trade in a revenue-producing article by enforc- 
ing regulations which would have such effect. In the city of Chicago 
about the only part of the law that is enforced is that requiring the 
payment of the 2-cent tax and the license stamps. No attention is 
paid to complaints of the sale of oleomargarine at retail not properly 
branded. These complaints have been made and ignored dozens of 
times, and what is said of Chicago can, we are informed by those who 
have investigated, be said of other districts. 

FIGURES USED TO FRIGHTEN LIVE-STOCK MEN. 

But in the fifth statement Swift & Co. play their strongest card 
against the Grout bill and 10 cent tax, and a more brazen attempt to 
mislead Congress has probably never been brought to the surface. 
They say : 

Fifth. The enactraent of these hills would seriouely affect the cattle industry. 
The manufacturer of oleomargarine has created a demand for oleooil, which is made 
from the choice fats from the beef, and is worth to-day 10 cents per pound. If these 
choice fats were not utilized in the manufacture of oleomargarine they would have 
to be sold as tallow, which is worth 6 cents per pound. A steer will yield 50 pounds 
of oleo oil; therefore, should the oleomargarine industry be destroyed each steer 
would depreciate in value $2. The same is true of the hog. Leaf lard (or neutral) 
is used in the manufacture of oleomargarine. Neutral is to-day worth 8+ cents per 
pound, lard is worth 6 cents per pound; a hog will yield about 8 ])onncl8 of neu- 
tral. If there was no demand for neutral as au oleomargarine ingrudicut it would 
have no greater value than lard; hence each hog would be worth 20 cents less than 
present prices. 



CU8 OLEOMAKGAEIlSrE. 

For the year ending December 31, 1899, there were 1,702,572 cattle slanghtered at 
the Union Stock Yards in Chicago; at $2 per head this would make $3,405,144. For 
the same period there were 7,032,430 hogs slaughtered at the Union Stock Yards in 
Chicago ; at 20 cents per head this would make $1,406,486. Therefore, should Congress 
pass a law which would destroy the oleomargarine business the cattle and hog rais- 
ers marketing their stock in Chicago would actually lose in the course of a year 
$4,811,630 by depreciation in value of stock, and this will apply to every other 
slaughtering point in the United States — Kansas City, Omaha, St. Louis, etc. 

Let US analyze this statement. It can be done in two ways. First, 
let us look at the live-stock interests. Cattle were slaughtered as fol- 
lows at the leading centers during the past year: 

Chicago 1,821,061 

Kansas City 1,032,586 

Omaha 549,089 

St. Louis 506,249 

Total 3,908,985 

It is safe to say that in other centers combined enough more cattle 
were slaughtered last year to bring the total number up to 5,000,000 
head. 

During 1899 there were 83,000,000 pounds of oleomargarine manu- 
factured. Making a liberal allowance, one-third of this product was 
oleo oil. This is too high an estimate, but we can afford to be liberal. 
Therefore in 83,000,000 pounds of oleomargarine there was used 
27,000,01)0 pounds of oleo oil. Eight cents a pound ui)on the average 
is about right for the price of oleo oil for the year, as it is not all high 
grade, nor was the market high all the year. This would make tlie 
oleo oil going into the 83,000,000 pounds of oleomargarine worth 
$2,208,000. This would mean that an average of 44 cents' worth of oleo 
oil was used from each head of cattle killed in the country. Granted, 
for argument, that this oleo oil could find no other market than to the 
manufacturers of this country for oleomargarine, except as tallow, which 
is worth a little over half the price of oleo oil. In that case the 44 cents' 
worth of oleo oil would have to be sold at 22 cents as tallow, which 
would result in the loss of 22 cents a head on a steer worth from $30 to 
$60 or $70, which is figuring a little finer than people figure in business 
matters. 

But let us bring to light the facts which Swift & Co. endeavor to 
hide from Congress. They endeavor to convey the impression that if 
they are not permitted to imitate butter with the color of their oleo- 
margarine the entire oleomargarine industry of the world will be 
wrecked. In no other way can they justify the claim of a loss of $2 
per head upon cattle. 

But here are the facts. It has been shown that about 27,600,000 
l^ounds of oleo oil were used in making oleomargarine in this country 
last year. This is but a small percentage of the oleo oil produced. 
The Government statistics of exports for the year 1809 show that com- 
pared with 27,600,000 pounds of oleo oil used at home there were 
exported 142,000,00) pounds, largely to Rotterdam, where it is used. 
They would endeavor to lead Congress to believe that any act affecting 
the iinitation-butter business in the United States would bring about 
the destruction of the export trade in oleo oil, which trade could, if 
necessary, also take all the oil used in oleomargarine in this country. 

The same is true of the claim regarding the threatened depression iu 
the price of hogs. 

But let us view this question in another light. According to the 
Stat ment of Swift & Co., the average price of oleomargarine is about 



OLEOMAKGAEINE. 609 

10 cents per pound. The 83,000,000 pounds made last year would be 
worth, according- to this, $8,300,000. 

Now, if the 5,000,000 head of cattle would be depreciated $2 per head 
by the passage of the Grout bill, the loss to the live stock man would 
be, according to their claim, $10,000,000. Then upon the conservative 
estimate of 15,000,000 head of hogs marketed last year, ui)on which this 
"vicious measure" would entail a loss of 20 cents per head, would be 
an additional loss of $3,000,000. This makes a total loss, according to 
their statement, of $13,000,000 upon a business aggregating $8,300,000 
per year. And this is not taking into consideration the "loss" claimed 
by the cotton-seed oil men, who sell the oleomargarine people in this 
country about 3,400,000 gallons of oil, valued at about $1,000,000, com- 
pared with the 40,230,784 gallons, valued at $10,137,619, which they 
export, in addition to that used in soap making and as salad oil in the 
United States. 

THE OOLORINa OF OLEOMARGARINE AND BUTTER. 

Here is the next statement of Swift & Co. : 

Sixth. The question of color is urged against the use of oleomargarine. It goes 
without saying that we have the right to make our goods as attractive and as pleas- 
ing to the eye and as desirable to the purchaser as we can, provided that we do 
nothing to injure the quality of the goods. The same color is used in coloring oleo- 
margarine that is used in coloring butter, and the use of this butter color (so called) 
in coloring butter is just as much a deceit and a fraud upon customers as is its use 
in coloring oleomargarine. It is further a fact that the oleomargarine manufacturers 
were the first to see the advantage of having a uniform color in their goods and were 
the first to use butter color (so called). The creameries throughout the country 
were quick to take advantage of the new idea, and to-day it is rare to see butter on 
the market which is not colored a bright yellow, although the natural color of but- 
ter ranges all the way from white for the ordinary winter butter to a light yellow 
for summer butter. 

The above is certainly a bold position to openly assume before Con- 
gress. We would refer Swift & Co. to the noted speech made by Con- 
gressman Tayler, of Ohio, upon the question of Brigham H. Eoberts's 
right to a seat in Congress. Mr. Taylor said: 

This is a representative Government ; it springs from the people, from the people 
who make the law, and their representatives are such because they are believers in 
the law and subject to the law. Many may entertain opinions as to the unwisdom 
of certain laws, and a hope that these may be erased from the statute books; but 
in the very nature of things they can not stand for defiance of law. And as they can 
not stand for defiance of any law, how much the more must they stand as respecters 
of and obedient to such laws as have proceeded from the people, at the people's 
initiative, and sustained by the deliberate and intelligent approval of substantially 
all the people. 

Swift & Co. stand for defiance not only of the laws of their own State, 
but of the laws of more than two thirds of the States of the United 
States. They come before Congress, a large majority of which repre- 
sent States whose laws they are violating, and openly say: "It goes 
without saying that we have the right to make our goods as attractive 
and as pleasing to the purchaser as we can, provided that we do noth- 
ing to injure the quality of the goods." 

State laws are as naught. The opinions of our most learned jurists 
are not worthy of consideration. What four-fifths of the people 
through their legislatures have condemned, in the estimation of Swift 
& Co., "goes without saying." 

But let us see what the courts say about this right which Swift & 
Co. claim "goes without saying." 

In December, 1894, the Supreme Court of the United States handed 

S. Rep. 2043 39 



610 OLEOMARGARINE. 

down an opinion regarding this right which Swift & Co. says "goes 
without saying." It was the case of Plumley v. Massachusetts. Plum- 
ley had been convicted under the Massachusetts law of selling a com- 
pound known as oleomargarine, colored in semblance of butter. The 
matter was carried to the supreme court of the State, where judgment 
was affirmed; it was then taken to the Supreme Court of the United 
States, The defense was that Plumley was held under a statute which 
was unconstitutional for two reasons. 

The statute in that case prevented the sale of this substance in imi- 
tation of yellow butter produced from inire unadulterated milk or cream 
of the same, and the statute contained a proviso that nothing therein 
should be "construed to prohibit the manufacture or sale of oleomar- 
garine in a separate or distinct form and in such manner as will advise 
the consumer of its real character, free from coloration or ingredients 
that cause it to look like butter." The court held that a conviction 
under that statute for having sold an article known as oleomargarine, 
not produced from unadulterated milk or cream, but manufactured in 
imitation of yellow butter, produced from pure, unadulterated milk or 
cream, was valid. Attention was called in the opinion to the fact that 
the statute did not prohibit the manufacture or sale of all oleomarga- 
rine, but only such as was colored in imitation of yellow butter pro- 
duced from unadulterated milk or cream of such milk. If free from 
coloration or ingredient that caused it to look like butter, the right to 
sell it in a separate and distinct form and in such manner as would 
advise the customer of the real character was neither restricted nor 
prohibited. The court held that under the statute the party was only 
forbidden to practice in such matters a fraud ui)ou the general public; 
that the statute seeks to suppress false pretenses and to promote fair 
dealing in the sale of an article of food, and that it compels the sale of 
oleomargarine for what it really is by preventing its sale for what it is 
not; that the terra "commerce among tlje States" did not mean a rec- 
ognition of a right to practice a fraud upon the jniblic in the sale of an 
article even if it had become the subject of trade in different parts of 
the country. 

Judge Harlan, in delivering this oi^inion, said: 

And yet it is supposed the owners of a comi)ound which has been put in a condi- 
tion to cheat the public into believing it is a particular article of food in daily use 
and eagerly sought lor by people in every condition of life are protected b\ the Con- 
stitution in making a sale of it against the will of the States in which it is ottered 
for sale because of the circumstance that it is in an original package and has become 
a subject of ordinary traffic. We are unwilling to accept this view. We are of the 
opinion that it is within the power of a State to exclude from its markets any com- 
pound manufactured in anotlier State which has been artilicially colored or adulter- 
ated so as to cause it to look like au article of food in general use and the sale of 
which may, by reason of such coloration or adulteration, cheat the general public 
into purchasing that which they may not intend to buy. 

The Constitution of the United States does not secure to anyone the privilege of 
defrauding the public. The deception against which the statute of Massachusetts 
is aimed is au offense against society. The States are as competent to protect tlieir 
people against such offenses or wrongs as they are to protect them against crimes 
or wrongs of more serious character, and this protection may be given without 
violating any right secured by the nati(mal Constitution and without infringing the 
authority of the General Governmeut. A State enactment forbidding the sale ot 
deceitful imitations of articles of food iu general use among the people does not 
abridge any privilege secured to citizens of the United States, nor in any Just sense 
interfere with the freedom of commerce among the several States. 

We further quote from numerous authorities: 

It has been uniformly held that the legislature, in the exercise of its police pow- 
ers for the ])rotection of the general welfare of the community and the promotion of 
the public health, has the right to prohibit the manufacture and sale of any article 



OLEOMAEQAEINE. 611 

of food in imitation or semblance of another well-known article of food in a form 
which is calculated or likely to deceive the buyer or the consnuKn, and in any sub- 
stitutes for butter, where the act is aimed at a designed and intentional imitation of 
butter in the manufacture of the new product and not at a resemblance of qualities 
inherent in the articles themselves and common to both. (Plumley v. Massachusetts, 
155 U. S., 461; Commonwealth i\ Plumley, 163 Mass., 169; VVaterbury »'. Newton, 50 
N. J. Law, 531 ; People r. Aarensburg, 105 N. Y.,123; McAllister r. State, 72 Mo., 390; 
State V. Addington, 77 Mo., 110 ; Commonwealth r. Schollenberger, 155 Pa., 201 ; State 
V. Marshall, 61 N. H., 519; Weilmon v. State, 56 N. W. Pep.. 688 Minn. ; Cook v. State, 
20 Southern Pep., .566 Ala. ) 

Swift & Co. and their associates have no respect or regard for State 
laws. They absolutely hold the lower courts of the various States in 
contempt. The adverse decisions of the State supreme courts do not 
trouble them one iota, and five years after the. Supreme Court of the 
United States told them they had no legal right to sell oleomargarine 
colored in semblance of butter in Massachusetts, in support of the 
State supreme court, we find them bolstering up 108 dealers, who dis- 
posed of 2,083,889 pounds of oleomargarine in twelve months, which 
they do not deny is sold contrary to the State laws and the rulings of 
the supreme courts of the State and United States. 

What kind of a standing is this to be possessed by manufacturers 
before a body of representatives of the 32 States which have laws 
copied after that of Massachusetts? 

The claim of ])riority in the use of yellow color is so absurdly ridic- 
ulous as to be unworthy of notice. Under a prior heading the object 
and original reason for coloring oleomargarine has been disclosed by 
one of the Chicago manufacturers. 

FRAUDULENT SALE OF OLEOMARaARINE. 

Swift & Co. then take up the question of fraud in the sale of oleo- 
margarine, and upon this question have to say : 

Seventh. We would further state, in reference to the claim that it is a fraud upon 
the sale of butter, that it is absolutely impossible to-day, under the internal-revenue 
Jaws and regulations, to sell oleomargarine as butter to cnstomers of ordinary intel- 
ligence, as all oleomargarine sold is reqiiired to be branded in large letters and there 
are stringent penalties for the failure to conjply therewith. 

No law can make more stringent requirements to protect customers than the pres- 
ent laws, and the fact that the output is yearly increasing shows that there is a demand 
for oleomargarine as such in spite of all hostile agitation and legislation. That there 
is fraud sometimes practiced in the retail sale of the product is quite possible, and 
laws have been and should be enacted for the purpose of preventing such fraud, but 
all that is no reason for stamping out the industry of manufacturing and selling 
oleomargarine. 

If it is claimed that an increase of the tax would not stamp out the industry, it is 
at least certain that it would cause an increase in the illegal sale of the article, and 
therefore would fail of its object in protecting customers from fraud. The present 
tax of 2 cents a pound on the article which sells at an average of 10 cents a pound 
is excessive, being 20 per cent of the selling price, and it is undoubtedly a fact that 
a large proportion of the fraud now claimed is due to this excessive tax, for it is well 
known, and is vouched for by the experience of the internal-revenue department in 
its collections of revenue on tobaccos and liquors, that taxes and violations of rev- 
enue laws increase and decrease in the same proportion. 

Now, let us see about that. It is true the internal-revenue laws and 
regulations are strict with regard to the stamping of oleomargarine by 
the manufacturer and retailer. However, in all the fourteen years 
which this law has been in effect the Government has never imprisoned 
but two offenders for failure to brand or for removing brands, and the 
internal-revenue department was very much against bringing this case 
to trial and making an example of these men, who had been for years 
persistent swindlers. It was only through the greatest efforts of the 



612 OLEOMAEGAEINB 

Secretary of Agriculture and an appeal to the Attorney-General to 
refuse to compromise that Wilkins and Butler were sentenced to prison 
a few months ago for removing brands from oleomargarine packages, 
and they had no more than gotten well settled in prison than gigantic 
frauds of a similar nature came to light from Chicago. 

The Wilkins case gives a clear idea of the enormous frauds that are 
being practiced in the oleomargarine traffic, which do not affect the 
revenue, because the goods used for this fraudulent business have 
all paid the 2-cent tax. 

Attorney- General Griggs's statement of facts and refusal to recom- 
mend the pardon of Wilkins and Butler will give the reader a clear 
idea of the character of fraud which is being practiced, the lamentable 
phase of the question being the fact that this case which came to light 
is only one of the hundreds of swindles which are being carried on in 
a large way and of the thousands being practiced upon consumers in 
all portions of the country. 

The Attorney General wrote to President McKinley as follows : 

The petitioners, Josepli Wilkins and Howard Butler, were convicted of fraudu- 
lently removing labels from packa^fes containing oleomargarine in violation of the 
act of August 2, 1886, and were sentenced on March 17, 1898, as to Wilkins, to impris- 
onment for six months and to pay a fine of $1,500 and costs, and, as to Butler, to 
imprisonment for four months and to pay a tine of $500 and costs. 

The judgment of the district court was subsequently affirmed in the circuit court 
of appeals, to which it was taken by the defendants, and an application subse- 
quently made to the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari was denied. Thereupon, 
in November last, the petitioners were committed to serve their sentences of impris- 
onment. 

The grounds of the application for a pardon as to Joseph Wilkins are, that he has 
a wife and child, and that each of the prisoners is of good reputation and standing, 
and has never been convicted of any other crime. They request, in view of the 
humiliation and disgrace already suffered by them, as well as of the heavy fines 
imposed, and in view of their good reputation and standing in the community, and 
of the fact that no revenue has been lost to the Government, that that portion of 
the sentence providing for imprisonment be remitted. 

The records of the office of internal revenue show that Wilkins has been a persist- 
ent violator of the oleomargarine laws, and that prior to the present prosecution 
he has escaped punishment by means of money payments in compromise. The 
records show that on December 14, 1893, Wilkins tiled a proposition to pay $2,100 
and costs in compromise of all liabilities, civil and criminal, incurred in the first 
district of Illinois for selling oleomargarine as butter, and by violating various sec- 
tions of the law relating to wholesale dealers in oleomargarine. This offer was 
accepted December 26, 1893. 

April 4, 1895, less than a year and a half after the last settlement, Wilkins again 
filed an offer of compromise, agreeing to pay $2,000 in settlement of his liabilities for 
alleged frauds under the oleomargarine law committed in connection with a firm in 
West Virginia. This offer was also accepted. 

A year later, April 2, 1896, Wilkins was indicted with another in the District of 
Columbia for selling unstamped oleomargarine. On June 20, 1896, he offered to pay 
$1,000 in compromise, bnt this being rejected the case went to trial and the accused 
was acquitted. There are three separate indictments against him pending new in 
the District of Columl)ia for selling oleomargarine in unstamped packages. These 
indictments were found January 4, 1897. 

The offense of which the petitioners are now convicted was committed December 
20, 1896, two days after the verdict of acquittal in the trial in the District of Colum- 
bia. The petitioners were discovered by a revenue agent in the act of scraping off 
the stamps, marks, and brands from packages of oleomargarine. 

In connection with the present case, an offer to pay $8,000 and costs in compromise 
was made, but rejected February 23, 1898, and thereupon the case went to trial with 
the result above stated. 

It is obvious that the business in which Wilkins was engaged must have been one 
of great profit, otherwise he could not have afforded to make the very large pay- 
ments in compromise which he did make or offered to make. 

That he was aware of the fraudulent and dishonorable nature of the business in 
which he was persistently engaged appears from his own statement made in a letter 
addressed to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, October 31, 1893, from which I 
quote the following : 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 613 

"Having a thorough knowledge of the butteiine business, and knowing the pos- 
sibilities of that bnsiiR'ss if worked in certain directions and ways, I determined to 
try it, having the desire to make large gains quick. * * * After I found that 
some of my goods had been seized in Cincinnati I settled up my business as quickly 
as possible and did not ship any more. I came to you voluntarily, and I sincerely 
trust you will deal with me as leniently as the law will allow yon, promising you 
faithfully that no such thing as this will ever occur again with me, and, if I am 
allowed to make a request, I ask that I be allowed to settle without having the 
Western houses know anything of my doings, because I know it was very dishonor- 
able in me to do as 1 have done, and if I am allowed to go along in life without the 
public knowing of my misdeeds, then I feel snre that I can make a new start in 
some way that is entirely honorable. I realize full well that I could have in some 
way kept away from the hands of the law, but to do this would mean the staying 
away from home and relatives, and, above all, the constant strain on my mind, and 
with the sense that I had done a great wrong, I could not stand it. Trusting that 
you will allow me to settle immediately, which will allow me to drift back into the 
channels of straight, legitimate business soon, I remain." 

Notwithstanding that the authorities were induced to settle with him upon his 
promise of abstention in the future from similar violations of the law, it appears 
that he straightway resumed his operations, undoubtedly taking courage from the 
success with which he had compromised the first oifenses in which he had been 
discovered. 

It is absolutely clear that for such a persistent violator of the law something more 
than a money penalty was essential. The sentence of imprisonment imposed in this 
case was peremptorily required by the circumstances. Nor can 1 say that the sentence 
was anything but moderate. It is less than the average sentence imposed upon per- 
sistent violators of the internal-revenue laws relating to the distillation of spirits, 
and much less than the ordin.iry sentences imposed for violation of the laws against 
the use of the mails for fraudulent purposes. 

Not only is the dignity of the law to be upheld against such persistent violations, 
but the public is entitled to be protected by the salutary intiuence of stern punish- 
ment against fraud and deception, such as were practiced in this case, by means of 
which the petitioners were enabled to impose upon innocent purchasers as genuine 
butter a counterfeit article, which, if sold for what it really was, would have brought 
very much less in the open market. 

I do not think that the sentences should be interfered with. 

Who is this man Wilkins? 

As soon as detected in the act of removing oleomargarine marks at 
Philadelphia, so that his Washington business was no longer profitable, 
being indicted by the Federal grand jury, Wilkins was brought to Chi- 
cago by Messrs. Braun & Fitts, the largest manufacturers of oleomar- 
garine in the country, and given the responsible position of directing 
the salesmen, which class have for years coached retailers in the art of 
swindling the public. 

Wilkins held this position as confidential man with Braun & Fitts 
during the time his ease was being fought in court and the effort being 
made to pardon him, and went directly from their employ to prison at 
Philadelphia. 

Dnring the time when Wilkins's pardon was being most actively 
sought by the influence of the oleomargarine manufacturers two other 
swindles of even as great magnitude and of the same character were 
unearthed, not. however, by the internal-revenue department, but by 
the agricultural department of New York. 

These swindles were gigantic in their proportions. The details were 
excellently set forth in the Times-Herald, of Chicago, in its issue of 
•Sunday, February 11. The Times-Herald's account of this swindle 
follows: 

SEEK FRAUD IN " OLEO"— SUSPICIOUS OF PRIME BUTTER— REVENUE AOEN^TS 
CLAIM TO HAVE UNEARTHED A SWINDLE ON THE G0YERNMENT-SHIPMENT8 
SEIZED AND ARRESTS MADE-MORE TO FOLLOW. 

Government officials from three States are investigating what they believe to be 
the largest oleomargarine fraud in the history of the local internal-revenue depart- 
ment. The work of the officers has resulted in the arrest of John F. Eooney, who 



614 OLEOMARGARINE. 

has had a preliminary hearing before Commissioner Mason and who is now on bonds 

of $2,500, ^ 

Rooney is charged with selling oleomargarine as butter. The business was con- 
ducted in the names of the Aurora Produce Coniy>any and tbe Elgin Produce Com- 
pany. Checks produced in evidence upon the preliminary hearing tend to show that 
Rooney and his associates bought as high as $1,000 worth of the product daily and 
shipped it to customers in several States who had purchased it in the belief that it 
was high-grade butter. It is charged that in the three or four months that Rooney 
has been operating he has disposed of between $80,000 and $124,000 worth of oleo- 
margarine, upon which he made at least 40 cents on the dollar. Rooney's arrest 
occurred nearly three weeks ago at the -Ceylon and Japan Tea Company's place, 
700 West Forty-seventh street. 

REVENUE AGENT AT WORK. 

Since Rooney's arrest several of the cleverest special agents in the employ of the 
Government have been further investigating in the belief that certain manufacturers 
of oleomargarine were back of Rooney. It is also believed that had the scheme 
proved safe the fraudulent dealings would have been increased to a point limited 
only by the ability to get customers. 

Last November the Agricultural Department learned that large quantities of suspi- 
cious butter were being shipped into eastern New Yoik, and W. H. Butcher, of Troy, 
was detailed to look the matter up. On November 27 a consignment of 623 tubs 
was found in J. B. Wattles's store in Buifalo. Samples were taken and the consign- 
ment allowed to go. Agents followed it to Chicago, where the Wabash ofBcials were 
told that the shipment here was a mistake, and that the stuff should have been sent 
to Liverpool. It was reshipped and the Governmfent agents seized it in Detroit. 
This lot is said to have been sold by Edward Marhoffer, of the Elgin Produce Com- 
pany, 6242 Halsted street. O. S. Martin, special agent of the internal-revenue depart- 
ment for Indiana, was sent to Chicago and found that large quantities of oleomar- 
garine had been shipped to John Schmitz, of Milwaukee. The latter told the agent 
that a man representing the Aurora Produce Company had called to see him and had 
said that his concern had a lot of high-grade butter which they could sell at less 
than prevailing market prices. Schmit/ had at various times purchased several 
hundred dollars' worth from the concern in the belief that he was buying good 
creamery butter. 

SCHMITZ PAYS HIS LICENSE. 

Schmitz was a witness before the commissioner and has since paid the Government 
$480, which is required for a wholesale oleomargarine license. The fact that he did 
not know he was selling oleomargarine did not cut any figure with his being liable 
for the license money. The department here has a list of forty or fifty dealers who 
will have to pay $18 for a retail license for having bought " prime butter" of the 
concern. 

Agent Martin went to Aurora after seeing Schmitz and began looking for the Aurora 
Produce Company. He learned that a man named b'ooney had rented a box at the 
post-office with instructions to have placed in it all his mail and that addressed to 
the Aurora Produce Company. Later he had given up the box and left instructions 
to have his mail forwarded to 196 La Salle street. At this place Attorney Maurice 
Langhouse told the officer that Rooney had asked him to permit his mail to come 
there, and had paid him $10. Every day a boy came in, and, placing the mail in 
another envelope, forwarded it to Rooney at 700 West Forty-seventh street. 

The agent's next move was to rent a room opposite the tea comjiany's store. He 
soou discovered that wagons from Braun & Fitts, oleomargarine manufacturers, 
made almost daily deliveries of oleomargarine at the store. There the stamps would 
be removed and Expressman J. W. Foley would take the stuff to various freight 
offices for shipment. 

SEIZURES AND ARRESTS. 

When the evidence was conclusive, seizures were made and a warrant sworn out 
for Rooney's arrest. It was learned that his brother, Elmer K. Rooney, was in the 
deal, and a telegram was sent to Joliet, where he happened to be selling "butter," 
to cause his arrest. Some one gave him timely warning and he fled. It is said that 
Edward Marhoffer, George E. Brannen, and a man named Casey have also disap- 
peared. 

In connection with Rooney the officers arrested Patrick F. Butler, who worked at 
the Forty-seventh street place. His arrest was due to the fact that all checks in 
payment for the oleomargarine were made out to Walter F. Butler, and a bank clerk 
identified Patrick F. Butler as the man who drew the money on them. The evidence 
was insufficient to connect Butler with the fraud, and he was discharged. 



OLEOMAKGARINE. 61.5 

The carload of oleomargarine seized at Detroit is valued at $5,000, and would 
indicate that the fraudulent dealinp;» were even more extensive than appears from 
the evidence attained thus far. It is said that the local department is preparing to 
make other arrests in a few days, although the warrants have not heen sworn out. 
W. J. Moxley, who sold Rooney small amounts of oleomargaTine; John Dadie, and 
former Mayor John P. Hopkins went on Kooney's bond. Officers who have investi- 
gated the Kooueys' history before the time they came to Chicago claim that they 
were supplied with large capital before engaging in the sale of "prime butter." 
When an attempt was made to gain possession of the books of the Aurora Produce 
Company, it was learned that Roouey and another man had burned them in the 
kitchen stove. 

There were a number of very peculiar things about these cases, one 
of which was the ability of these adventurers, with no known fluancial 
res])onsibility, to obtain credit for such large amount. Another was the 
fact that the salesman who went into New York aud sold the "butter" 
proved to be a traveling salesman for one of these Chicago oleomarga- 
rine manufacturers, and still another peculiar thing was that the rep- 
resentatives of the firms of Braun & Fitts and W. J. Moxley, the 
Chicago manufacturers who sold this oleomargarine to these swindlers, 
appeared before Commissioner Mason and either went bail for these 
men or secured acceptable bondsmen with their guarantee. 

When the Senate Committee on Manufactures was in Chicago investi- 
gating the adulteration of foods, the condition existing in the traffic in 
oleomargarine was brought to the attention of Senators Mason and 
Harris. 

A t the conclusion of the investigation of the subject of oleomargarine, 
Senator Mason is quoted by the Times-Herald of Thursday, May 11, as 
follows: 

At the close of the session Senator Mason said: "We have at least developed this 
point to-day, that although oleomargarine pays the tax it is being sold generally as 
pure butter." 

The Chicago Tribune, of the same day, said : 

The committee devoted the forenoon session to the subject of oleomargarine, and 
brought out the fact that oleomargarine is sold in the city every day for pure butter 
in violation of the national internal-revenue and the State laws. Four dealers in 
this article gave evidence. Packages of oleomargarine purchased the day before and 
submitted to the committee by C. Y. Knight, who had bought them for creamery 
butter, was examined. They did not bear the required stamp "Oleomargarine " on 
the outside, but the word appeared on wrappers ingeniously folded, so that it was 
entirely hidden from view until the packages were opened. 

The Chicago Democrat said of this hearing, on May 10: 

Practical violation of the oleomargarine law is admitted by Chicago dealers. Such 
fraud, they say, is necessitated by the aristocratic purchasers. 

This evidence was brought out by the secretary of the National Dairy 
Union, who, in the few blocks between his office and the hotel where the 
investigation was being conducted, i)urchased four ])ackages of what 
was given him in response to his call for creamery butter. These pack- 
ages were purchased at random at stores similar to which there are 
hundreds in Chicago. One dealer, J. F. Somes, of the Ohio Butter 
Company, which never sells a pound of butter, testified as follows: 

[From the Official Record.] 

James F. Somes, being first duly sworn, testified as follows: 

Examination by the Chairman: 
Q. What is your name? 
A. James F. Somes. 
Q. What is your business? 
A. I am selling butter, eggs, and cheese. 



616 OLEOMAEGAEIlSrE. 

Q. Where is yonr place of business? — A. No. 44 Fifth avenue. 

Q. Do you sell oleoniargariuef — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Are you familiar with the law in regard to the sale of it? — A. Wliy, somewhat. 

Q. Mr. Somes, I show you an exhibit, which is designated "No. 4." Do you rec- 
ognize it as irom yonr place [handing same to witness]? — A. We sell something 
of that kind, similar to it. 

Q. Is yonr name on the paper? — A. Yes, sir; I guess so. [The witness examined 
the wrapper.] Yes, sir. Not my name; it is the name of the Ohio Butter Company. 

Q. You represent that company? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Did you put this package up yourself, yesterday? — A. 1 don't know. I ])ut up 
one or two paclcages of the kind yesterday. I maj"^ have done so. I don't know. 

Q. Do you know what there is in this? — A. It is supposed to be oleomargarine or 
butterine. 

Q. Do you remember what was called for when that was furnished? — A. No; I do 
not. I would say in that connection that the majority of people come in and want 
oleomargarine or butterine. They do not ask for it. They say, "Give me some 
butter," and they know what they are getting, most of them, when they are getting 
this butterine. 

Q. What is the price of this butterine? — A. Butterine runs from 15 to 18 cents. 

Q. Then if a mau says he wants some butter, you hand him out oleomargarine? — 
A. Not always ; no, sir. We try to do a fair business, and to do an honorable busiuess. 

Q. What we want in this connection, Mr. Somes, is to find out— we are investigating 
the (juestiou of the adulteration of food products and how they are circulated. We 
are not seeking to incriminate you or anybody else. — A. I would say this — that I 
think the majority of my customers understand that they are buying butterine or 
oleomargarine. For a long time I stamped my packages all on the outside, and they 
would come and say, " What is this? I don't want this. Give me another wrapper." 
They knew what they were buying. They did not want to carry it along the street 
with a sign on, and to accommodate them I had to do it, and to wrap another wrap- 
per around them. And then the butterine people, or the agents of the butterine 
people, advised me that it was not necessary ; that if I stamped my paper, that was 
all that was required. And I have always tried to stamp my paper properly, and to 
see that it was jjroperly stamped. There was no intention on my part to deceive 
anybody. The majority of the people want butterine, and they don't want a sign 
on it, so that everybody knows that they are buying butterine. People are fussy 
about such things. And I think the reason they buy it is because it is the only 
thing they can get that is sweet and good. 

The Chaikman. We will excuse you. 

The package purchased from Mr. Somes was purchased for creamery 
butter. A few months after this, finding him continuing this practice, he 
was arrested and plead guilty under the State law for selling oleomar- 
garine for butter. He paid a fine of $25 and costs, the Chicago manu- 
facturers refusing in this case to come to his rescue, because he purchased 
his oleomargarine in Ohio. Then they im mediately circulated the report 
that only dealers who bought goods of the Chicago trust would be pro- 
tected. But these matters will be treated further along. This, how- 
ever, was the only fine imposed in Chicago in ten years for this fraud, 
so far as is known, under the State law. 

William Broadwell, claiming to be the largest retail dealer in oleo- 
margarine in Chiciigo, was also called before the committee and con- 
fronted with a package that was bought at his place for butter that 
morning, but inside of the wrapper of which was found, ingeniously 
turned under and concealed, the Government stamp. 

Following is an extract from his evidence, as brought out by Senator 
Harris : 

By Senator Harris: 

Q. You think generally in the trade there is a disposition to sell the oleomargarine 
on it« merits? — A. Yes, sir; and a man don't have a particle of trouble. 

Q. Without attempting to conceal its true charactei% or sell it as butter? — A. Don't 
have to, at all; but there is a class of people that come into my store, who are up in 
the world and who have got lots of money, and they come in and call for a pail of but- 
ter, the same as they had before. They would not come in and ask outriy;ht for oleo. 

Q. If it has the merit that you claim for it, why should you people object to say- 
ing "oleomargarine?"— A. They don't want the man that is next to them to know 
that they are using oleomargarine. 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 617 

Q. They think there is some social degradation in it? — A. I shonld say there was. 
If you only knew that mnch about the class of people that buy that in my store, 
you would almost fall dead, as true as you are living. 

Q. I don't see anything humiliating or embarrassing in the purchase of an article 
which is good, and satisfactory to the taste, and which will retain its good qualities. 
Of course, I am a mere countryman, but I dou't see why a man should not come in 
and say, "I want some oleomargarine, because it suits my palate, and because it will 
keep longer than butter." — A. Yes; but they don't want to let anybody else know 
anything about it, and they will come in and call me off to one side and whisper to 
me, "Can't you make it ten cents cheaper this time?" You'd be surprised, I tell 
you. I don't want to call any nauies, but 1 tell you it is dreadful. Then do you 
think they don't know what they are buying? And then they ask me about the 
goods I handle, that I shall see that they don't get Swift's or Armour's. I tell them 
I handle Moxley's and Braun & Fitts's. All right, then, so long as it is theirs. 

Q. There are different grades, even in the nobility of oleomargarine? — A. That la 
what there is. 

Q. Some is good, and some is better? — A. There is some that I would not handle 
at all. It might be all right, but in my opinion it is not. 

Q. What do you thiuk makes the difference? — A. Well, of course, there is a certain 
kind of cream and butter that is put into the higher grades that makes it sweeter 
and nicer, and a better smell and taste to it. 

Q. Would not that have a tendency to make it deteriorate, the more butter that 
was in it? — A. There is not enough butter put in it to turn it. There are other 
articles put with it to keep it. 

Q. It does not get so good as to be hurt by it? — A. It is just like a man making 
cofiee — rubs the coifee can up against the grounds, and that is as near as the coiiee 
gets to it. 

Q. You say that this mixture is what makes the higher grades of oleomargarine? — 
A. Yes, sir; it gives it a nicer, sweeter taste, and a nicer flavor. 

Q. Makes it better? — A. Makes it better; but I think the inferior quality will 
keep longer. 

Q. It is a contest between flavor and quality and durability? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. And if you improve the quality and flavor you do it at a certain expense of 
durability? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. And permanence? — A. Yes, sir. I never handle any cheap grades at all, what- 
ever. I never did in my life, and never will. That is the reason I do the business 
I do. 

Q. Do you think there is anything else in these inferior grades of oleomargarine? — 
A. No, I don't think there is, because it is composed mostly of tallow 

Q. The nearer they come to fcallow the more permanent it is? — A. Yes, sir; because 
I never saw a piece of tallow spoil in my life. I don't think there is any such thing 
as its spoiling. 

Q. You ueves have seen rancid tallow? — A. I don't know as I ever did. There 
might be such a thing, but I don't know as I ever saw it. The more cream you put 
into oleo the shorter time it will keep. That is the way I figure about it. 

Q. It is a balancing between the two qualities? — A. Yes; and seeing as I have 
such a terrible big trade, and I get it fresh every morning, I never have any com- 
plaints. 

Q. But there is a disposition, for social reasons, to stick to the old-fashioned word 
"butter"? — A. There is a millionaire comes in and he says he wants another pail of 
butter for a dollar twenty-five. 

Q. How about the fellow who is not a millionaire? — A. He is just as proud as the 
millionaire. 

Q. The fellow who works for $1.50 a day; does he care whether his package is 
labeled "oleomargarine" or not? Does he object to it? — A. I never saw one that 
ever did. 

Q. And he will come in and walk right up like a man and ask for oleomargarine ? — 
A. Yes, sir ; and I have had them come in and discover the stamp. The stamp would 
be on the outside. Aud they say, " Here, I don't want any more buttoriue." I say, 
"All right; I will show you all kinds." And I will get six or eight pails out, and say, 
"Take your pick," and he will pick out butteriue 99 times out of 100. 

Q. But he does not want butterine? — A. No. And I have to say, "Here is butter, 
and here is butterine; which will you take?' He says, "That tastes the finest I 
ever saw in my life. I guess I will take that." And tliat settles his argument. He 
never argues any more. 

Q. There is a prejudice against the name among all classes? — A. Among all classes, 
in regard to calling for it. 

Q. Against the use of tlie name? — A. Yes, sir. I knew of a gentleman the other 
day. I met him out; on the west side, and jinother man says, "How do you know this 
man here?" and he said, "I buy butterine from him." AJid he is a millionaire, too. 



618 OLEOMARG ARINE. 

Q. He -was not afraid ? — A. No ; he was not afraid. He did not care. But he would 
not come into my store aud call for oleomargariue, in front of a crowd, but be will 
go outside and say, "I buy oleomargarine from this man." He buys it for 15 cents. 

Q. Do you think a man is entitled to know just what he is getting? — A. Certainly 
he is. 

Q. In your business you offer him every opportunity to know? — A. I do so much 
business I don't have to lie to him. They buy it anyway. I don't have to lie to him. 
I am doing the real, genuiue thing, in Chicago, and I don't have to lie for it. And I 
am makiug the money. I don't have to lie to them. If they don't like it, let them 
go somewhere else, and get beat, and then they will come back to me later. 

Q. You hav^e no knowledge of any practice or custom in your establishment of 
folding the corner of the paper, such as we have seen? — A. Not in any way, shape, 
form, or manner. 

Q. No such idea as that is given out to your employees? — A. We had some trouble 
about folding the paper. I will show you how it can be folded in in many ways. 
We will suppose the stamp is on tliis corner [illustrating], and the stauip comes 
from this end, as you see, down to this, comes right around the outside. You can 
take that and fold it over like that [illustrating] on the outside, and still it is on 
the outside. I don't do it, but they done it, and they claim it is folded on the inside. 
Do you see it is right here across this top? Then they take it and fold it like that 
[indicating] and fold it in again, and you see it is on the inside. 

Q. That is done with a stamp? — A. Yes. 

Q. And you put your rubber stamp on the pad, and then put it on the paper? — A. 
Yes, sir. 

Q. It would be a simple matter, when the package is wrapped up, to put that 
stamp on the outside, would it not? — A. Yes, sir. 'J hen they take it and turn the 
paper over, and jiut the word " oleo" on the other side, and put it on the inside. 

Q. So far as you are concerned, that would be the simplest possible way? — A. 
Yes; aud many times, just as soon as he makes the discovery that this is oleo, on 
the outside, he says, " Put another wrapper on it to hide it." They don't want to be 
walking along the street showing people that they are buying oleomargarine, but 
still they want it. When this new law came up, about a year ayo, I weut to sell 
pure butter, and it came back just as fast as I sold it. 

Q. It did not have keepiug qualities? — A. No, sir; it did not have keeping quali- 
ties, and I never saw any that ever did have. 

By the Chairman : 

This resolves itself into a question of veracity between you and this gentleman 
[indicating Mr. Knight]. In other words, he says he bought these two packages 
from your store. — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. I have opened both packages in the presence of the committee, and they were 
both folded. — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Each folded in the same way. Now, what is your explanation; that it has 
been changed after it left your store? — A. It must have been, without this man that 
I have there has a new way of wrapping them up, and contrary to my advisement. 
Of course, a man can go on, and pick for a flaw, such as he has done, and make 
trouble, and string it along, if he wishes. And, as I say, a man can wrap it up a 
dozen different ways, and bring it up here and swear that he got it that identical 
way. I would not say that he did it, but I have my opinion. He is getting pay for 
this, you know, and I am not. 

By Senator Harris : 

Q. There is one question I want to ask you further. The pure butter which you 
sell is wholly or partly colored, or how is that? — A. Some of it is as yellow as gold. 

(4. What proportion of it is artificially colored?— A. I could not just state; there 
is a good deal of it, because in January butter is white as snow, almost, very nearly, 
and we get it yellow in the winter time. 

Q. If genuine butter were not artificially colored, would it not be easier to distin- 
guish it from oleomargarine? — A. Yes, sir; because all oleomargariue is colored. 

Q. That is, uniformly colored? — A. Yes, sir: uniformly colored, just as you see 
there [referring to samples of oleomargarine on the table]. 

Q. And in the actual process of producing the genuine butter, the color varies 
with the season? — A. In January it would be almost white. 

Q. In June it would all be about the same color? — A. No; in June you get the 
green grass. 

Q. Then, I say, it would be the color of oleomargarine. — A. Yes, sir; and, as I 
understand, the two articles are colored by the same thing. 

Q. There is a very decided contest, practically, between the creamery men and 
the manufacturers of oleomargarine, as to who shall have the exclusive privileges of 
coloring their product? — A. Yes, sir; I believe there is. These peojile [referring to 
the interests represented by Mr. Knight] want the oleomargariue men to quit color- 



OLEOMAKGAKINE. G 1 9 

ing it, but they don't want to quit tlieniselves. They want to live in glass houses 
all the time, and they want to ])i<it('ct the poor man. We charge 15 and 18 cents; 
they want 25 and od now. What would they <;et in cold weather— in January and 
I'ehruaryf They want to get 60 cents. Tliey want to protect the poor man. 

Q. If the oleomargarine should be all colored pink, would that affect the sale of 
it? — A. You could not sell a pound of it. 

Q. Why?— A. It kills it right there. 

Q. Because everybody would know that it was oleomargarine? — A. Yes, sir. Just 
as I was telling you about the millionaire buying oleomargarine. We will su ppose 
1 invited you to my house to take dinner, and I had some of this pink butter on the 
table. Would you eat it? Y'ou would say I was a cheap skate, wouldn't you? 

Q. Very well. Then, practically, the oleomargarine has to masquerade as but- 
ter? — A. It has to resemble butter. 

Q. It has to masquerade; it has to assume to be butter? — A. Not if you can whis- 
per to the man ; it is all right. 

Q. That is just the same thing. Now, is it not the plain, palpable fact, that oleo- 
margarine is a fraud upon the public? — A. No, sir. 

Q. In the sense that it is masquerading as butter? — A. No, sir, it is not; because, 
I will tell you why. A man will come in and step up to you, and whisper, and say, 
"I want a pail of oleo." He is not going to go out in front of the push and say, "I 
want a pail of (deo." 

Q. He is not willing to deceive himself, but he is willing to deceive his friends? — 
A. Yes, sir; just the same as when you come into my house to dinner, and see this 
pink stuff on the table. 

Q. If we are all in the same boat, why not throw aside the concealment? Why not 
simply let it be known, and make a distinctive color distinction? — A. Well, sir, it 
has killed it in other States. 

This man Broadwell is to-day practicing the same fraud as lie was 
when called before Senator Mason's committee. The matter has been 
reported time and again to the internal-revenue collector, and he has 
been arrested upon complaint of selling oleomargarine for butter, but 
no conviction has ever been secured, although hundreds of dollars have 
been expended in the effort. 

The other two called before the committee were Richard Pollok and 
August Cliff, both of whom pleaded carelessness in some employee in 
selling without stamping, and both of them are to-day selling oleomar- 
garine as butter. Cliff advertising in the street cars and newspapers for 
victims. 

In his testimony Somes is shown in the foregoing to have stated under 
oath that the agents of the manufacturers had advised him to conceal 
the oleomargarine mark, required by the internal-revenue law to be 
plainly and legibly printed on the outside of the wrapper. 

However, later developments in the Chicago situation brought to 
light the true policy of the oleomargarine people, as practiced through- 
out the United States. 

During the month of July, 1899, some 840 retailers took out Govern- 
ment licenses to sell oleomargarine in the city. As nine out of ten 
were known to be selling it for butter, and the tremendous increase in 
dealers forecasted a complete annihilation of the butter business in the 
city, the Illinois Dairy Union became alarmed and decided to make a 
desperate attempt to at least stop a small proportion of the fraud. 
The law forbidding coloring was tied up in the courts through the 
efforts of the manufacturers of oleomargarine, and any attempt to 
enforce it would only result in the release of the defendant through 
habeas corpus proceedings upon the grounds of unconstitutionality, 
although the same law had been upheld by the Supreme Court of the 
United States and various State supreme courts, and never otherwise 
passed upon by a supreme court. 

As a result of our determination, our attorney, Hon. H. V. Murray, 
on July 20 sent out the following letter to every retail dealer in oleo- 
margarine in the city of Chicago who had been licensed the previous 
year: 



620 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

[Office of H. V. Murray, attorney at law.] 

Chicago, III., July 29, 1899. 

Dear Sir: T have been employed by the Illinois Dairy Union to prosecute any cases 
of violation of the dairy laws of this State which may result from the arrest of any 
dealer selling oleomargarine when butter is called for. As you probably know, a 
commission, consisting of a food commissioner and eight assistants and inspectors, 
was provided for by the late legislature, wliose duty it is to enforce these laws. The 
commissioner has been appointed, and until he has ajipointed h:s assistants and 
gotten to work the Illinois Dairy Union's inspectors will look after the protection of 
consnmci s of butter and see that those who sell them oleomargarine for butter are 
prosecuted under the State laws, and also reported to the internal revenue depart- 
ment as violators of the internal-revenue laws. I herewith inclose extracts from 
three State laws. These laws are not tied up in the courts, and the oleomargarine 
manufacturers will not place themselves in the light of protecting those who sell 
oleomargarine for butter, although they may consistently fight the law forbidding 
coloring, which has not yet been passed upon by the supreme court. 

If you sell oleomargarine this year, rest assured that the State food commissioner 
and the Illinois Dairy Union will see that you are not permitted to sell it as butter. 
EespectfuUy, yours, 

Hugh V. Murray, 
Attorney for Illinois Dairy Union. 

It will be noticed that Mr. Murray only threatened prosecutions in 
case oleomargarine was sold for butter. 

This letter, however, created consternation in the ranks of the oleo- 
margiirine retailers. Arrests followed at once, and the results of busi- 
ness the next few weeks in butter furnished evidence of the fraudulent 
character of the oleo. traffic. Hundreds of dealers who had not been 
seen in wholesale butter houses come to buy butter for the trade they 
had been selling oleomargarine. 

The field was too large to be handled in the usual manner of sending 
agents personally to each dealer to assure him of protection, and thus 
the hands of the oleomargarine makers were forced, and they were 
brought out in open light. 

William J. Moxley, claiming to be the largest manufacturer in the 
United States, sent the following letter to the retail dealers in the north- 
ern district of Illinois, under date of August 2, 1899: 

[William J. Moxley, manufacturer of fine butterine, 63 and 65 West Monroe street.] 

Chicago, August 2, 1899. 



City. 

Dear Sir : Our attention has been called to two circulars which have been mailed 
to you— one signed by Hugh V. Murray, an attorney, and the other by Charles Y. 
Knight, editor in chief of a periodical, without subscribers, named the Chicago Dairy 
Produce. The circular bearing Mr. Knight's name has at its head an imposing lot 
of names, gentlemen whose aim it is to prevent the manufacture and sale of butterine, 
so that the butter trust might be enabled to get from 30 to 40 cents a pound for 
butter, depriving, as tliey would, a great many of the industrial classes from being 
able to use butter through its excessive price. 

With the hired attorney, who is earning his fee, we have nothing to say, only to 
inform you that these gentlemen are trying to ring in a bluff. You will notice in 
their circulars that by insinuations they would have people believe they represent 
some official authority. The internal-revenue department looks after their own 
business and the State after theirs, and shonld this so-called dairy union interfere 
vfith your business in the way of prosecution as to the State laws, we hereby guar- 
antee you protection to the extent of paying all fines, costs, etc., until the color law 
is decided unconstitutional in the supreme court of the State of Illinios, and will 
further, on receiving complaint, take such action for damages as will make it 
unpleasant for some of those who are attempting to interfere with your and our own 
legitimate business. 

We were under the impression that the severe censure they received from the 
judges during their filibustering of last year would have been sufficient for all time, 
but have been informed that to be successful in obtaining money from farmers and 
butter men a few circulars with imposing headlines are required. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 621 

"We strongly recommend yon to pay no attention to those circnlnrs. We have 
always been in a position to protect onr customers from injustice and blackmailers, 
and will be ever at your service should you require our aid. 

Respectfully, yours, Wm. J. Moxley, 

And for fear the above manufacturer might get some of their trade, 
Braun & Fitts sent out the following letter at about the same time to 
the same dealers: 

Every licensed butterine dealer in Chicago has received circular letters from the 
secretary and attorney for the Illinois Dairy Union, promising all sorts of trouble to 
dealers in butterine (that honest and pure article of food). Well, now, don't you 
believe a word of it; there is a law against blackmailing, and we want now and 
here to go on lecord to the assertion, as an affidavit, that we shall civilly and crimi- 
nally prosecute any man or party of men interfering unlawfully with the butterine 
business in this or any other State. We know exactly where we stand ; we are 
properly advised on the subject, and now we make you a "fair offer:" "Handle our 
goods as you always have, we in turn promise and guarantee full protection against 
the State law (which has been declared unconstitutional) to the extent of paying 
cost of prosecution, lines, and paying all costs pertaining thereto." In declaring the 
law unconstitutional one of the judges stated to the efi'ect "that the butter ring were, 
in his opinion, liable to prosecution to recover damages done an honest industry." 
Fair enough, isn't it? Renew your eiforts, and be assured that we will be prepared 
to fight any number of rounds in any kind of a legal fight to the finish. Handle our 
butterine and be safe. 

THE RESULT OF PROSECUTIONS. 

Despite these prosecutions, however, the Illinois Dairy Union went 
forward with prosecutions. Some eighteen dealers were arrested 
charged with selling oleomargarine for butter. The warrants for their 
arrest were uniform, and the following is a true copy thereof: 

State of Illinois, County of Cook, ss: 

Charles Y. Knight, being first duly sworn, on his own oath states that he is informed 
and has just and reasonable grounds to believe, does believe, and so on oath states 
that N. A. Wright, late of the county of Cook and State of Illinois, whilst engaged 
in business as M. A. Wright in the city of Chicago, (onnty of Cook, and State of 
Illinois, on, to wit, the 15th day of August, 1899, at his place of business aforesaid, in 
said county and State, unlawfully, willfully, maliciously, and knowingly did sell and 
deliver as butter and cause to be sold and delivered as butteran article of food into the 
composition of which oleomargarine or suinehad entered, to one John Fewer, of the 
city of Chicago, in the county and State aforesaifl, without at the same time inform- 
ing the said John Fewer of the fact, and of the proportion into which said oleomar- 
garine, Buine, butterine, beef fat, lard, or other foreign substance had entered into the 
composition of said article, contrary to the form of the statute in such case made 
and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the people of the State of Illinois. 

Affiant therefore asks that a warrant issue herein for the arrest of the said M. A. 
Wright, and that he be prosecuted according to law. 

Charles Y. Knight. 

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 16th day of August, A. D. 1899. 
[SEAL.] G. W. Un'derwood, J. P. 

These cases were defended by attorneys employed by the two manu 
facturiiig firms, W. J. Moxley and Braun & Fitts. Eoy O. West, Mr 
Moxley's regular attorney, was counsel, assisted by Worth E. Caylor* 
The cases were fought for about two months and briefs were submitted in 
justice court. The defense did not deny the charge of selling oleomar- 
garine for butter. They set up the claim that the law was unconstitu- 
tional, and the chief grounds upon which it was alleged to be invalid 
were stated in their brief, as follows : 

[From the oleomargarine manufacturers' brief.] 

The crime charged in the complaints is that the defendants caused to be sold and 
delivered as butter an article of food into the co«positiou of which oleomargarine or 
suine had entered to one John Fewer, etc., and without at the same time informing 



622 OLEOMAEGAEINE. 

the said John Fewer of the fact and proportions in which said oleomara^arine, suine, 
beef fat, lard, or other foreign substances bad entered into the couiposiliou of said 
article, contrary to the form of the statute, etc. 

The language used in the complaints is almost exactly the same as that used in 
the latter part of section 28 of the criminal code, as above quoted. 

There can be no convictions uuder these complaints for the following reasons: 

First. The act in itself is not an act to prevent the selling of oleomargarine for 
butter. It is '-An act to prevent and punish the adulteration of articles of food, 
drink, and medicine and the sale thereof when adulterated." To be more specitic, 
this section is limited to the mixing of oleomargarine or any other foreign substance 
with any butter intended for human food. If oleomargarine or butterine are sold, 
there can be no conviction under this section, even though they are sold for butter. 

It is very evident that the man who sells an article can not know the propor- 
tions that any adulterant enters into the butter unless he mixes or manufactures it. 
Mere hearsay Irom the person from Avhom the seller purchases the article would not 
be evideuie of the correct proportions or ingredients, so as to relieve the seller of 
any liability. The labeling by the manufacturer or the mixer of the article would 
not bind the seller with the true knowledge of the constituents of the article sold. 

Manifestly, it would be impossible for the retailer, or seller, to make a chemical 
analysis of every article of this kind that entered his place, because it would make 
such additional expense that it would prohibit the sale of the article. If it would 
prohibit the .sale of the article, the statute would be unconstitutional. 

The above is one of the most remarkable defenses ever set up in any 
food case ever brouuht into court, as in order to make a defense where 
a law requires labeling the claim is made tliat no retailer can be sure of 
what he is selling unless he has it analyzed, and that analysis would 
cost so much that ic would prohibit the business. It is a denial of the 
right of the State to protect its citizens in any way in the purchase of 
food, as it claims that the retailer himself can not know what he is sell- 
ing, and that any law which forced him to ascertain that fact would be 
un<;oiistitutional. 

The above illustration is given to prove that sellers of oleomargarine 
defend their customers in the sale of oleomaigarine as butter, which 
sale was in open violation of both State and Federal laws, and to show 
that they will not comply with the most reasonable regulations. In 
other words, they hold themselves to be wholly above the State laws, 
and defend violations of such laws, which violations are in effect viola- 
tions of the Federal laws and which would have been prosecuted in 
the Federal courts but for the fact that the collector of internal reve- 
nue refused to make the prosecutions upon evidence of outsiders, and 
stated that he had neither time for the work nor money to purchase 
samples with which to do the prosecuting in his own dei>artment. 

These cases were dismissed by the justice of the peace upon 
grounds that a subsequent statute had repealed the law under which 
the warrants were drawn, but not until after $1,600 had been spent by 
the parties interested in an effort to stoj) this gigantic fraud in the 
city of Chicago. The decision admitted of no appeal, the Dairy Union's 
funds were exhausted, and while the decision was looked upon as the 
most ridiculous piece of justice ever i)erpetrated u])on the public the 
oleomargarine manufacturers stood ready to enter into other contro- 
versies upon any iDoints or under any laws we might proceed under in 
order to stop their swindling of the public in the city of Chicago, where 
not one in twenty-five dealers has ever pretended to comply with the 
national law, and not one ever observes any State law. 

CAN A STATE PROTECT ITS CITIZENS FROM FRAUD? 

Swift & Co. go on to say: 

Eighth. Some of these bills propose to withdraw from oleomargarine all the rights 
and ])rotectiou of interstate commerce, and to turn it over to the tender mercies of 
the various State legislatures, which may be interested in restricting or prohibiting 
its manufacture or sale, because of its competition with local interests or products. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 623 

If this principle of lej^islation is once couceded, where will it end? If New York 
can exeliul oleomargariue from the markets of the State becanse it comes into com- 
petition with its dairy interests, why should not Vermont prohibit the sale of beet 
sugar to protect its maple-sugar crop? Why should not West Virginia prohibit the 
sale of all anthracite coal " designed to take the place of bituminous coal as an article 
of fuel," or Louisiana prohibit the use of beet sugar or glucose or saccharine because 
these may be used as substitutes for the local product of cane sugar f Is Congress 
ready to afHrm that in order to protect the business and products of one State the 
business and products of another State may be excluded? 

Upon tilis point Swift & Co. can be directly answered by an extract 
from Justice Harlan's decision in the case of Plumley v. Massachusetts, 
previously referred to. Says this honored jurist, leferringto the rights 
of the State to regulate and control the oleomargarine traffic, then 
under review : 

If there be any subject over which it would seem the States ought to have plenary 
control and the power to legislate in respect to which it ought not to be supposed 
was intended to be surrendered to the General Government, it is the protection of 
the people against fraud and deception in the sale of food products. Such legisla- 
tion may, indeed, indirectly or incidentally affect trade in such products transported 
from one State to another State. But that circumstance does not show that laws of 
the character alluded to are inconsistent with the power of Congress to regulate 
commerce among the States. 

Let us, however, look at the illustrations cited by Swift & Co. in a 
manner consistent with this question. Does any one doubt that if 
citizens of West Virginia should so manipulate its bituminous coal as 
to make it an exact imitation of the anthracite of Pennsylvania, using 
a polish to give it luster and a mold to imitate the anthracite form, and 
the Pennsylvania people found that citizens of that State were daily 
purchasing this bituminous coal for anthracite and at anthracite prices, 
that the State of Pennsylvania should have the legal right to say that 
West Virginia's bituminous coal must not be so manipulated as to 
cause the citizens of Pennsylvania to think it anthracite and thus be 
defrauded? Should officers be stationed at every coal i)ile to see that 
every customer was advised that the fuel which resembled anthracite 
was a cheaper and less serviceable grade 1 And woukl the people of 
Pennsylvania accept as an excuse for the counterfeiting of anthracite 
coal such reasons as are put forward by the oleomargarine makers in 
justification of coloring their product to resemble butter — that it is 
absolutely necessary for the purpose of pleasing the eye? 

The trouble with Swift & Co.'s comparisons are that they endeavor 
to compare things that differ. They are now prei)ariug to make an 
onslaught against the laws of the State of Kew York and endeavor to 
force their counterfeit product into the only State in the country which 
has protected its people with any degree of success with State laws, 
but which has been done at enormous expense to the Slate and at the 
expense of eternal vigilance, necessitating at times the dispatching of 
agents as far west as Illinois to seek out violators and expose them to 
the internal-revenue department. 

Thus far, with the exceptions of two Federal lower courts, the rights 
of the State to exclude oleomargarine made in semblance of butter has 
never been denied. But the lack of specific legislation ui)on tliis sub- 
ject has befogged some of the tribunals, and nothing but direct legis- 
lation to the point will clear the matter up and protect the laws of the 
States. 

The States whose laws are thus threatened are such ones as have 
provided for the powerful State machinery and support to enforce their 
laws against the invaders. This provision alone would not greatly 
benefit such States as Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Massachusetts, and 
other States where the retail dealers — always amenable to State laws, 



624 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

SO far as any protection the interstate-commerce laws may afford — are 
being backed up in tbeir detiance of the laws by the manufacturers, 
who can simply afford to spend more money in defense than the State 
can afford for prosecution. 

IS OLEOMARGARINE THE "POOR MAN'S BUTTER?" 

Following, Swift & Co. have something interesting to say about 
prices: 

Ninth. The various grades of oleomargarine manufactured range in price, on an 
average, from 10 cents per pound for the cheapest grade to 15 cents per pound for 
the highest grade. The average price of the cheapest grade of oleomargarine for the 
ye;ir ending December 31, 1899, was exa(ttly lOJ cents per pound. This is the price 
charged by both manufacturers and jobbers to the retail dealer, the price to the job- 
ber being one-half cent per pound less than to the retailer. From this it will be seen 
that a tax of 10 cents per pound would equal the price obtained for the product and 
would completely destroy a business which has been recognized by law, which fur- 
nishes a large annual revenue to the Government, which provides emiiloyment for 
large numbers of men, and in which citizens of the United States have invested 
their fortunes and their energies, for it is a fact which must be apparent to all who 
will reflect that the tax proposed by these bills is prohibitive and therefore 
destructive. Congress is now asked to destroy that which it has heretofore recog- 
nized as lawful, and from which it has derived large revenues each year. 

The foregoing is also a subject upon which we may be able to offer 
some information. Swift & Co. say it could not stand a tax of 10 cents 
per pound and live. 

At what price does oleomargarine sell at retail? Here is the test. 
The manufacturer makes a good, liberal profit, but the retailer is the 
man who is compelled to do the disreputable work of disposing of it for 
butter, and he demands extraordinary margins for so doing, which is 
quite natural. Let us see what arguments besides the guarantees of 
protection are advanced to induce the retailer to violate the laws of his 
State and face the possibility of indictment and trial in court. 

One of the most interesting exhibits in this line is a circular letter 
issued by the Capital City Dairy Company of Columbus, Ohio, Decem- 
ber 1, 1899. It follows: 

[The Capital City Dairy Company, makers of biitterine, highest quality only, No. 185 to 197 Third 

avenue east. 

Columbus, Ohio, December 1, 1899. 

Dear Sir: With the appended change in price list we can only reiterate that our 
"Purity" grade is equal if not superior to most makes creamery butterine, therefore, 
"Purity" selling at 20 cents, "Buckeye"' or "Pride" should sell at 25 to 30 cents. 
If you want a popular priced grade our "Silver Leaf" is particularly appropriate. 
Ever remember this indisputable fact : You can obtain for our butterine a better 
retail price than for any other make in the United States. 

Purity, 14 cents per pound. 

Silver Leaf, 15 cents per pound. 

Buckeye, 17 cents per ]»ound. 

C. C. Pride, 18 cents per pound. 

Prices subject to change without notice. 

Goods billed ;it price in effect on day of shipment. 

F. O. B. Columbus, Ohio, net cash. 

DIFFERENTIALS. 

One-half cent advance for solids under 25 pounds, and rolls or prints 2 pounds and 
over. 

One cent for rolls and prints 1 pound and less than 2 pounds; also small tubs in 
crates and boxes; also unsalted butterine. 

One and one-half cents for rolls or prints of one-half pound and less than 1 pound. 
Two cents for rolls and prints under 8 ounces. 

Mixed, catch, or country rolls tigured at prices of smallest roll or print in package. 
Very truly, yours, 

TuE Capital City Dairy Co. 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 



625 



At the time this circular was issued butter of best quality was worth 
at wholesale about 25 cents in Chicago. 

The Capital City Dairy Company tells its customers that they ought 
to get from 25 to 30 cents for "Buckeye" or "Pride" oleomargarine, 
which they will sell the retailer at 17 to 18 cents f. o. b. Columbus. This 
means from 8 to 13 cents per pound profit, or from 33 to almost 80 per 
cent profit on the "])Oor man's butter." 

But no, that is not what this means. The mention of 30 cents per 
pound means to convey to the retailer the suggestion that "Pride" or 
"Buckeye" can be sold at butter prices — for that is about what the 
best butter would be worth at retail — and as butter. 

And this concern, as well as the others, are not satisfied with imi- 
tating butter color, butter tubs, butter rolls, and butter prints, but needs 
must put up "mixed, catch, or country rolls" — that is, place in a box 
various sizes, shapes, colors, and designs of oleomargarine to cause the 
contents of said box to resemble country butter as it comes fresh to the 
stores from the farmer. That is why the price is figured at "price of 
smallest roll or print in package." Can the manufacturer plead in justi- 
fication of this scheme to defraud and mislead " a desire to please the 
eyef' 

But let us look a little further into the ability of yellow oleomarga- 
gariue to stand an increase of tax. 

The average cost of raw materials can not be much more than 8 cents 
per pound for the best that is made without butter — and of course very 
little butter — that article " devoid of keeping qualities and of 'doubtful' 
cleanliness" — would be used in the immaculate product, oleomargarine. 
It has been shown that the manufacturer sells it for from 10 to 18 cents 
a pound and the retailer is advised that he ought to sell it at from 
20 to 30 cents per pound. Between 8 cents cost of raw materials and 30 
cents at retail is a margin of 22 cents, furnishing plenty of room for 
the 10-cent tax, which amount and profit is now serving as an incen- 
tive for tlie retailer to sell the stuff as butter and giving the manufac- 
turer a profit that will permit him to pay costs and fines and other- 
wise defray all expenses incurred in the defense of such suits. It is 
this unnatural, abnormal, unfair, and corrupting profit that we desire to 
be taken away from the traffic in order that our laws may stand some 
chance of being enforced without having to expend as much State 
money as these counterfeiters can afford to spend of their ill-gotten 
gains. 

But let us see what some others have to say about the profits derived 
from the sale of oleomargarine. 

In a circular letter sent the Chicago trade October 22, 1898, Wm. J. 
Moxley says, among other things: 

Yonr profit will be double the amount made from the butter you are now handling, 
and your butter trade will be more satisfied if you will sell them such butterine as 
you cau buy from me. 

Under date of March 17, 1899, Messrs. Braun & Fitts, of Chicago, 
sent out a circular containing the following: 

Now is your chauce to build up a first-class trade by haudliuK only first-class 
butterine. Eggs are selling at cost, but "the only high grade" will give you profit, 
so keep pushing its sale and build up a reputation for good butter. 

Please note, the cireuhir doesn't say, "build up a reputation for good 
butterine," but for "good butter." 

We could supply Congress witb hundreds of instances of where the 
retailers advertise butter and sell nothing but oleomargarine. But our 
endeavor here is to reveal the connection of the manufacturer with the 

S. Eep. 2043 40 



626 OLEOMARGARINE. 

imposition now being practiced upon the public — to show what the 
men are doing who will appeal to you to spare their industry upon the 
grounds that while there may be fraud practiced in a small way by 
some irresponsible retailer, their interests should not be made to suffer 
therefor. 

We charge that the manufacturers are directly responsible for the 
fraud; tliey devise schemes, and instruct retailers in tLeir consumma- 
tion; but for their law-defying attitude the State laws would be as 
easily enforced as the laws against any other fraud. 

Another phase of this question is the position in which the law-abid- 
ing retailer is placed. 

Where oleomargarine is really sold at reasonable figures it is usually 
advertised as a "bargain sale in butter." It is used to draw trade for 
other lines. In some instances honest grocers are hampered by com- 
petitors who sell 15 cent butteriueas butter for 25 or 28 cents, and take 
the 5 or 8 cents of profit off some other article or articles, thus cheat- 
ing the consumer on butter when he believes he is getting a bargain all 
around. 

The following from a circular letter sent out by W. J. Moxley Decem- 
ber 10, 1898, shows up this side of the question : 

When a woman goes to buy groceries there is one nrticle of goods she must have, 
and that is butter. She piay want sugar, coffee, ami other articles, but she wants 
butter and wants it at a price to suit her means. If you can not supply her don't 
expect her to buy her coffees, teas, and other articles of you, and then go a block to 
another grocery to buy four or five pounds oT "Moxley's Special." If she is a prac- 
tical woman she will go to a store where all her wants can be supi)lied. Some are 
deterred from going into the butterine business through having to pay for a license. 
This is a mistaken idea. Niuety-five per cent of the dealers who take out a license 
for one year take it ever after, the other 5 per cent fail in business. Nothing can 
save them. 

Note again, Mr. Moxley, doesn't say, " there is one article of goods 
she must have, and that is oleomargarine." Oh, no. She must have 
butter. And if yon don't deceive her into thinking she is getting butter 
at a lower price than it can be honestly sold, then you lose her trade 
and fail in business. And there is considerable truth in this. The 
dealer who is dishonest has an unfair, unjust, and illegal advantage, 
and such a condition places a premium upon crime. 

The 10 cent tax will take away this injustice by depriving yellow 
oleomargarine of its corrupting powers. 

DOES THE EXISTENCE OF OLEOMAEGAEINE DEPEND UPON ITS YELLOW 

COLOR ? 

And now in closing Swift & Co. make a remarkable omission. They 
say: 

Tenth. It is a well-known fact that the people who use oleomargarine are the 
intelligent, prudent, and thrifty people of the middle classes, who buy oleomargarine 
because they prefer it to that which is sold as butter in their markets, and who are 
too intelligent to be deceived even if anyone wished to deceive them. These bills 
propose to make it impossible for these people to buy what they wish to buy, 
although it is known to be absolutely clean, wholesome, and healthful, for these are 
facts which have been established in courts and by reports of officials, State and 
national, and by investigations of various kinds carried on in all parts of the country, 
and the results widely published. 

Oleomargarine, then, has ceased to be "The poor man's butter?" 
This is a remarkable change in conditions. There is only one expla- 
nation for such a change in the claims of the oleomargarine makers. 
A resolution was presented to the central body at Chicago a few weeks 



OLEOMARGARINE. 627 

ago condemning the Grout bill and instructing the secretary to call 
upon kiiidred and allied labor organizations to pass tlie same kind of 
resolutions and send to Congress. A committee was seut out to inves- 
tigate the matter; the fraud was shown them in a half dozen shops 
within a stone's throw. The question was fully explained to them, 
and they returned with the assurance that if they made any recommen- 
datiou it would be for the passage of the measure, as they had never 
imagined such an api)alliiig condition of affairs could exist as was 
demonstrated to them when they were taken into stores where creamery 
butter was asked for and packages brazenly taken from boxes which 
the sellers were later forced to admit had concealed upon them the 
revenue stamp showing them to contain oleomargarine. 

The committee which made the investigation was President Daley 
and Director Oarmody, the latter remarking after visiting the place of 
the Ohio Butter Company, at 54 Fifth avenue, and seeing the frauds 
practiced there, that the tax ought to be 25 cents instead of 10 cents. 
The above statement I will make affidavit to, although it appears the 
resolution was really passed at the instigation of the box makers' union, 
which makes boxes for the manufacturers of oleomargarine. 

THE USE OF THE TAXING POWER. 

Now, a word regarding the advisability of employing the taxing power 
of the Government as an internal protective measure. This question is 
admitted to be one demanding mature deliberation, and the use of the 
taxing power, it is conceded, must be carefully exercised. In 8 Howard, 
82, we hud the following: 

The t.axing power of a State is one of its attributes to sovereignty. * * Tlie 

onJy restraint is found in tlie responsibility of the legislature to their constituents. 

While in 4 Wheat., 316, we find: 

If the end be legitimate and within the scope of the Constitution, all the means 
which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, and which are not 
prohibited, may constitutionally be employed to carry it into eft'ect. 

If a certain means to carry into effect any of the powers expressly given by the 
Constitution to tlie Government of the Union be an appropriate measure, not pro- 
hibited by the Constitution, the degree of its necessity is a question of legislative 
discretion — not of judicial cognizance. 

But probably the best argument for the use of the taxing power for 
such a purpose is found in 9 Wall., in one of the original tax cases, 
where a retail liquor dealer claimed immunity from the jurisdiction of 
the State because of the fact that he held a license from the Govern- 
ment. The court said in this case : 

There is nothing hostile or contradictory, therefore, in the acts of Congress to the 
legislation of the State. What the latter prohibits tbe former, if the business is 
found existing notwithstanding the prohibition, discourages by taxation. Tbe two 
lines of legislation proceed in tbe same direction and tend to the same results. 

Here the court judicially recognized in the taxing power a tendency 
to discourage what the State prohibits. 

And again, Congress might well hesitate to select at random one 
industry, the standing of which with the people might be open to ques- 
tion, and discourage or hamper it with taxation. 

But courts have uniformly held that in the exercise of its taxing 
power Congress is reponsible only to the people; that the remedy of 
the people for excessive taxation lies in an appeal to their representa- 
tives and not to the courts. 

In this matter the people of the States have expressed themselves by 



628 OLEOMAKGARINE. 

a four-fifth's majority as being opposed to the existence or commerce in 
the article we seek, if you please, to discourage by taxation. The legis- 
latures of thirty-two leading States have declared traffic in oleomar- 
garine colored to resemble butter to be a menace to the individual 
rights and welfare of their people. Thirty-two legi.^latures have thor- 
oughly investigated the matter and in both branches came to the same 
conclusions. Our charge of fraudulent similation has been sustained 
by the representatives of four-fifths of the people of this country, and 
the high courts have invariably pronounced their grounds well taken 
and their reasoning sound. It is not a case of Congress oppressively 
taxing the peoijlc, or wrongfully employing its taxing power; it is a 
case of where the people of practically every State arise and appeal to 
Congress for aid in accomplishing something which they have sought 
but failed to do with State laws specially enacted. There can be no 
protests from the people, because they themselves have sought the 
legislature as the only practical solution of a condition which is rapidly 
becoming oppressively intolerable. 

Need any Congressman hesitate to support a measure the intent or 
effect of which may be to discourage traffic in an article totally for- 
bidden in his State? Upon the other hand, should he not, as a law- 
abiding citizen and a representative of his people, endeavor to use his 
best efforts in Congress to advance the interests of the people of his 
State? Can a representative in Congress question the wisdom of the 
policy of the legislatures of the leading States when their actions have 
been so uniform in the treatment of the subject under discussion? 

And further, what right has anybody in any State where the sale of 
yellow oleomargarine is forbidden to object to this tax? Where can his 
interest lie? If he is a law-abiding citizen his interests can not be 
affected. If he is not a law-abiding citizen, what claim has he upon 
the representative of his people in Congress? Can a member of Con- 
gress afford to be influenced by a citizen who has no respect for the 
laws of his State? 

It is the will of the people of Illinois, expressed by two-thirds of the 
legislature of the State, that oleomargarine colored in semblance of 
butter should not be sold. Swift & Co. and other manufacturers prac- 
tically come before Congress and say: 

Now, you see here, this is our fight. We are too big for the State of Illinois, as 
well as many other States, and we're having things our own way. We don't care 
for State laws at all, because we can get around them. We are selling more colored 
oleomargarine now than we were before the laws forbidding its manufacture and 
Bale were enacted. But if you Members of Congress go and put a tax of 10 cents a 
pound on this stuff it would ruin our business. We can't fight the Government 
when it goes after its taxes, although the Internal Revenue Department doesn't 
bother our retailers by making them comply with the law regarding branding, 
because the Government doesn't lose any revenue through these violations, but is 
rather a gainer. You just let us alone and we'll do as we please. What business 
have the people of the State making laws that will interfere with an industry that 
produces a healthful article, anyway? Of course, we realize that occasionally some 
oleomargarine is sold for butter, but why not chase around among the thousands 
who retail the stutf and punish them if you can catch them? No, gentlemen, we 
don't care what the States say; our business is such that they can't reach us. But 
it would be outrageous for the Reiiresentatives of these States in Congress to get 
together and lix up a sclienie which would prevent us do'ng as we pleased in their 
States hereafter. All we ask is to be let alone in our fight with your people, whom 
we are forcing to eat our product whetlu/r they want it or not. 

WHY SECTION 2 IS NECESSARY. 

The dairy interests of the United States are divided into two classes. 
One represents the class located in States where the legal machinery 
has been unsuccessful in coaling with this fraud. Statistics of the 



OLEOMARGARINE. 629 

internal revenne show that New York is about tlie only important con- 
suming State thus situated. 

The other cliiss comprises the other States whicli have found it im- 
possible with State laws to prevent the sale of oleomargarine contrary 
to their State laws. 

The New York dairymen, as well as the dairymon in other Eastern 
States, fear an onslaught upon their laws whi(;h will break the hitherto 
impenetrable barrier and Hood their markets with the forbiden counter- 
feit article. Their fear is that some Federal courts may interpret some 
rather ambiguous decisions in the same way they were interpreted by 
the court of api)eals of Maryland and a district Federal court of Minne- 
sota, denying the right of the State to exclude yellow oleomargarine in 
the original package. It is to forestall any such a probability that 
State control is asked, as in section 1. 

But the very large niiijority of the States will not, under present con- 
ditions, be at all l)enetited by section 1 alone. Such dec-isions would 
have no effect ui)on their laws, because the violations in these States do 
not consist of the sale of the article in the original package, which 
might be protected by the interstate-commerce laws, but it is retailers, 
over whom the State, so far as Federal interference is concerned, has 
never been denied jurisdiction, and which right to regulate has never 
been questioned by the judiciary. 

The obstacle these States find to the enforcement of their laws is 
the persistent, systematic, and powerful opi)osition of the manufac- 
turers, who regularly appropriate a i)ortion of their earnings to cover 
legal expenses, and whose fixed policy it is to induce retailers to become 
lawbreakers and protect them against the prosecutions of the State. 

Nothing but the enactment of the 10-cent tax clause, which will take 
the abnormal profit out of the sale of this countertieit, will ever make 
it possible for the States to enforce their laws against dealers in oleo- 
margarine, as they would against violators of other laws. 

DAIRY FARMERS DISCRIMINATED AGAINST. 

The chief argument against our bill now is that the oleomargarine 
manufacturers ought to have the same rights to color their goods that 
the dairymen enjoy; that depriving them of that right would be placing 
them at a disadvantage which we ought not to do; that it is not right 
to make their goods unattractive by prohibiting the coloring of them. 

The manufacturer of oleomargarine, upon payment of $(J00 license 
fee and 2 cents per pound tax, is given the right to use for producing a 
substitute for butter a fat enabling him to make it for 10 or 12 cents 
per pound at the outside, including the 2-cent tax. He has the right 
to use a 6 cent fat, and can, if he chooses, mix butter with it. The 
dairy farmer is confined by law to the use of butter fat that can not be 
produced, even under the most favorable circumstances, for less than 
12 cents per pound, and in winter months the cost to him is nearer 
18 and 20 cents per pound. If he were permitted to use neutral lard, 
oleo oil, or cotton-seed oil in his production, as does the oleo manufac- 
turer, he could make the cost much less, and might make goods for 
10 or 12 cents that would outclass in quality the oleomargarine maker's 
goods. In this way the oleomargarine manufacturer is given a monop- 
oly on the trade for a cheap substitute, and restrictions are placed 
upon the dairyman which keep him out of the field and out of competi- 
tion. If he is to be barred out of this field by restrictions, is it any 
more than fair that the oleomargarine manufacturer should be barred 
out of the field of pure butter by some restrictions? And can anyone 



630 OLEOMAKGARINE. 

devise restrictions tbat will apprise the consumer of the identity oftbe 
substitute other than through the agency of color? What we call the 
field of pure butter is that portion of the consuming public that calls 
for butter either at the store or at the table. It is at the table where 
the invasion of our rights is being carried on. Of course, it might be 
said that the dairy farmer has the same right to obtain a license and 
engage in the business that the present oleomargarine manufacturer 
has. We answer that he would then be a manufacturer of oleomarga- 
rine, and not a dairyman. And, besides, where is there a farmer, or a 
neighborhood of farmers, that could afford to pay $600 a year for the 
privilege of going into the business? 

ALL MUST ADULTERATE OR NONE. 

Fourteen years ago the dairymen of this country were confronted 
with this crisis: They must either become adulterators and meet the 
competition of those who made oleomargarine without restriction (as 
was the case prior to the passage of the law of 1886), or they must 
crush out the counterfeit in order tiiat they might deal honestly with 
the public and i)reserve their business. 

They chose to be honest and force others to be the same. That is 
why they came to Congress for the Hatch bill then. 

Stop and consider a moment, if you please, that the dairymen and 
creamery men have all the facilities for adulterating butter, and might 
with profit be adulterators if not forbidden by law. They chose, how- 
ever, to make the pure article, and the laws they secured were as 
restrictive upon themselves as upon those who prefer the dishonest 
business of adulteration. 

Now look around at the wholesale butter business. Not a wholesale 
butter dealer in the city of Chicago handles oleomargarine at whole- 
sale. Why? Because they will not violate the laws of their State and 
encourage the violation of the laws of the Government. Every whole- 
sale butter man is as well qualified to sell oleomargarine as the oleo- 
margarine dealer. He sells to the same trade. 

Because the butter merchant obeys laws and refuses to encourage 
their violation, his business is being ruined by other merchants who 
are willing to defy law and incite violators by guaranteeing protection 
in case of prosecution. 

Is it not an outrage that the law-abiding citizen should suffer as a 
result of his good citizenship, and should not every lawmaking body 
do everything to protect those who respect the decrees of this branch 
of the Government? 

The dairymen fight for the preservation of the purity of the dairy 
product. They do not want to be forced to become adulterators, as 
has been the case with manufacturers of nearly every other article of 
food, as shown by Senator Mason's report. They will fight anybody, 
no matter who he be, who comes before the public with a counterfeit of 
their article which can not be detected by the unwary consumer. 

In whose interest are they doing this? Is it in their own interest 
any more than in the interest of the public? 



March 14, 1900. 

The committee met at 10.30 a. m. 

The Chairman. The meeting this morning is for the purpose of 
hearing a delegation of gentlemen from Philadelphia on the Grout 
bill. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 631 

STATEMENT OF MR. B. F. KIMBALL, OF PHILADELPHIA. 

Mr. Cbairuian and gentlemeu of the committee, the mercliants of 
Pbiladelpbia believe that the passage of the Grout bill would solve the 
oleomargarine question, inasmuch as it strikes at the foundation of the 
manufacture of oleomargarine by permitting it to be «old for what it is 
and not in imitation of butter, which it is when it is colored, so that it 
will come in legitimate competition with butter in that shape. 

Mr. Lamb. What would be the efl'ect of the operation of this law ia 
Philadelphia on the retail merchant? 

Mr. Kimball. At present in l^hiladelphia about nine-tenths of the 
oleomargarine sold is sold as butter. It may be stamped or it may not 
be. We seldom see it stamped We simply ask that they be com- 
pelled to comply with the law. The wholesalers now do comply with 
the law. 

Mr. Allen. Do you know that from personal knowledge? 

Mr. Kimball. 1 know it from contact with customers and seeing the 
product in the stores. We have it in our store for examination. We 
know that the butter trade has fallen off because of the sale of oleo- 
margarine. 

Mr. White. What is the percentage of the decreased sale of butter 
in consequence of the sale of oleomargarine as butter? 

Mr. Kimball. It is fully 50 per cent. 

Mr. Davis. In the State of Pennsylvania there are 11,000,000 pounds 
of oleomargarine sold, and about nine-tenths of it is sold as butter. 
The only State which sells more is Illinois. 

Mr. Kimball. The butter merchants of Philadelphia are largely 
interested in creamery products, and have no objection to the sale of 
oleomargarine itself as such. They recognize it as an article of com- 
merce. We object to the sale of oleomargarine at butter prices as 
butter. 

The Chairman. Is it sold in that way? 

Mr. Kimball. There is no inducement to sell oleomargarine by the 
retailer unless he can get butter prices. 

The Chairman. I suppose it is sold at a slightly less price? 

Mr. Kimball. It is sold at the price of butter. Last week we had 
three persons convicted for violating the United States law. Since that 
time you can buy oleomargarine cheaper. The price to day is 20 cents. 
Before that the same man was selling it for 28 cents. 

Mr. Allen. You say they are selling it fraudulently. Is that under 
the State or Federal law? 

Mr. Kimball. It is under the Federal law. 

Mr. Allen. Have you a State Law ? 

Mr. Kimball. We have. They can not sell it except when it is un- 
colored. 

Mr. Allen. You say they can not enforce that law? 

Mr. Kimball. They are arrested and brought before magistrates. 
Last year the butter men spent $4,000 for the purpose of preventing 
the sale of it by the i)rosecution of offenders. Two cases were brought 
up last week and both were convicted, but to-day they are making 
arguments for new trials. 

Mr. Co NEY. Have you spent money to obtain convictions under the 
State law ? 

Mr. Kimball. Yes, sir. We had it down fine at first, when the State 
repealed the prohibitory law and made it a license law. Since that 
time we find we are able to prosecute better in the United States courts. 



632 OLEOMARGARINE. 

It can not be sold if the people know wliat they are getting. We can 
do nothing in the State courts. If this Grout bill prevails, then the 
retailer will be obliged to buy from the manufacturer. If he obtains it 
colored, in imitation of butter, he will have to pay the tax, which 
brings it up close to the price of butter. As it is now it is in competition 
with butter and needs regulating. 

Mr. Allen. Don't you think that we should provide against the 
coloring of butter! 

Mr. Kimball. No, sir; because butter has been colored from time 
immemorial. 

Mr. Allen. Don't you think the same objection obtains against the 
coloring of butter as obtains against the coloring of oleomargarine'? 

Mr. Kimball. All the white butter produced today, that which you 
see in the country stores, is only used in making it over. It is sold as 
packing stock and used for manufacturing ])urposes. The legitimate 
butter, much of it, is colored yellow. Some peoi)le prefer to have color- 
ing matter added. We do not want to sjieak about coloring one way 
or another. We want to do a legitimate business and obey the laws, 
and we want our customers to obey the laws, but dealers will buy 
oleomargarine and rewrap it and sell it for butter. That hurts the 
butter man who is trying to earn an honest living in the sale of butter, 
aud it also hurts the man who purchases butter. 

If this Grout bill prevails, then oleomargarine, if it is a good thing, 
and we admit it is a good thing, will be sold at a price to reach the 
poor man, and it is intended to reach him, and the legimate butter will 
sell at a price which the people are willing to pay for it. It will do 
away with the practice of deceiving the customer who goes into a store 
and asks for a pound of butter and gets a pound of oleomargarine. 

The Chairman. Whose fault is that ? It is not the fault of the manu- 
facturer ? 

Mr. Kimball. I do not know. Persons would not sell it unless they 
made a profit out of it. 

The Chairman. You say that you can not convict persons under 
your law? 

Mr. Kimball. The law has only been in force a year. The grand 
jury has found true bills, but the cases do not come up. I am sorry I 
am not better posted on the merits of this particular bill. I only speak 
from the standpoint of a Philadeli)hia merchant. We are not speakers, 
but simply butter men. 

Mr. Allen. Do you mean to state that the district attorney will not 
enforce the law? 

Mr. Kimball. No, sir; I do not want to give that impression. We 
do know, however, that we have had to make the fight ourselves. 
There is an absolutely prohibitory law. 

Mr. Bailey. In Philadelphia is oleomargarine received in rolls, so as 
to have the semblance of dairy butter as to different shades? 

Mr. Kimball. The bulk otitis in the shape of print butter. 

Mr. Bailey. I mean as to size. Does it come in tubs? 

Mr. Kimball. Yes; tubs, rolls, and prints. 

Mr, Bailey, That which comes in prints or rolls — is it all of the 
same color, or are there different shades of rolls in the same box? 

Mr. Kimball. We never see that in Philadelphia. 

Mr. Lamb. Is it marked "oleomargarine?" 

Mr. Kimball. The retailer buys it with the brand on it, but after- 
wards there is no mark on it. That is a violation of the law. If we 
could obtain such evidence as that the district attorney may prosecute. 
Special agents of the revenue department do not bring cases. 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 633 

Mr. Allen. Since tlie sale of oleomargarine has increased has the 
denth rate of the city increased? 

Mr. Kimball. We do not know that there is anything unhealthfnl 
in oleomargarine. 

The Chairman. You want it sold for what it is? 

Mr. Kimball. Yes, sir; we want it sold for oleomargarine. Under 
the State law every pound beais the stanip tax. It is made by four or 
five people, what we call the " Big Four." This law will not Mork a 
hardship. If they want it colored and want to sell it as butter, let 
them pay the 10 cents tax, and then there will be no difference in the 
price of the legitimate butter and the oleomargarine, and there will be 
no incentive to cheat. 

Mr. Allen. What is the effect on the consumer? 

Mr. Kimball. Anyone who wants cheap butter can get it for 5 to 6 
cents a pound lower to-day. 

Mr. Williams. Why is it right, or is it right, in your opinion, to 
tax oleomargarine in its natural condition, when not colored in the 
semblance of anything? 

Mr. Kimball. Personally, I don't believe in taxes any more than 
possible. I do not believe in taxing any industry. 

Mr. Allen. Can the manufacturer afford to pay 10 cents and pro- 
duce it at a profit? 

Mr. Kimball. We do not want him to sell it as butter. 

Mr. Allen. Could he pay that tax and compete with butter? 

Mr. Kimball. With its natural color oleomargarine would not sell 
at all, because people would not buy it. 

The Chairman. When butter is down to 14 cents and you tax oleo- 
margarine 10 cents, that would only leave 4 cents for the manufacturer. 
Would that not be absolutely prohibitory? 

Mr. Kimball. No, sir. The price of butter is very seldom 14 cents 
in the country. 

The Chairman. I have sold for less. I have seen it in western New 
York sold at 7 and 8 cents. In putting on this tax, it would take off 
5 to 10 cents of its value. Suppose butter is selling at 1 4 cents a pound. 

Mr. Kimball. Butter is not in its natural state white. It is only so 
in the winter months. 

The Chairman. I understand that the best butter served on Del- 
monico's table is perfectly white. 

Mr. W^illiams. The toniest people use it. 

Mr. Kimball. The only coloring used in butter is for the purpose of 
obtaining the yellow tint, which color comes from the fresh giass. 

The Chairman. That is the only time it is colored. We use color- 
ing matter in our creameries. 

Mr. White. TJncolored oleomargarine would sell the same as it does 
now? 

Mr. Kimball. It would. 

Mr. White. This resolution would not affect it unless it is colored? 

Mr. Kimball. No. 

Mr. Henry. I have a letter from a butter dealer in western New 
York, and he wants me to su])port the Grout bill, and adds that the 
farmers are bringing this stuff' in and selling it for butter. 

Mr. Kimball. That only goes to show how far this practice obtains. 
The hucksters in Philadelphia are the worst men, and now the farmer 
comes in with his good country butter, but it is oleomargarine. 

Mr. Davis. The matter we are here to present to the committee, as I 
understand it, and as Mr, Kimball has detailed it, is that the law- 
abiding dealer has always had to contend with those who are violating 



634 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

the law. It is the experience of butter dealers everywhere that if they 
umlertake to sell oleomargarine for what it is, they will not sell it at 
all. The working people who want cheap goods and are compelled to 
have it do not want oleomargarine. It is sold to most people for an 
article which it is not. It is sold under a misrepresentation. With 
reference to the movements that have been tried by the producers to 
protect themselves from this fraudulent imitation — and many move- 
ments have been tried — there does not seem to be anything likely to be 
more effective than this bill, for the reason that they can not sell this 
thing as butter, because the 10 cents tax will bring it up to the cost 
which is now paid by the consumer for butter. The difference repre- 
sented by this tax now goes into the pockets of the illegal dealers. 

Mr. LoKiMER. You say that if this tax is put on oleomargarine then 
there will be no sale of it in comi)etition with butter"? 

Mr. Davis. That is about it. They can not sell it. 

Mr. LoRiMEB. You mean to say they can not sell it in competition. 
They can sell it if anybody buys it. Would not that virtually mean 
the driving of colored oleomargarine out of the market as a matter of 
trade? 

Mr. Davis, That might be incidental to the operation of the law. 

Mr. LoEiMER. If they can not pay this 10 cents tax, would that not 
drive it out of the market? 

Mr. Davis Not necessarily. 

Mr. LoRiMER. You do not believe it would interfere with the sale of 
it? 

Mr. Davis. I do. 

Mr. LoRiMER. Is it not the intention of many who favor the passage 
of this bill to drive colored oleomargarine out of the market? 

Mr. Davis. The object, as I take it, of the men interested in this is 
to prevent illegal competition with butter — to i)rotect the law-abiding 
people. In Philadelphia we believe that 90 per cent of this traffic is 
done illegally. Of course that operates to the disadvantage of people 
who do business in a proper way. For instance, I am alongside of a 
man selling oleomaigarine for butter, and he makes an enormous profit, 
whereas the butter seller make only a legitimate i)rotit. 

Mr. LoRiMER. You say you think the passage of this bill will prevent 
dealing illegally. If you have a tax of 10 cents, how will that prevent 
the illegal traffic in your city? 

Mr. Davis. There would be less inducement offered. It would be 
that much accomi)lished. Everything helps for the protection of the 
dealer who is law abiding. 

Mr. LoRiMER. Is not the object to drive colored oleomargarine out 
of the market? 

Mr. Davis. We want to prevent this illegal traffic which operates to 
the injury of the law-abiding people who are doing a legitimate 
business. 

Mr. LoRiMER. The reason I am asking this question is because a 
gentleman who appeared before the committee a week ago to-day said 
it is the desire of the butter men to drive oleomargarine out of th<^ 
market — that they want to drive the oleomargarine manufacturer out of 
business. I wanted to find out whether or not that sentiment prevails 
over the country. 

Mr. Davis. If driving it out would be incidental to the oi)eration of 
this law, then oleomargarine would have to be sold upon its merits. 

Mr. LoRiMER. In its white state? 

Mr. Davis. Yes, sir. 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 



635 



Mr. White. WLat has been your observation with reference to the 
healtlifubiess of this oleomargaiiue produefc? 

Mr. Davis. I do not know that there is any evidence as to its injuri- 
ous effect ni>on consumers. That is a subordinate matter. 

Mr. White. I wanted to see what your observation had been. 

Mr. Davis. I have never lieard of any bad results from it. 

]Mr. Will IE. In your opinion, it is a healthtul product? 

Mr. Davis. So far as we know there is nothing in it deleterious to 
health. The main point we wanted to present is the fact that this 
traffic is done illegally, and that we think the provisions of this bill, if 
passed, would be a great remedy and would prevent that thing. 

Mr. Lorimer (to Mr. Kimball). Do you know that the Grout bill 
provides that when butterine is shijiped into any State in the Union 
it shall go in under the control of the State law? 

Mr. Kimball. I do not know that that is in the bill, but it would 
seem natural for it to be there. The State should have police powers 
in anything of that kind. 

Mr. Lorimer. That is one of the provisions of the bill. You say 
there were last year 11,000,000 pounds of butterine sold in Pennsyl- 
vania? 

Mr. Kimball. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Davis. And about 10 per cent, or about a million pounds, was 
sold as butterine? 

Mr. Kimball. I did not make that statement; but in Pennsylvania 
oleomargarine is sold and butterine is sold. My stntement was that 
fully nine-tenths of the oleomargarine sold in Philadelphia was sold 
fraudulently. In the western part of the State it is more openly sold. 

Mr. Lorimer. You of course would not make that statement unless 
you knew it to be true? 

Mr. Kimball. No; I state that as my belief. I have no figures on 
the matter. 

Mr. Lorimer. Do you know who the dealers are who sell butterine 
as butter? 

Mr. Kimball. I could not specify any. If I had knowledge of those 
facts it would be my duty to present them to the district attorney. 
We go in and talk Avith men who are buying our goods, and we know 
they have this stuff' and we see it there. 

Mr. Lorimer. What you know about it is what you have heard? 

Mr. Kimball. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Lorimer. Suppose we pass this bill — I have heard it contended 
by butter men of the country that the principal feature is the first sec- 
tion — in what way would it assist you to prosecute those men now in 
your State violating the law? 

Mr. KiiMBALL. Only insomuch as the law would make oleomargarine 
shipped into the State colored subject to the State law. 

Mr. L0RI3IER. The first section simply says it shall be under the 
State law, and what I wanted to know is in what way it will benefit you 
if Ave pass that section of this bill? 

Mr. Kimball. I do not see that it would benefit us any more than 
we have been benefited, unless it prohibits the manufacturer shipi)ing 
it in except under the State requirements. The manufacturer can ship 
it to day. 

Mr. Lorimer. You say that the amount of butter sold in your city 
has decreased 50 per cent since oleomargarine was first shipped in. On 
what do you base that? 

Mr. Kimball. Our books show the amount our customers were using 
three or four years ago and what they are using now. 



636 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. LoETMER. Have you any statistics tbat show how much butter 
has been sold in your city eacli year for the past ten years? 

Mr. Kimball. JSTo, sir. There is no way of determining how much 
has been sokl each year in the State. 

Mr. LoRiMER. As a matter of fact, on what do you base that assertion? 

Mr. Kimball. From ray personal experience. Where men used to 
buy 300 pounds, they do not to-day buy more thaji 100. 

Mr. LoRiMER. How long have you been in business in Philadelphia? 

Mr. Kimball. Twenty-one years. 

Mr. LoRiMER. Do you sell as much butter as you did ten years ago? 

Mr. Kimball. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LoRiMER. Do you sell as much as you did five years ago? 

Mr. Kimball. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LoRiMER. How about two years ago? 

Mr. Kimball. I do not think we sell quite as much as we did then. 
We do not stand still if we can help it. 

Mr. LoRiMER. I simply wanted to find out on what you base this 
estimated decrease. 

Mr. Kimball. We have this from Mr. Edison, one of the largest 
wholesale print-butter dealers in Philadelphia, and I think he will bear 
me out in saying that the sales have decreased at least 50 ])er cent by 
oleomargarine being sold as butter. 

Mr. LoRiMER. I understand you are willing to have oleomargarine 
shipped in and sold in its natural state? 

Mr. Kimball. Yes; I believe it is healthful. It is a good thing for 
the poor man, but it should be sold on its merits. Where it is sold as 
butter there is a profit of 15 cents a pound on it. 

Mr. LoRiMER. Mr. Adams, who is secretary of the Pure Food Asso- 
ciation of Wisconsin, made the statement here a week ago to-day tliat 
the tax of 10 cents a pound was proposed to be put on colored oleo- 
margarine in order that it n)ay not be able to compete with butter, and 
in that way would drive oleomargarine out of the market. Is that 
sentiment general in your State, or is there any sentiment on the sub- 
ject. 

Mr. Kimball. I do not think so. I think it will to a large extent 
drive colored oleomargarine out of the market. I do not believe that 
in one or two years it will have any effect for the reason tbat people 
who want the cheap product will buy oleomargarine. Only colored 
oleomargarine will be sold, and it can be gotten for a less price. 

Mr. White. What difference do you have to pay between colored 
and uncolored oleomargarine? 

Mr. Kimball. We do not handle it. 

Mr. White. Only the fraudulent article is sold at all? 

Mr. Kimball. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Daule. What is good butter quoted at in Philadelphia to-day, 
wholesale? 

Mr. Kimball. Twenty-seven cents. 

Mr. Dahle. Tbat is what you pay for it? 

Mr. Kimball. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Dahle. How much do you pay for oleomargarine? ' 

Mr. Kimball. We do not handle it. The price of the oleomargarine 
sold in Philadelphia is bought at 16 cents a pound. That is the popu- 
lar brand. 

Mr. Dahle. There is practically a difference of 11 cents a pound? 

Mr. Kimball. Yes, sir. 



OLEOMA KG ARINE. 



637 



Mr. Dahle. Then ifoleoniargarine is equal in quality, as it is claimed 
by its friends, it could still be sold in competition vTitli butter, even if 
the tax were 10 cents? 

Mr. Kimball. Yes; on the present market price. 

Mr. LoRiMER. What is the average price of butter in Philadelphia 
the year round ? 

Mr. Kimball. The average price of that class of butter, I think, 
would be over 20 cents. 1 think last year it was something like 22| 
cents. 

Mr. LoRiMER. So that if butterine costs 26 cents a pound it could 
not be sold in competition with butter at 23 cents'? 

Mr. Kimball. No, sir; it could not. 

Mr. LoRiMER. What is the average price of butter in Philadelphia? 

Mr. Kimball. You can buy creamery for 22 cents. 

Mr. LoRiMER. What does the retailer pay for it? 

Mr. Kimball. It is 2 cents higher this year than it was formerly. 

Adjourned. 



Wednesday, March 31, 1900. 
The subcommittee on the Bureau of Animal Industry of the Com- 
mittee on Agriculture met at 10.30 o'clock a. m., Hon. William Lorimer 
in the chair. 

STATEMENT OF MR. C. Y. KNIGHT, SECRETARY OF THE NATIONAL 

DAIRY UNION. 

Mr. Knight. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, when 
I was here two weeks ago the testimony that I gave before the com- 
mittee, particularly that in reference to the exhibits that I made, was 
published very conspicuously in all the Chicago papers, and there was 
a great deal said about the matter, and interviews with the collector of 
internal revenue, Mr. Coyne, were also published. Last week, on Fri- 
day, two or three of the papers came out with extensive headlines and 
articles regarding the frauds in oleomargarine, and being insi)ired by 
the other side, claiming that there was not a great deal of fraud in 
Chicago. I went into the Record office — we regard the Record as one 
of our most reliable papers — and told the city editor that I did not 
want any more interviews in the matter, because what I said would 
simply be contradicted the next day; but I said, "If you will give me 
a reporter for one day 1 will show you whether there is any fraud in 
Chicago in the oleomargarinebusiness." They gaveme the rei)orter, and 
we went to three places. The result of the trip to those three places 
was published the next morning there in the Record. With your per- 
mission I will pass these papers around [producing a number of small 
bundles]. Mr. Haltman, I believe, is the name of the reporter whom I 
had with me. 

I want to show you some of our expei ionces at these same places. 
Of course the articles that we purchased together he took up to the 
managing editor, to show him what he had found. That was necessary. 
So right after him I sent out a number of people to make purchases at 
the same places. And here are the bundle of the purchases which they 
made [indicating bundles already mentioned]. When it came to a 
test of the matter I sent a man into Broadwell's, the same place where 



6S8 OLEOMAKGARINE. 

I got the oleomargarine that I exhibited here once before, and I asked 
a man to go to Broadwell's and buy a pound of bntteriue, and I told 
him to call for their very best butteiine, and he went in and bought 
that pound of butterine. Here it is, right here [holding up small 
package]. He bought that pound of butterine. Tbey charged him 20 
cents for that when he bonglit it as butterine. Another man followed 
him in there ten minutes alter and called for the best butter — the best 
creamery butter. They charged him 25 cents for that when he called for 
the best creamery butter. There are the two samples with the mark 
on them. I would like to have some member of the committee taste 
them. 

Mr. Neville. Were they out of the same box? 

Mr. Knight. The man handles nothing but oleomargarine, and if 
when one of these men went in there and called for butter he got some 
of this, and the other went in and called for butterine and he got the 
same thing, I must say it is something that I do not understand aud 
am not familiar with. I would say that the gentleman in question has 
got an improvement since the articles came out in the papers, and 
instead or putting the stamp on the inside he puts it on the outside of 
the package. 

Mr. Bailey. Was not this all published at the time of the pure food 
hearing? 

Mr. Knight. Yes; it was all published. 

Mr. Bailey. It is generally understood that this fellow is an oleo- 
margarine dealer"? 

Mr. Knight. When he came before the pure food hearing he stated 
himself to be in business as the Stock Yards Provision Company. He 
is not doing business under his own name. No one knows by the pub- 
lication of William Broadwell's name that he is doing business. 

Mr. Dahle. He is a dealer in butterine, or in butterine and butter? 

Mr. Knight. No; he handles no butter, but his signs say butter. 
These grades are all the same, and when you call for butter he charges 
25 cents and when you call for butterine, 20 cents. Now, I tried the 
same thing again. I sent three or four people into one of the other 
stores and they inquired for creamery butter. The fiist one got the 
price of 20 cents, the second 22, and the third 24 cents for the best 
creamery butter. 

Mr. W^HiTE. Do you know anything about the use of paraffin in these 
adulterations? 

Mr. Knight. There is a pamphlet from the State of New York in 
which they show up the paraffin trade. 

Mr. White. I would like to ask you as to the healthfulness or want 
of healthfulness in this oleomargarine. 

Mr. Knight. I know nothing about that from my own experience. 
I know very well a man who sells oleomargarine and he told me that 
he ate it for about a year and it gave him indigestion and he had to 
quit eating it. I am not a physician, and could not speak from that 
point of view. 

Mr. Allen. What does this man say, that sold this butter? 

Mr. Knight. You will find his testimony which was taken before 
Senator Mason's committee. I had him brought up before Senator 
Mason's committee when Senator Mason was in Chicago with the manu- 
facturers' committee His testimony is in this little book. That is the 
way the business is done. I want to call your attention to these pack- 
ages here of oleomargarine marked as oleomargarine on the outside. I 
would like to have these passed around. (A number of packages were 



OLEOMARGARINE. 639 

here passed around among the members of the committee by Mr. 
Knight.) This, now, is anotlier class of the fraud. This is all marked 
on the outside, and it is intended as an evasion of tlie oleomargarine 
law. You can see the testimony on this point I am speaking of on page 
31 of this little pamphlet which I have here. 

Mr. Allen. Where is the stamp on this package [holding up pack- 
age in his hand]? 

Mr. Knight. It is on the outside. If you will hold that up between 
yourself and the light you will probably find the mark. 

I have here a copy of the revised revenue laws, published June, 1895, 
five years ago. 

Mr. Allen. I still do not see this stamp here. 

Mr. Knight. If you will look long enougb, you will find it. Every 
package I have here, I possess the signed statement of the person who 
bought it to the circumstances under which he bought it. That wrap- 
per is used for the purpose of having a wrapper so near the color of the 
ink that is put on there that the people will not detect the oleomargarine 
stamp. The stamp is on there, and, knowing that it is there, you can 
find a faint part of it. 1 want to read this to you from these regula- 
tions, published five years ago and which shows two things: First, that 
this kind of fraud has been brought to the attention of the luternal- 
Kevenue Department five years ago; and, second, tliat there is a ruling 
against printing the stamp so that the color of the ink with which it is 
printed shall be practically indistinguishable. The law says that the 
color of the ink with which it is printed shall be in the strongest con- 
trast to the pajier of the package. 

Mr. Bailey. Have you ever called the attention of the internal-reve- 
nue collector to this? 

Mr. Knight. I should say so. 

Mr. Bailey. What does he say? 

Mr. Knight. He says it will take one agent for every dealer, to look 
after each dealer in the retail oleoiuaigarine business. And that is what 
we say — that so long as it is permitted to go out as butter this fraud 
can not be prevented. 

Mr. Bailey. I have heard that when they could not put the color in 
the oleomargarine they would mix it with their butter and sell it as 
oleomargarine. 

Mr. Allen. Then they become manufacturers of oleomargarine? 

Mr. Knight. I have never heard of a case of that, because that would 
be avoiding the internal-revenue tax, and that is a much more serious 
matter. 

Mr. Neville. Mr. Henry E. Kemp wrote me that it was truej that 
they would mix it with butter. 

Mr. Knight. These packages here [indicating several packages on 
the table] are another kind of evasion. It is all according to the looks 
of the man that goes in to buy. If he looks as if he might catch on to it, 
they don't soak him so heavy. This was bought for the best creamery 
butter — all of these packages were bought for butter, none of them for 
butterine. There was only the one case where we called for butterine, 
and that was just to test that man Broadwell. 

Mr. Bailey. This was bought for butter? 

Mr. Knight. Yes; the best creamery butter, and was bought from 
Hughes & Schaick. There is the mark, right here | indicating on pack. 
age]. It is a pretty faint proposition, but it is there. 

Mr. Wilson. What is the material in them all? 

Mr. Knight. That is a point I want investigated. 



640 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. Dahle. I can not see any mark on this package [indicating 
package he beld in bis handj. 

Mr. Knight. Well, it is not intended that you should see it, but it is 
there. 

I only went into this one place with the reporter there, bat I could 
pile up this sort of thing in any number of i)laces until our money was 
exhausted. I sent a man out for 72 samples. They were butterine. He 
went around and got those 72 samples in as many places. 

Now, you hear a good deal about Chicago. I will tell you why. It 
is because, as we want to show you, the manufacturers are the men who 
are making this tight, and they are the people who are backing these 
dealers up, and it is right in Chicago that this fraudulent practice is 
being backed up. 

The Chairman. Right on that point, Mr. Knight. You make the 
statement that the manufacturers are backing these people up in this 
fraud? 

Mr. Knight. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. How do you know that? 

Mr. Knight. 1 know that by their letters, in which they say that 
they will defend anybody who is prosecuted under the State laws, copies 
of which letters are published here, and the originals of which I showed 
at a meeting of this committee. 

The Chairman. Do you mean to say that they told them to violate 
the law? 

Mr. Knight. They tell them in this letter, which is an answer to a 
letter that we sent out, in which we told them that we would prosecute 
them if they sold butterine for butter, that they will protect them or 
back them up if they are so prosecuted. 

The Chairman. Where are those letters? 

Mr. Knight. Copies are right here, and I have the originals in my 
office. 

The Chairman. And when were they wantten? 

Mr. Knight. One of them was written August 2, 1899; the Braun 
& Fitz letter was written practically the same date. 

The Chairman. You stated at the last hearing that a bank of judges 
declared theoleo law in Illinois unconstitutional f 

Mr. Knight. Not the law we prosecuted under. We have two 
cases that come under that decision of the bank. The third one gave us 
the best decision we have ever had. 

The Chairman. It was a bank of judges that decided against the 
law? 

Mr. Knight. We have three laws in Illinois. 

The Chairman. And that one you speak of was the only one you 
ever operated under with any success? 

Mr. Knight. No; we never operated with any degree of success 
under that one. 

The Chairman. I simply want to clear up the statement that these 
men axe backing or encouraging the violators of the law. They merely 
say to them to go ahead and sell their product and they will back them 
if they are prosecuted. JSow, they have the decision of this bank of 
judges of which you speak statingthat the law is unconstitutional. 

Mr. Knight. Yes; that is what they try to hide behind. 

Inasmuch as Mr. Lorimer has tried to raise this question, I should 
like to say that two or three years ago — almost three years ago — an 
anticolor law which we had passed in the session of the legislature 
of 1897 was held by a banc of judges to be unconstitutional, although 



OLEOMAEGAEINE, 641 

the law of another State, from which tliat had been very closely copied, 
had been held to be constitutional. The third judge gave us the best 
decision we have had in its sui)port. But we droj)ped tliat law entirely 
at that time because we could hold no one under it, for the reason that 
anybody seized would be released immediately under habeas cori)ns 
])r<)ceedings upon the ground that tlie law was unconstitutional. iSo, 
ill this situation I thought of the old branding laws which were dis- 
carded as useless years jigo, and we had found them useless for the 
purpose at that time. I thought of those old laws and I concluded to 
try some prosecutions under them, because they had not been declared 
unconstitutional, and we did not think that the manufaciurers would 
dare to come up and defend a man for selling oleomargarine as butter. 
Here is the letter which our attorneys sent out to the manufacturers, 
telling them what we were going to do : 

Office of H. V. Murray, Attorney at Law, 

Chicago, BL, July 29, 1899. 
Dear Sir: I have been employed by the Illinois Dairy Union to prosecute any 
cases of violation of the dairy laws of this State which may result from the arrest 
of any dealer selling oleomargarine when butter is called for. As you i)robably 
know, a commission, consisting of a food commissioner and eight assistants and 
inspectors, was provided for by the late legislature, whose duty it is to enforce these 
laws. The commissioner has lioen appointed, and until he has appointed his assist- 
ants and gotten to work the Illinois Dairy Union's inspectors will look after the 
protection of consumers of butter, and see that those who sell them oleomargarine 
for butter are prosecuted under the State laws and also reported to the Internal 
b'evenue Department as violators of the internal-revenue laws. I herewith inclose 
extracts from three State laws. These laws are not tied up in the courts, and the 
oleomargarine manufacturers will not place themselves in the light of prote -ting 
those who sell oleomargarine for butter, although they mav consistently fight the 
law forbidding coloring, which has not yet been passed upon by the supreme court. 
If you sell oleomargarine this year, rest assured that the State food commissioner 
and the Illinois Dairy l^niun will see that you are not permitted to sell it as butter. 
Respectfully, yours, 

Hugh V. Murray, 
Attorney for Illinois Dairy Union. 

T^Tow, that Is the letter that we sent out tlireatening to prosecute 
them under the State law for selling oleomargarine as butter. Within 
four days after that letter was sent out came an answer signed by 
William J. Moxley, and dated on August 2, which is as follows: 

[William J. Moxley, manufacturer of fine butterine, 63 and 65 West Monroe street.] 

Chicago, August 2, 1899. 



-, City. 



Dear Sir: Oar attention has been called to two circulars which have been mailed 
to you, one signed by Hugh V. Murray, an attorney, and the other by Charles Y. 
Knight, editor in chief of a periodical without subscribers, named the Chicago 
Dairy Produce. 

I will say that my circular was simply a copy of the laws that I pro- 
posed to act under. I did not put it in there because it would make 
four or five pages and I did not want to take up so much space. 

The circular bearing Mr. Knight's name has at its head an imposing lot of names, 
gentlemen whose aim it is to prevent the manufacture and sale of butterine, so that 
the butter trust might be enabled to get from 30 to 40 cents a pound for butter, 
depriving as they would a great many of the industrial classes from being able to 
use butter through its excessive price. 

That is to say, people could not use butter, they could not afford to 
use butter, if there was no butterine. 

With the hired attorney, who is earning bis fee, we have notliing to say, only to 
inform you that these gentlemen are trying to ring in a bluff. You will notice in 

S. Kep. 2U43 41 



n4"2 OLEOMAEGAEINE. 

their circulars that by iusiunations they would have people believe they represent 
some official authority. The Internal Kevenue Department looks after their own 
business and the Htate after theirs, and should this so-called Dairy Union interlere 
with your liusiness in tbe way of prosecution as to the State laws, we hereby guaran- 
tee you protection to the extent of paying all tines, costs, etc., until the color law is 
decided unconstitutional in the supreme court of the State of Illinois. 

That was put in there for the pupose of squaring things on the sur- 
face, as if they were j^rotecting them, and endeavoring to protect them, 
against an anticolor law, whereas at that time the anticolor law was 
not an issue. 

The Chairman. Of course you wrote your letter and sent it out to 
the people in good faith, and you now undertake to say that these 
people wrote their letters and sent them out to their customers, and 
that it was not done by them in good faith; they say in their letter 
that it was in reference to the jndgnient which was decided unconstitu- 
tional by the judges in Cook County. 

Mr. Knight. They endeavored to make their letters so to read, but 
we had quit trying to enforce the anticolor law, and threatened now to 
prosecute them for selling butterine for butter. They thought their 
business was going to smash, and they found it was impossible to get 
around and see 1,000 or 1,500 people in time to save their business, so 
this letter was written, and so worded as to throw people otf from the 
real point in the case at that time. If you can find any instance where 
we have sent out any letter threatening to prosecute people for selling 
oleomargarine colored, you have got me. We never did that. 

The Chairman. Then they did not say anything in that letter to the 
effect that they would protect tliem from prosecution? 

Mr. Knight. Certainly they did. Let me read further: 

And will further, on receiving complaint, take such action for damages as will 
make it unpleasant for some of those who are attempting to interfere with your and 
our own legitimate business. 

Mr. Neville. Your letter had been directed to the individuals, 
threatening prosecutions for selling colored butterine for butter? 

Mr. Knight. No; not colored butterine. 

Mr. Neville. Not colored butterine, but butterine altogether? 

Mr. Knight. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Neville. Now, what is your State law? 

Mr. Knight. The State law provides a penalty of $250 fine for 
people who sell butterine to a customer without at the same time 
informing him that it is butterine. 

Mr. Neville. Any reference to color? 

Mr. Knight. No, sir; no reference to color whatever. 

Mr. Neville. Have you any law relating to color? 

Mr. Knight. Yes; and that law was tied up in the courts. These 
laws we s])eak of in this last letter are not tied up in the courts. We 
said so. We wanted to make it plain and clear that we were not doing 
anything under the anticolor laws, because they were tied up in the 
courts. Now, taking this letter of the manufacturers to the dealers, 
they worded it so that it might be supposed we were threatening prose- 
cution under the two laws that were tied up, and without putting the 
two letters together you would not understand it. They go on in the 
last paragraph : 

We strongly reconmiend you to pay no attention to those circulars. We have 
always been in a position to protect our customers from injustice and blackmailers — 

That was us, of course. 

and will l;e over at your service should yon require our aid. 



OLEOMAKGARINE. 643 

Now, that of course — anybody can call you or me a blackumiler, or can 
say "Charles Y. Knight is the editor of a i)a[)er without .subscribers." 

Another firm, Brauu & Fitts, almost as large a firm as 3Ioxley (I 
believe they claim to be larger), about the same time sent out another 
letter, in wliich they used the following language: 

Every licensed butteriue dealer in Chicago has received circular letters from the 
secretary aud attorney for the Illinois Dairy Union, promising all sorts of trouble 
to dealers in butterine (that bouest and pure article of food). 

I submit to you, gentlemen, that if you can find anything in our cir- 
culars that we sent out threatening to prosecute anybody for selling 
oleomargarine or butterine we will surrender our whole case before 
Congress. We did nothing of the kind, because we knew that that 
anticolor law was hopelessly tied up in the courts. 

Mr. Neville. The State laws provided against the selling of but- 
terine for butter, and you can not prosecute them under the other law? 

Mr. Knight. No, sir. This letter goes on to say : 

premising all sorts of trouble to dealers in butterine (that honest and pure article 
of food). Well, now, don't you believe a word of it; there is a law against blaclv- 
mailing, and we want now and here to go on record to the assertion, as an atfidavit, 
that we shall civilly and criminally prosecute any man or party of men interfering 
unlawfully with the butterine business in this or any other State. 

You, gentlemen, are intelligent enough to see how he was conveying 
here the idea that he wanted to convey, aud at the same time not lay- 
ing himself liable to the charge of protecting some one that was vio- 
lating the law. 

We know exactly where we stand; we are properly advised on the subject, and 
now we make you a "fair offer" — handle our goods as yon always have. 

That is, "sell our goods for butter as you always have," and that is 
what they always have done in Chicago. 

We, in turn, promise and guarantee full protection against the State law — 

They thought they were very cute, now, in saying "declared uncon- 
stitutional," thereby leading the dealers to suppose that these laws had 
been declared unconstitutional. 

(which has been declared unconstitutional) to the extent of paying cost of prosecu- 
tion, lines, and paying all costs pertainiui,^ thereto. In declaring the law unconsti- 
tutional one of the judges stated to the effect "that the butter ring were, in his 
opinion, liable to prosecution to recover damages done an honest industry." Fair 
enough, isn't it? Renew your efforts, and be assured that we will be prepared to 
fight any number of rounds in any kind of a legal tight to the finish. Handle our 
butterine and be safe. 

Now, there was no call for those letters uidess they were protecting 
the dealers from prosecution for selling oleomargarine for butter. If 
we could have prevented that we would have cut down the sales of 
the article 25 per cent in Chicago. We went ahead and did prosecute, 
and I will show you what we went up against when we prosecuted 
those people. We prosecuted these same people named right here. 
We brought, I think, seventeen cases in all that cost us $120; that is, 
for chemists' analyses and witness fees. We did not stop at those 
seventeen cases, but we had cases against about 200 people, which cost 
as for witnesses, for collecting evidence, and appearing in court $312.10. 
Our attorneys we paid $570; stenographers for reporting trial, $57.80; 
court costs, warrants, etc., $59.90; printing briefs, stationery, copies of 
laws, circulars, etc., $414.43; traveling ex))enses to supreme court, for 
going out there, $54.90; aud for postage $71, which makes a total cost 
of $1,670.13. 



644 OLEOMARaARINE. 

Mr. Wadsworth. May I ask how much the postage on the letters 
you sent out to these dealers threatening to prosecute them cost you? 

Mr. KnictHT. I do not remember; that was not included in this. 

Mr. Wads WORTH. How was that money raised! 

Mr. KniGtHT. All the money we have spent on this work has been 
subscribed by 24,000 farmers, in 50-cent subscriptions. 

Mr. Wads WORTH. By the creameries? 

Mr. KniGtHT, No, sir; by the farmers themselves; and I can give you 
the list of these farmers who have subscribed 50 cents each for this 
purpose. 

Mr. Bailey. Some of them gave more than a dollar, 

Mr. Knight. Oh, yes; some of them may have given $1,000, but 
24,600 of them have contributed 50 cents each. We have not asked 
any creameries to contribute. The people who have supplied the money 
and subscribed for this work, I would have you understand, are the 
horny-handed, horny-fisted farmers who milk the cows. 

The Chairman. What was the result of that decision? 

Mr. Knight. We submitted the test case to Justice Underwood, and 
Roy West defended the case. He suggested that these laws had been 
repealed by the pure food law and the creation of the Pure Food Com- 
mission to enforce it. The judge took his view of it, and the result was 
that he dismissed all the cases, and they had a statement sent out 
through the county and throughout the State that Justice Underwood 
had decided the case in tliat way, and the result was we could not get 
anyone to issue warrants tor the arrest of anyone. They never denied 
that oleomargarine was sold for butter. We went to the Supreme 
Court of the United States then, and endeavored to get a writ of man- 
damus to compel the supreme court to issue warrants. 

The Chairman. This which you have shown here is undoubtedly a 
violation of the law, but how do you expect to prevent it by the passage 
of this bill? 

Mr. Knight, If this bill becomes a law, the manufacturer then will 
make it according to law, which he does not do now. 

The Chairman. How do you expect to prevent this violation of the 
law ? 

Mr. Knight. If a man pays the tax of 10 cents a pound it will 
remove his reason for violating the law. 

The Chairman. If he pays the 10 cents a pound, you do not care 
whether he violates the law or not? 

Mr. Knight. I know that he will not. A man does not go out and 
cheat another man unless he is going to make some gain. The gain in 
this case is between what he can buy oleomargarine for and what he 
can buy butter for. One he can buy for 13 cents a pound and the 
other for 23 cents, and he can sell them both at the same price as long 
as no one knows the diflerence. 

The Chairman. Your idea is to tax him 8 or 10 cents a pound on 
the color, so that when it is sold it must of necessity be sold at 8 or 10 
cents a pound more than it is to-day; is that correct? 

Mr. Knight. My point is that wiien a colored oleomargarine, which 
is prohibited in 32 States, is sold that it must be sold for 8 cents 
a i>ound more than it is. I do not believe there is any necessity for a 
colored oleomargarine being sold. 

The Chairman. In other words, you increase the price of one of the 
necessary articles of life? 

Mr. Knight. It is no more so than whisky. 



OLEOMARGARIlSrE. 645 

The Chairman. Is there the same necessity for putting: this addi- 
tional 8 cents on tliis article that there was for putting a tax ou 
whisky? Is this a luxury! 

Mr. Knight. It seeius to me it is a luxury if people pay 18 cents a 
pound for it instead of 12. 

Mr. Neville. Will that not virtually drive it out? 

Mr. Knight. It is prohibited now. All those States prohibit trafTic 
in it, but the 10 cents profit is an incentive for people to viohite 
the law. 

Mr. Neville. Why do they sell it? 

Mr. Knight. They find that so long as it is an exact counterpart in 
appearance of butter that they can sell it and make this large profit. 
You understand, gentlemen, that it is the coloring of it that we wish 
to prohibit. The oleomargarine that is under discussion here is col- 
ored oleomargarine, and it is prohibited in 32 States. Now, if the State 
has made that kind of law prohibiting that kind of thing, it is for the 
purpose of protecting the consumer. 

Mr. Wilson. Is it a fact that it does hurt the consumer? Does it 
not really protect the man who makes the butter? 

Mr. Knight. It protects the consumer and m ikes it possible for him 
to get oleomargarine when he wants it and butter when he wants it. 
In the city of Chicago the city is overrun with i)eo[)le selling oleoinar 
garine for butter, and for 10 or 15 cents a pound more than it ougbt to 
be sold for. Every man who buys butter is not a chemist, and if they 
M'ant oleomargarine, they should buy it for the oleomargarine price — 
12 or 13 cents a pound. The only reason that they pay 20 cents is that 
they think it is butter. 

Mr. Allen. It is wrong for anything to float around under a false 
color, because that would be a fraud. But since your own State has 
undertaken to jirotect its own individual citizens under its own law 
and can not do it, why is the necessity of coming to Congress for it? 

Mr. Lamb. What is the law? The law of Virginia — the anticolor 
law — is as follows: 

The mauufacture or sale of any article made wholly or partly from any fat or oil 
not produced from uuadnlterate«l milk or cream, which is in imitation of pure yellow 
butter, is prohibited; but oleomartiarine, butteriue, or kindred compound, made in 
such form and sold in such manner as will advise the consumer of its real character, 
and free from color or other ingredient to cause it to look like butter, is permitted. 
Signs, with the words "Imitation butter used here," shall be displayed in eating 
places, bakeries, etc., where the articles above named are used. 

That is a system which it seems to me they ought to be compelled to 
follow, because you can not get the stuff to see it, and you can not tell 
whether it is butter or oleomargarine. 

Mr. Allen. You have got to attack the manufacturers. We have 
got to go to the fountain head. You have got to press every opening. 
It is just like it is with a band of counterfeiters who are flooding the 
country with counterfeit money, you will have to go out over the coun- 
try and find the counterfeiters before you can stop the spread of the 
counterfeit money. You can not stop it by merely arresting and prose- 
cuting the people in whose possession you find it. 

Mr. Knight. Yes; but you can go to the retailer and take that 10 
cents a pound incentive out of his way, so that he will not find it 
exceedingly profitable, as he does at present, to sell the stuff at all. As 
it is, you would have to go in and tap every tub of butter or butterine 
that was sold in order to find out what it was. You take a tub of but- 
terine, and with that profit on it it will bring him in $6 of profit, and 
he will sell that out in one or two days. 



(>46 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. Bailey. There could be no question about a man's finding the 
mark on any package you liave shown to me this morning, and with 
the publicity tliat you have given to it 1 shoukl think they would not 
find it prolital)l(^ and people would not buy it. 

Mr. Knigh'J'. We can not interest you people 305 days in the year, 
and we can not keep the newspapers going all the time. We have tried 
to control this question of color tor twenty ye;irs, and we have lailed, 
and it is growing worse and worse all the time. Gentlemen suggest 
how it might be done this way or the other way, but 1 tell you we have 
made the trial, and the result is we have lost, and we have exhausted 
absolutely every means at our command; and here is a point that I 
want to impress upon you gentlemen, that we have fought this fight 
and kept fighting and fighting all the time until our people are good 
and tired. Pretty soon butter is going to get down to the basis of lard 
and tallow, and it is not good to fight all the time, and we will have to 
give it up eventually. Farmers are losing confidence and losing 
heart 

Mr. Bailey. Is not that contrary to the evidence that Governor 
Ford gave here the other day, to the effect that this industry has 
increased more than any other in the country to day ? 

Mr. Knight. Let me show you this diagram here [referring to dia- 
gram on page 14 of pamphlet]. This will give you some idea of the 
results that have followed from this defiance of the State laws. In 
18!)9 the production of oleomargarine was increased 50 per cent over 
that of 1898. 

Mr. Bailey. How much cheaper is the butter? 

Mr. Knight. I can not answer that question without explaining. 
The prices of butter were so low during that year, and oleonuirgarine 
was crowding it so close, and so many farmers went out of the busi- 
ness and gave it up during last year and the year before, that there 
was a shortage in the butter production, which the statistics will show. 
That made a shortage, so that last winter it gave the oleomargarine a 
chance to go further in still, and drive out the butter more and more, 
as it is doing all the time. 

Mr. Allen. Suppose this bill should pass, it would drive oleomar- 
garine up to the price where it would sell for S cents higher than it 
does now, so that it would almost drive the colored part out of business. 

Mr. Knight. Yes, sir; almost. 

Mr. Allen. Would it not drive butter out*? 

Mr. Knight. But has not a man the right to the best price he can 
get for what he has to sell? 

Mr. Allen. Yes, sir; and there was at common law the name of a 
crime given to this kind of embracery, where a man would take pos- 
session of a business and raise the prices on the consumers. 

The Chairman. You say a man has to get the best price he can for 
what he has to sell? 

Mr. Knight. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Do you think Congress has a right to legislate so as 
to make one aiticle higher and another article lower, or to drive it out 
of the market? 

Mr. Knight. I do not think Congress has any business to look into 
that phase of the matter at all. I think Congress should look out for 
protecting the consumer and the health of the consumer. 

(Thereupon, at 12.45 p. m., the committee adjourned.) 



OLEOMARGARINE. 647 

Saturday, March 24, 1900. 
The Committee on Agriculture this day met, Hon. James W. Wads- 
worth iu the chair. 

STATEMENT OF MR. JAMES HEWES, PRESIDENT OF THE PRO- 
DUCE EXCHANGE OF BALTIMORE AND VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE 
NATIONAL DAIRY UNION OF THE STATE OF MARYLAND. 

Mr. Hewes said : 

I was going to say, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, that there are two 
classes of audiences to whom it is pretty hard to si)eak. One is an 
audience of children and the other is an audience conlessedly at vari- 
ance with the ideas of the speaker, and I am now speaking to these 
latter 

Mr. Allen. How do you know that°^ 

Mr. Hewes. i'^'ron) what I have heard you gentlemen say. 

The Chairman. We are all amenable to reason. 

Mr. Hewes. I hardly hope to convince you, and I only want to speak 
a few words, particularly for the first clause of this bill — the first sec- 
tion of this bill, known as the Grout bill. You will pardon me if I recall 
a little history connected with the oleomargarine legislation in the 
Houses of Congress, as well as in the States. I began to fight against 
oleomargarine twenty- two years ago. 1 wrote the first law which was 
l)assed in the State of Maryland, and at that time we wanted to regu- 
hite the sale of oleo because we did not fully appreciate the efi'ect of 
tlie introduction of it, which at that time was only supposed to be a 
plaything. 

Oleo, as you know, was the outgrowth of a necessity at the time of 
the siege of Paris, and when it was introduced here and went into the 
Patent Oflice, and the inventor received the patent for making it, no 
one supposed it was ever to be an attack upon the butter interests 
of the State and be of such great importance as it has grown to 
be; no one did. Therefore we had regulating laws throughout the 
country, and we tried to regulate the sale and tried to compel them to 
sell oleo for what it was; bnt it was sapping the morals of the country, 
and, as one of the Commissioners of Agriculture here said before the 
committee in 1886 — he spoke altogether as to the morale of the sub- 
ject — he said it was corrupting the morals of the people, and we veri- 
fied his statement, because we could see in Maryland women and chil- 
dren out on the street selling this stuff, and when they were arrested 
for selling and asked where they obtained it, who sent them there, they 
did not know anything about it, and we would have to let them go. If 
they were successful and were not arrested those people would come 
in and take the proceeds of the sales, and so it went on until the year 
1886, when we appeared here for the purpose of having Congress exer- 
cise its police supervision, and of course we could only come to Con- 
gress and ask for a revenue measure, and, as the late lamented ^^r. 
Dingley said to nie only a year or two ago, "Mr. Hewes, you know well 
enough that was a ruse of yours to get this thing into Congress under 
the head of a police measure by drawing a revenue to the Government," 
but we knew what we were talking about. 

We said to the Congress of the United States, "If you will imi^ose 
this tax for the purpose of a revenue provision, which is always jealous 
and seeking where it can find somethingtoput into the Treasury; if you 
will do that, then we believe these peoplft will be deterred from doing 



648 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

what is wrong, and, incidentally, if you act as policemen, wTiy that will 
be to tlie benefit of the country, and particularly to these States we 
represent here." It was thought at that time that if the internal- 
revenue department did its duty, as it had always done — we were 
l)roud of what the internal-revenue department had done with respect 
10 other things, particularly tobacco ; no man could buy a carat of 
tobacco and put out less than the carat would produce in cigars with- 
out being liable to investigation and fine, so we were thinking here the 
iuternal-revenue department of the United States would compel these 
people to do what the States were powerless to do. That was to put a 
label upon the article when they would sell it, so the people might be 
apprised of what they were getting and buying. 

If you gentlemen will examine the law of 188G yoii will find that there 
were i^ractically two or three revenue sections, and there are 21 sec- 
tions, all told, in the bill. It has been our misfortune to note what Mr. 
Knight told you a few moments ago, tliat the revenue officers unfortu- 
nately did not attend to the police part of this law, which is the greater 
part of the law. And I will tell you my experience in the State of 
Maryland has been this: I hate to talk about myself, but I have been 
largely instrumental in prosecuting offenders in both courts. I am 
attorney at law in addition to all these others; I am a sort of Fooh Bah 
of the butter trade; I have not only written laws for the State of 
Maryland but prosecuted offenders under the laws of the State of 
Maryland, and 1 have been also engaged in the prosecution of offenders 
under the act of 1880 in the United States courts up to a certain time, 
and all of the cases, I may say — with two exceptions — all cases coming 
out of the district court of the United States for the district of Mary- 
land in our city have been cases that have been furnished to the Gov- 
ernment by the butter men, by the State officers, and it was my custom 
and my pleasure to take those cases simultaneously into both courts, 
and at that time offenders under the law were punished by both gov- 
ernments, and that thing continued until the state of affairs that 1 am 
now about to speak of, with regret, took place; and as I told Secretary 
Wilson the other day, it is a misfortune — it is deplorable and a lament- 
able fact— that when the method of paying district attorneys changed 
from the commission to salary, that minute prosecutions ceased and 
there has not been one case brought into the court of the city of Balti- 
more for the district of Maryland emanating and arising from the 
Government. 

Mr. Allen. Who is the district attorney there now who has failed 
to prosecute since the change of the law? 

Mr. Hewes. Not one prosecution has been had. Now, who are our 
district attorneys is a matter of history. 

Mr. Allen. I mean the one who now holds that office. 

Mr. Hev^es. It is Mr. Rose, Mr. John C. Kose is the present district 
attorney in Baltimore. Prior to Mr. Eose's incumbency Mr. Marbury 
was the district attorney, and prior to that 

Mr. Allen. It does not matter about that. 

Mr. Hewes. Now, I want to emphasize this fact, because this is 
only incidental; it is only leading up to what I want to talk about — why 
we want this commerce clause of the Constitution limit as to oleo- 
margarine — but at the same time it is interesting. I will relate a con- 
versation which occurred between myself and the district attorney tor 
the district of Maryland only a short time before, when he was inducted 
into his office. I went over to him with a case and I stated to him, 
"Mr. Rose, I want you to prosecute an offender under the act of 1886 



OLEOMAEGAKINE. 



649 



for the selliiio: of oleomarsjarine without conformino; to the requirGmeiits 
and the regulations which Ixavebeen made under the law, as everybody 
knows, who has anything to do with the prosecution of offenders under 
that act." " What are the feicts!" Mr. Kose asked. I said, "The facts 
are these: Snyder, who has a special tax stamp from the internal- 
revenue de])artment to sell oleomargarine, has sold to one of our offi- 
cers, in the presence of another one, a ])iece of oleo without conforming 
to the requirements of the law, and, of course, in violation of the State 
law, and I want to know what you are going to do about it?" 

"Well," he said, "how do you know that he did that willfully?" I 
said, " Is that your answer to me, Mr. Eose? " fie said, " Yes." I said, 
"That ends it; that terminates the interview; good day, sir." How 
did 1 know he did it willfully, when a man had a special stamp for sell- 
ing oleo, and when he sold the oleo and the facts could be substantiated 
that he did it; what more knowledge are you going to fasten upon a 
mm than that? How can you tell; how can anybody say that he knew 
that this was oleo except from the circumstances'? What other way 
for you to ])rove the facts? Oftentimes the strongest proof you can 
adduce is but circumstances. But it has been stated by one of the wise 
judges in Pennsylvania, in charging the constables there as to their 
duties under the law of the State, that when a person has been found 
with a speciiil tax-stamp that is to be considered prima facie evidence 
that he is selling oleomargarine, and to report the case to the grand jury. 

You do not have to have any more facts than that he is selling oleo, 
and when we bring witnesses to them and show them by those witnesses 
that that is oleo, we always follow that up by giving a chemical analysis 
of the article. That is sufficient for any district attorney to proceed 
upon. I have been to see Mr. Wilson and have stated about it, and 
prior to Mr. Wilson's incumbency of this office I was here and saw the 
other incumbent and stated that there were no prosecutions at this time, 
when i)rior to that we used to have sometimes in the city of Baltimore, 
with no more offenses than are being committed now, as high as 20 to 
30 cases coming out of the district court for violations of the national 
law and 

The Chairman. Do you attribute that entirely to the difference in 
the method of paying district attorneys? 

Mr. Hewes. 1 stated that was a lamentable coincidence; I do not 
want to attribute it to anything, but it is a deplorable condition of 
affairs. 

The Chairman. When we had fees they prosecuted these cases, and 
now they have salaries they neglect them? 

Mr. Hewes. I can only tell you what occurred, and it is just as I 
state, and I dej^lore that state of affairs. I am not going to impute 
anything to anybody, but 1 simply give you the statement of the facts, 
which can be verified. You could go to the records of the district 
court of the city of Baltimore and find what prosecutions have been 
had of oleo offenders. 

The Chairman. How about the other prosecutions ; does the same 
thing apply as in this? 

Mr. Hewes. I would not like to say one word about anything else. 
This 1 do know. The question was asked me this morning, "Are the 
two branches of the Government there in perfect harmony?" And I 
said, "I rather think not, unless it is a recent state of affairs, because 
it is generally considered that the revenue branch of the Government 
and the judicial branch of the Government are not in perfect harmony 
in the United States building." 



650 OLEOMABGARINE. 

A EYSTANDER. I would like to ask if the two cases we read in the 
press of to-day on tlie train were not an exception to the rnle? 

Mr, Hewes. Yes; I have not come to that point yet. I want to say 
I was going to follow that right up by stating that there were two cases 
to day reported from Cumberland. Now, when the Plnniley case, which 
is the case that was decided in the Supreme Court of the United States 
and reported in 155 — when that case was decided it was supposed we 
would not need any further legislation on the subject, that then the State's 
right to legislate on this subject was recognized as a valid exercise of 
the police power of the State and would be supported in every instance, 
and when we came down here and asked for the passage of the Hill 
bill and the Grout bill before, we were met with the objection in the 
House and in the Senate, " Have not you enough law in the opinion of 
Justice Harlan in the Plumley case?" and we said, "Yes; we would 
have enough law but for the fact that the personnel of the Supreme 
Court is liable to change, and will change in all human probability, and 
then we do not know how it is going to be." Now, our fears were veri- 
fied in the Schollenberger case; and when Justice reckham delivered 
his opinion and declared in that opinion 

The Chairman. Where is it reported? 

Mr. Hewes. 171 U. S., p. 1. When he declared that that was not 
reversal of a decision in the Plumley case, Justice Gray and Justice 
Harlan filed a dissenting opinion, showing it certainly did overturn the 
law in that case; and what was the consequence? The consequenc 
has been that there have been varying interpretations of the Schollen 
berger case now going on over the United States. Only recently two 
habeas corpus cases, one in Missouri and the other in Minnesota, were 
decided, different cases; and the judge said in those cases that they 
were at variance; and the most remarkable thing of all. Judge Lochren, 
in the INIinnesota case, has always been a friend to butter and has in all 
his decisions heretofore decided rather in favor of butter and against 
oleo until that time, and he said, " I am confronted by the opinion in the 
Schollenberger case," and discharged the petitioner. On the other 
hand, Judge Adams, in the Missouri case, stated that the Schollen- 
berger case did not overturn the opinion of the Plumley case, and he 
would be be bound by the Plumley case. 

In our own court of appeals in the State of Maryland, in the Fox 
case, tried since the Schollenberger case was decided, the opinion from 
Judge Fowler simply stated that it was the opinion of the court that 
under existing law since the Schollenberger opinion had been delivered 
it was impossible to prevent the introduction into a State of an original 
package of pure oleo, but, he said, the State having made its prima facie 
case, the burden shifts from the defendant to show that the article was 
not deleterious to health. How has that been construed? There are 
45 cases hanging up, criminal cases, in the city of Baltimore, and four 
or five of them original-package cases, and the city's attorneys do not 
attempt to do anything; they will not do anything, because they are 
satisfied that when they go to the court of appeals it will be impossible 
for the State to make a case, and they do not want to try to make a 
case. 

That is one of the principal reasons why we want a commerce clause 
limit in respect to oleomargarine, so that we may be able to meet this 
article upon our boiders with our laws, meet them there and say, "You 
can not introduce your stuff" into this State because we do not want it." 
Let it be as good as it may, let the article be just as wholesome as Mr. 
Allen snggested, let the stuff" be melted in the human stomach, although 
I have heard that oleo was not melted under such temperature, let oleo 



I 



OLEOMAKGAEINE. 651 

be all tlint it is claimed to be, and yet T will tell you onr experience in 
twenty two years in the State of Maryland sliows yon can not regulate 
the selling' ofoleo so as to prevent tlie consumer from being deceived, 
and that is tlie reason wby I tbink that this tax ougbt to be raised to 10 
cents and it is a fair proposition. 

Mr. Allen. Let me ask you, to get your views, do you tbink tbat 
ougbt to be done witb a view of probibiting tbe manufacture of butterine 
altogether ? 

Mr. He WES. Witb a view of probibiting all manufacture ofoleo yellow 
nnlesstbey want to pay tbe penalty ; it is to tax tbat yellow color. There 
is not a soul who would see uncolored oleo who would be deceived. 

Mr. Alli:n. Do you tbink tbat if you require them to make and sell 
it in tbe natnral color your natural-colored butterine could lind a sale 
upon tbe market? 

Mr. Hewes. 1 am almost sure it could, and to sbow the fairness of 
this ]iroposition it says to them, "If }ou will make this oleo uncolored 
we will reduce tlie tax to a quarter of a cent a pound." This bill of Mr. 
Grout says, "Do riglit, be fair, make your oleo in just whatever color it 
can be witbout tlie introduction of yellow color and we will reduce tbe 
tax to one-fonrth of a cent." Now you say to us, "Are you in any 
position here to come and take tbis revenue from tbe Government f 
How did this revenue get to the Government except by onr efforts? 
We reposed tbis trust in tbe United States, may it please tbe chairman 
and gentlemen of this committee, we reposed this trust in tbe United 
States. We said, "If you will put it under your close supervison, sucb 
and sucb will be tbe result; we will give you a million and a half dollars 
of revenue, and we ask you simply to act as policemen;" and they are 
not policing the State as we expected they would, and we have given 
them a million and a balf and more every year. 

The Chairman. Who is tbat? 

Mr. Hewes. The butter men of the country, wbo passed this law. 
Who passed tbe law? Tbe butter men of tbe country. Look at tbe 
records and see who brought it bere, and worked for it, and wbo passed 
it. We claim we did it. Of course 1 only s])eak for the butter men. 
I, however, was bere; I spoke before both committees, and 1 did all I 
possibly could for it. Now, I say tbe dairy interest is imposing uo 
hardship; it simply says, "Now, go on and try tbis other scheme; you 
are not crying for revenue; tbe Government is not so poor it has to 
bemoan the fact tbat this tax upon oleo can be reduced or can not be 
reduced. The quarter may yield you more than a million dollars before 
you get through." Suppose it turns out that oleo uncolored is salable 
the same as uncolored butter is? You know well enough that at the 
best hotels in New York you find uncolored butter there. Why should 
it not be witb uncolored oleo, and I say it is not a supposition to say 
that uncolored oleo will sell. 

A BYSTANDER. But it will not sell as butter. 

Tbe Chairman. How much more whitish is uncolored oleo than 
uncolored butter? 

Mr. Hewes. None. Uncolored oleo is no whiter than the white, 
crumby butter Mr. Allen was speaking about this morning. Uncolored 
oleo has a texture that commends itself, no doubt, to people. It has 
that cloudy w^hite color tbat will not impose upon anybody, but there is 
plenty of butter witb no deeper color than uncolored oleo. The Gov- 
ernment now has prohibited oleo from using the emblem, etc., of butter. 
It says you must not do tliat. That is the regulation of the Internal 
Kevenue Department to protect the people and prohibit the use of names 
of creameries, etc., and all that, so the people may be protected; and 



652 OLEOMARGAKINE. 

when a person sees that upon a table naturally he will say, "If that is 
butter, it is all right." It may be oleo, and then he may not eat it. 
Justice Harlan, in the opinion on the Plumley ease (155 U. S., p. 4G1), 
says that the contention that the coloring of oleo yellow, as a fair con- 
tention, will fall to the ground; and there is only one reason why they 
should want to color it yellow, and that is that they may enhance its 
value and to deceive people into thinking they are getting what they 
do not want; and he says that the reason why it should be uncolored is 
so as to compel the selling of the stuff for what it is and to prevent it 
selling for what it is not; and the language of Justice Harlan on that 
case is worth reading, and it is a fair exposition of the proposition. 

Gentlemen, I am very much obliged to you. 

The Chairman. What do you say as to the proposed addition to that 
clause of a tax on all colored butter? 

Mr. Hewbs. On butter that is artificially colored I think we would 
hail that with great [)leasure, but I think it would be very hard to tell 
where nature left oft" and art began. The coloring matter is only a trace, 
and in all analyses that are furnished of butter and oleo. wherever there 
is a color used, it is simply a trace. It is an imponderable quantity and 
you can not tell what it is, and I would defy the greatest chemists in 
the world to tell you whether that butter was colored or not by an 
analysis. 

Mr. Neville. If colored butter was intended to deceive people and 
palm it off on the people for something else then it would be a different 
case? 

Mr. Hewes. Yes, and 

Mr. Neville. Have you any statistics as to how many butter makers 
there are in the country'? 

Mr. Hewes. I think those can be furnished. 

A BYSTANDER. There are 10,000 creamery butter makers. 

Mr. Neville. In what proportion does it relate to the manufacture 
of oleo? 

Mr. Hewes. About 50,000 to 1. 

Mr. Neville. Have you ever stopped to think a little voting would 
fix this? 

Mr. Hewes. Where? 

Mr. Neville. In the right direction. 

Mr. Hewes. We are voting here; we hoy)e to vote here. 

Mr. Neville. Have you not discovered that a man with a million 
dollars has more power than a million men with one dollar each? 

Mr. Hewes. Unfortunately, yes. 

At this point, the members of the committee having to go upon the 
floor of the House to attend its session, the committee adjourned. 



March 28, 1900. 
The subcommittee on the Bureau of Animal Industry of the Com- 
mittee on Agriculture met at 10.30 o'clock a. m., Hon. William Lorimer 
in the chair. 

STATEMENT OF MR. S. H. COWAN, OF FORT WORTH, TEX., GENERAL 
ATTORNEY OF THE CATTLE RAISERS' ASSOCIATION OF TEXAS. 

The Chairman. Will you just state to the committee, in a general 
way, what you wish to say? 

Mr. Cowan. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, the object 
of my appearance here is to present to your committee the desires of a 



OLEOMARGARINE. 653 

large number of persons engaged in the cattle-raising business in Texas, 
Kansas, Colorado, Indian Terrilor3^ Oklahoma, and New Mexico, and a 
considerable number of tlie members of this association also reside and 
have their places of business in Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas, 
and elsewhere in the range country. 

At an annual meeting of the Cattle Raisers' Association, composed 
of about 1,200 members from the different sections of the country which 
1 have named, which annual meeting was held at Fort Worth on the 
I'Uh and 14th of March, 1900, the following resolution was passed, 
and it was adopted unanimously without a dissenting voice; audit 
was requested tliat the secretary of the C attle Raisers' Association 
have it printed and have copies placed in the hands of the members 
of Congress and presented to the committees. It so happened that I 
was coming to Washington in connection with a case known as the 
Terminal Charge Case that we have, as between the Cattle Raisers' 
Association and the railroads at Chicago, and I was directed by the 
committee to see if I could get a chance to have a hearing before the 
committees of Congress and present these resolutions, among some 
others that I have from the committees, and call the attention of the 
committees to the desires of these people, who I believe to be very 
estimable people, who are engaged in the business of raising cattle, 
along the lines mentioned in this resolution; that is to say, in opposi- 
tion to the proposed law to increase the tax on oleomargarine, which 
is a product which is made from the cattle which our people grow, as 
well as other ingredients tliat go into it as component parts. If I may 
read this resolution, I will do so. 

The Chairman. Certainly. 

Mr. Cowan (reading aloud): 

To the honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: 

Your orator, the Texas Cattle Raisers' Association, respectfully represents unto 
your honorable body that it is an association composed of 1,200 cattlemen, engaged 
in breeding, raising, feeding, shipping, buying, and selling cattle, and that its 
members are owner's of cattle aggregating over $100,000,000 iu value. 

Your orator desires to file its emphatic protest against the enactment of the sev- 
eral bills now pending before the different Congressional committees seeking to 
impose a heavy tax and other restrictive measures upon oleomargarine and to deprive 
it of all rights and privileges as an article of interstate commerce. 

I will explain that the Cattle Raisers' Association in this meeting 
was not definitely informed as to just what the provisions of these vari- 
ous bills were, but they were informed that there were a number of dif- 
ferent bills, some of them having the object of depriving oleomargarine 
of the benefits of the interstate-commerce law. I do not know, but we 
were so informed, and hence this paragraph of the resolution: 

These measures are a species of class legislation of the most dangerous kind, calcu- 
lated to build up and restore one industry at the expense of another equally as impor- 
tant. They seek to impose an unjust, uncalled for, and unwarranted burden upon 
one of the principal commercial industries of the country for the purpose of pro- 
hibiting its manufacture, thereby destroying competition, as manufacturers can not 
assume the additional burdens sought to be imposed by these measures and sell 
their product in competition with butter. 

The enactment of such laws would completely destroy a business which has been 
recognized by law, which now furnishes a large auuual revenue to the Government 
($1,956,618 in A. D. 1899), which provides employment for thousands of men, and in 
which citizens of the United States have invested fortunes. It would seriously 
affect the cattle industry, as the manufacturers of oleomargarine have created a 
demand for oleo oil, made from the choice fats from the beef, at a price at least $3 
per animal greater than it would be worth if it had to be used, ns before the advent 
of oleomargarine, for tallow, thereby entailing a loss on the producers of millions of 
dollars annually. 



654 OLEOMARGARINE. 

No law can make more stringent requirements to protect consumers than those now 
in force, and the fact that the output is yearly increasing sliows that there is a demand 
for oleomargai'ine as such, in spite of all hostile agitation and legislation. 

It is a well-known fact that the principal consumers of oleomargarine are the intel- 
ligent, prudent, and thrifty people of the middle class, who buy oleomargarine because 
they prefer it to that which is sold as butter in their markets, and tliese bills pro- 
pose to deprive these citizens of the privilege of purchasing that which they wish to 
have, although it is known to be an absolutely clean, wholesome, and nutritious 
article of diet. 

The rights and privileges of the producers of beef cattle should be as well respected 
as those of others ; and as they arc the beneticiaries in the manufacture of this wh(de- 
some article of food they shonld not be burdened with unnecessary special taxes or 
needless restrictions in the manufacture of this product. 

This x'rodnct of the "beef steer" should receive at the hands of Congress no 
greater exactions than are imposed on competing food products. It has by experience 
proven to be just what a large majority of the people of tliis country want, and we do 
hereby record our solemn protest against the enactment of legislation calculated to 
ruia a great industry and to deprive not only the working classes but many others 
of a cheap, wholesome, nutritious, and acceptalde article of food. 

The Cattle Raisers' Association of Texas. 

I certify that the above is a correct copy of a resolution adopted by the Cattle 
Raisers' Association of Texas, in annual session at Fort Worth, Tex., March 13 and 
14, 1900. 

J. C. Loving, Secretary. 

Mr. Stevens. I will call your attention also to a similar statement 
from the Cattle Eaisers' Association of Missouri, whose meeting was 
held at St. Joe. 

Mr. Cowan. This resolution reads as follows: 

A memorial to Congress adopted by the South St. Joseph Live Stock Exchange in 
opposition to the Tawney oleomargarine bill, which, if passed, will effect the value 
of the beef cattle of this country. It is desired, therefore, that all feeders and deal- 
ers will use their inlluence through their representative in Congress against the 
passage of this bill. 

To the Honorable the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States: 

Your petitioner, the South St. .loseph Live Stock Exchange, respectfully repre- 
sents to your honorable body that it is an association composed of all the commission 
men, firms, and corporations engaged in the live-stock business at South St. Joseph, 
Mo., transacting business to the enormous amount of $50,000,000 annually, Avith a 
membership roll of more than 100 members actively engaged in breeding, raising, 
feeding, shipping, buying, selling, and slaughtering all kinds of live stock, and was 
organized, among other things, for the purpose of promoting the best interests of the 
live-stock industry as a whole, jealously guarding the interests of the producer and 
consumer alike, and is the recognized and official niouthjiiece of the live-stock 
industry on all questions of an interstate or international character, esi^ecially when 
the interests of the producer or consumer are in any way affected. 

Your petitioner, in behalf of its constituency, desires to enter its emphatic iiro- 
test against the enactment of H. K. bill No 6, introduced in the House of Represent- 
atives December 4, 1899, by Mr. Tawney, providing for an amendment of "An act 
dwfining butter; also imposing a tax upon and regulating the manufacture, sale, 
importation, and exportation of oleomargarine," and in suiij)ort of its protest desires 
to record a few of the many reasons in support of its contention. 

This measure is a species of class legislation of the most dangerous kind, calcu- 
lated to build up and restore one industry at the expense of the other, equally as 
important. It seeks to impose an unjust, uncalled for, and unwarranted burden 
upon one of the most important commercial industries of the country for the pur- 
pose of prohibiting its manufacture, thereby destroying conipetiticni, as the manu- 
facturers can not assume the additional burdens sought to be imposed by this measure 
and sell their product in competition with butter. The enactment of this measure 
would throttle competition, render useless the immense establishments erected at 
great expense for the manufacture of oleomargarine, deprive thousands of emjiloyeea 
of the opportunity to gain a livelihood, and deny the; ]ieople, and especially the 
workingmen and their dependencies, of a wholesome article of diet. 

In olei 'margarine a- very large proportion of the consumers of this country, espe- 
cially the working classes, have a wholesf>me, nutritious, and satisfactory article of 
diet, which before its advent they were obliged, owing to the high price of butter 
and their limited means, to go without. 



OLEOMAKGARINE. 



G55 



The "butter fat" of an average beef animal for the purpose of making oleomar- 
garine is worth from $3 to $4 per head more than it was before the advent of oleo- 
margjtfine, when the same had to be used for tallow, which increased value of the 
beef steer has been added to the market value of the animal, and consequently to 
the profit of the producer. 

To legislate this article of commerce out of existence, as the passage of this law 
would surely do, would compel slaughterers to use this fat for tallow, depreciate the 
value of the beef steer of this country $3 to $1 per head, which would entail a loss 
on the producers of this country of millions of dollars. 

The use of this fat for the purpose set forth is an encouragement to the producer 
to improve his herd and raise a class of grade or thoroughbred cattle capable of 
making and carrying this fat, rather than the common or scrub animal, which is so 
hard and unprofitable to fatten, and the cattle raiser or producer has come to know 
the value of this product, and the amount of the increase in the market value of his 
matured animal depends somewhat on the value of the "butter fat" carried by the 
animal. 

The rights and privileges of the producers of beef cattle should be as well respected 
as those of others, and as they are the beneficiaries in the manufactureof this whole- 
some article of food, they should not be burdened with unnecessary special taxes, 
other than is absolutely necessary for the support of the Government and the proper 
governmental regulations surrounding the handling of same. 

The product of the " beef steer '' should receive at the hands of Congress no greater 
exactions than imposed upon competing food products. It is already surrounded by 
numerous safeguards, which Congress, in its wisdom, has seen fit to provide, stipu- 
lating severe punishment for selling same under misrepresentation as to its composi- 
tion. It has by experience proven to be just what a large majority of the people of 
this country want, and in behalf of the producers and consumers of this great country 
we do solemnly protest against the enactment of legislation calculated to ruin a great 
industry, and to deprive not only the working classes, but many others, of a cheap, 
wholesome, nutritious, and acceptable article of food. 

Very respectfully submitted. 

The South St. Joseph Live Stock Exchange, 
By Horace Wood, President, 
John P. Emmert, Secretary. 

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, there is very little 
I can add to what is contained in this resolution. I can simply say that 
1 know, by having been present at these meetings, that the cattle 
raisers are opposed to this oleomargarine bill. Of course, it is to their 
interest, you can say, to be opposed to it, and yet it seems to me that 
the Congress of the United States should be very slow to pass a meas- 
ure which is so clearly class legislation when there is no great benefit 
to be derived from it to the people generally, if any benefit at all, except 
such taxes as might be collected; and it ought not to be taxed just 
simply for the pur])ose of benefiting any other industry. I do not 
know how it is elsewhere, but it is a fact that I believe the committee 
ought to consider that in most parts of the Southwestern States, and 
I personally know that it is a fact, that they do not produce enough 
butter to supply the people who want to buy butter. It is a tact in 
Texas, and it is a fact in most parts of Kansas, and to a very large 
extent in the State of Colorado, and if you go up there to that country 
as a summer resort you will find it to be so. Butter sells, as a result, 
at a high price. We pay in Texas and Kansas for creamery 25 cents a 
pound for some and 30 cents for others at certain seasons of the year. 

What it sells for at wholesale I do not know. There is a large class 
of people who might desire to buy oleomargarine, and that is a class of 
peoide that ought not to be legislated against. They have the same 
rights as anybody else, and it will aftect the value of our — I can not give 
you the figures exactly on that — but it will affect the value of our cattle 
from $2 to $3 a head, as I am informed. That can be ascertained 
definitely from the different packing houses and stock markets of this 
country. It can be ascertained Just what it will do, and there is no 
occiision for quibbling upon that; but I do not pretend that 1 know. 



656 OLEOMAKGARINE. 

Bnt I do know that there is a similar protest on this point, and I do 
not think there should be any legislation passed for the pnri)ose of 
benefiting the butter men simply. I do not know that this is the pur- 
pose of the bill, but our people think that way down iu that part of the 
country. Perhaps they are wrong. Perhaps it may be for the purpose 
of regulating an article that is pernicious, but I think investigation will 
show that it is not pernicious. It is an article that is wholesome, and 
if the people want to buy it, let them buy it. And if the people like it 
better when it is colored, I see no reason why they should not be per- 
mitted to color it just as people will color a silk waist so that it will 
make your wife want to buy that. 

With these suggestions, 1 want to submit this resolution to your 
favorable consideration. 

Mr. Neville. Will the other members of the committee other than 
those who are members of the subcommittee be permitted to ask ques- 
tions? 

The Chairman. I think it is so understood that they are to have the 
privilege. 

Mr, Cowan. When you go to ask me questions in regard to the manu- 
facture of oleomargarine, 1 do not know anything about that. I was 
simply asked to present these resolutions and the protest of our peo- 
ple against the passage of this law, and I do not believe you will find 
in a large ])art of the western part of the United States, or possibly 
in the southern section of the country, any number of people who desire 
any such law to be passed, and, in my judgment, it would be certainly 
class legislation. 

Mr. Neville. You do not claim any knowledge of the details of the 
manufacture of oleomargarine'? 

Mr. Cowan. No, sir; I am a lawyer; and you know we know very 
little about such things. 

Mr. Neville. Lawyers are supposed to know everything. 

Mr. Cowan. Well, that is a very violent supposition. 

Mr. Neville. You say that if a man should want to buy oleomar- 
garine he ought to be permitted to do so. 

Mr. Cowan. I think so. 

Mr. Neville. Now, if a man does not want to buy it he ought to be 
protected so that he will not have to buy it? 

Mr. (Jo WAN. Oh, no; if a man has his money in his pocket he can 
buy it or not as he chooses, and I do not think the law should protect 
him. 

]Mr. Neville. You say you think if he had the means he should be 
permitted to buy. But, suppose that he could not make the necessary 
test in order to discriminate and tell what he was buying. 

Mr. Cowan. I do not know but what he would be in the bad position 
I am in here in Washington about the whisky. I can't tell which is the 
gooil whisky and which is the bad, and the law can not protect me 
against my bad judgment. 

Mr. Neville. That would depend a good deal upon the time of day, 
I suppose? 

Mr. Cowan. Just so; and the time of night too, and doubtless some 
of the rest of you have had the same experience. I do not mean to 
say anything against the wliisky here; it is pretty good. But I mean 
to say that I can not tell the difference between the good and the bad. 

Mr. Neville. Do you believe that if people want to buy oleomarga- 
rine that its not being colored would prevent their buying it? 

Mr. Cowan. It might in a good many cases, and it would with but- 
ter, too. 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 657 

Mr. Keville. Then you say it would enable them to sell it lor a 
higher price than they would sell it for if it were not colored, 

Mr. Cowan. J do not know whether it is the cause of it or not. My 
dairyman sells me colored butter, and it is made from cows that are fed 
on cotton seed, and that butter when it is made is as white as can be, 
but I would not buy it if it was not colored. It might be the same 
with oleomargarine. 

Mr. Neville. You would not buy butter that is not colored? 

Mr. Cowan. I might, but I would rather buy it colored. 

Mr. Neville. Were you at this meeting that passed this resolution? 

Mr. Cowan. I was. I was at the Live Stock Association meeting 
that was composed of all the live stock interests of this country. I was 
present at the annual meeting of the Live Stock Association at Fort 
Worth, on January 20, when a resolution like this was passed, and it is 
indorsed by all these associations whose names are comprised in this 
list, which I now submit to the committee. 

Mr. Neville. I did not ask the question for the purpose of discred- 
iting the fact that there was such a meeting. 

Mr. Cowan. I did not so understand you, and I mention this in 
order to show you that this is not trumped up evidence nor on the part 
of any manufacturei s. I do not know any manufacturers. 

Mr. Neville. This speaks of increase of tax on oleomargarine colored 
in imitation of butter. Did they also know that it would decrease the 
tax if it was not colored *? 

Mr. Cowan. That was not discussed in my presence, and I was there 
at both meetings. 

Mr. Neville. If, as a matter of fact, oleomargarine was not colored 
in imitation of butter, and if in its natural state, as manufactured 
without coloring, it would sell for a less jirice than it does with color- 
ing, do you believe the consumers would want to buy it in its colored 
or uncolored state"? 

Mr. Cowan. That is a speculative matter, and I could not determine. 
That depends. 

Mr. Neville. Speaking of whisky, of which you and I perhaps are 
better judges, do you think that we might want to buy more whisky if 
it was colored ? 

Mr. Cowan. Yes, sir; in the town where I was raised we had two 
brands of whisky — the Lincoln County whisky and another kind. The 
Lincoln County whisky was higher colored than the other and it was 
also higher priced, and I don't know that there was any other particular 
diflerence between them, but we always bought the Lincoln County 
whisky. 

Now, I want i)articularly to call the attention of the members of this 
committee to the list of associations that belong to this national asso- 
ciation which met at Fort Worth, and I want to say that everyone of 
these had a good delegation there. 

Mr. Williams. Please just read that list. 

(The list referred to was here read by Mr. Cowan, and is as follows:) 

Oneida County Wool Growers' AsBOciation, Idaho; Colorado Cattle Growers' Asso- 
ciation, Colorado; Kansas City Stock Yards Company, Missouri; Union Stock Yards 
Company, South Omaha, Neljr. ; Denver Union Stock Yards, Colorado ; Puehlo 
Union Stock Yards, Colorado; Arizona Stock (Growers' Association, Arizona; Fort 
Worth Stock Yards Company, Texas ; South Omaha Live Stock Exchange, Nebraska ; 
American Feeders and Bleeders' Association, St. Paul, Minn. ; Larimer County Stock 
Growers' Association, Colorado; Cattle Raisers' Association, Texas; Custer County 
Cattle Growers' Association, Colorodo; Stock Feeders' Association, Eastern Routt 
County, Colo. ; Sioux City Stocli Yards Company, Iowa ; Sioux City Live Stock 
Exchange, Iowa; Live Stock Sanitary Board, Arizona; Saguache Stock Growers' 
Association, Colorado; Kern County Cattle Growers' Association, California; West- 

S. Rep. 2043 42 



558 OLEOMARGARINE. 

ern South Dakota Stock Growers' Assooiatiou, South Dakota; Livestock Exchange, 
St. Joseph, Mo.; South St. Joseph Stock Yards Company, Missouri; Utah Wool 
Growers' Association, Utah; Southern Colorado Stock Growers' Protective Associ- 
ation, Colorado; American Hereford Cattle Breeders' Association, Missouri; Union 
Stock Yards and Transit Company, Chiciigo, 111.; Cattle Sauitai-y Board, New Mex- 
ico; State Veterinary Board, Colorado; Live Stock Association, North Dakota; 
I'ort Collins Sheep Feeders' Association, Colorado; American Short-Horn Breeders' 
Association, Illinois; Roaring Fork and Eagle River Stock Association, Colorado; 
Uinta County Wool Growers' Association, Wyoming; Cattle and Horse Protective 
Association, District 9, Colorado; Elko County Cattle Association, Nevada; Ameri- 
can Galloway Breeders' Association, Missouri; North Fork Valley Cattle Growers' 
Association, Colorado; Park County Cattle Growers' Association, Colorado; Grand 
and Kagle River Stock Growers' Association, Colorado; San Luis Valley Cattle and 
Horse Protective Association, Colorado ; Lincoln County Cattle Growers' Association, 
Colorado; Texas Live Stock Association, Texas; Lincoln and Elbert County Wool 
Growers' Association, Colorado; Kansas City Live Stock Exchange, Missouri; Weld 
County Live Stock Association, Colorado. 

Eastern Colorado Stockmen's Association, Colorado; Sheep and Wool Growers' 
Association, Idaho; Black Range Protective Association, New Mexico; Western 
Nebraska Stock Growers' Association, Nebraska; State Board of Live Stock Com- 
missioners, Illinois; Board of Trade, Tucson, Ariz.; Chamber of Commerce and 
Board of Trade, Denver, Colo.; Union Commercial Club, Lincoln, Nebr. ; Logan 
County Cattle and Horse Protective Association, Colorado; Snake River Stock 
Growers' Association, Wyoming; Gunnison County Stock Growers' Association, 
Colorado; Cincinnati Union Stock Yards Company, Ohio; Colorado Midland Rail- 
way Company, Colorado; Colorado and Southern Railway Company, Colorado; 
Oregon Shore Line Railway Company, Utah; Yuma County Cattle Growers' Asso- 
ciation, Colorado; Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad, Omaha; Rio 
Grande Western Railway Company, Salt Lake City; American Shropshire Registry 
Association, Indiana; St. Louis Live Stock Exchange, Illinois; Sheep Sanitary 
Board, New Mexico; Board of Sheep Commissioners, Wyoming; Oklahoma Live 
Stock Association, Oklahoma; American Shetland Pony Club, Indiana; Iowa 
Improved Stock Breeders' Association ; Cincinnati Live Stock Commission Mer- 
chants' Association, Ohio; Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company, Illinois; 
North Park Stock Growers' Association, Colorado; Chicago Live Stock Exchange, 
Illinois; Pacihc Northwest Wool Growers' Association, Oregon; Dominion Short- 
Horn Breeders' Association, Canada; Fremont County Cattle Growers' Association, 
Colorado; Crystal River Kailroad Company, Colorado; National Association Exhib- 
itors of Live Stock of America, New York; Northern Wyoming Wool Growers' Asso- 
ciation, Wyoming; Pecos Valley Railroad, New Mexico; Cincinnati Chamber of 
Commerce, Ohio; Red Polled Cattle Club, America, Iowa; State Board of Agricul- 
ture, Kansas; State Irrigation Association, Utah; Union Pacific Railroad Company, 
Omaha; State Agricultural College, Wyoming; Saguache County Wool Growers' 
Association, Colorado; Polled Durham Cattle Club of America, Indiana. 

Mr. Allen. Were you present at this meeting that passed the reso- 
liitiou that you first read? 

Mr. Cowan. Yes, sir; I was. 

Mr. Allen. Do you know personally the men who were there repre- 
senting those diftereut breeders' associations"? 

Mr. Cowan. I know some of them. I knew a good many of the men 
who were delegates to the convention at Fort Worth. I was also a 
delegate to the convention at Denver of last year. 

Mr. Williams. Do you know j)ersonally whether those gentlemen 
are interested in the breeding and raising of cattle? 

Mr. Cowan. Nearly all of them. 

Mr. Allen. Nearly all of them? 

Mr. Cowan. Yes, sir. Of course, this national association is com- 
posed of these various other associations. It is not composed of indi- 
viduals. It has no individual membership. The Texas Cattle Raisers' 
Association is a member of the national association, in that live stock 
association the breeders' association have representation, and send their 
delegates there in proportion to the representation that is ntade by the 
executivecommitteeof that concern. I can not remember now just what 
is the amount of representation which each one receives. 



OLEOMARGARINE. (359 

Mr. Allen. You have heard the discussions there at the meeting"? 

Mr. Cowan. Yes; and they passed the same sort of a resolution at 
Denver, and I was tliere. 

Mr. Allen. Ts it claimed by the breeders of cattle that the manu- 
facture of oleomargarine increases the price of cattle by reason of the 
extraordinary demand for fats'? 

Mr. (JowAN. That is what they do, sir. This paper that is published 
by the Denver Chamber of Commerce, and which makes quite a book, 
will show you, and if anybody wants information upon that subject 
they will find some splendid papers in that book. Joljri W. Springer, 
the president of the National Live Stock Association, who lives at 
Denver, can furnish copies of the annual proceedings of the National 
Live Stock Association in which is contained all the papers read and 
all the resolutions i)assed. That has been printed for 1891), and I think 
is ready to be printed for liJOO, if not already out. 

Mr. Allen. Where do you live? 

Mr. Cowan. At Fort Worth. 

Mr. Allen. Do yea know anything of the retail sale of oleomarga- 
rine in your city? 

Mr. Cowan. Not a thing. I see it in the stores, but I do not buy it, 
and know nothing about it. 

Mr, Allen. What do you know, now, about the process of the retail 
merchants in reference to the sale of this product? 

Mr. Cowan. Not a thing. 

Mr, Allen, Have you ever heard any complaints of your citizens of 
its beiiig sold as butter, and of their being deceived by reason of mis- 
representation? 

Mr. Cowan, I have seen cases sitting around, but it looks a good 
deal like the kind of butter I buy, and I buy Kansas creamery, and I 
do not know the difference. I am like I am with the whisky. 1 may 
not know the difference. 

Mr. Allen. Are there any dairy interests in your part of the country? 

Mr. Cowan. No, sir; not creameries; no creameries in Texas that I 
know of. There are a good many in Kansas. I go very frequently 
over there and I see little sheds near the station where they manufac- 
ture butter, and I see them hauling in the milk. They manufacture 
butter there. 

Mr. Dahle. This was the opinion, the consensus of opinion, of the 
cattle raisers' associations? 

Mr. Cowan. There is no doubt about that. 

Mr. Dahle. It is claimed by the National Dairy Association that 
this was gotten up by certain individuals, and that these people did 
not know what was in it. Was it discussed, and did there seem to be 
any interest in it? 

Mr, Cowan. Yes, sir; the matter was discussed, and papers read 
ui)on the subject, but I can rot recollect just exactly the extent of it. 

Mr. Dahle. And tliey understood what they were voting upon? 

Mr. Cowan. Yes, sir; and a more intelligent convention has not 
met in this country, unless it be a convention of professional men, than 
this National Live Stock Association which met at Denver a year ago, 
and at Fort Worth this winter. They know what their interests are, 
and it is conceded by cattlemen; and I had a telegram from the former 
president of the Cattle Eaisers' Association asking me to present these 
resolutions. He has no interest in the packers at all. 1 think this is 
the honest, and I think intelligent, judgment of these people, and an 
investigation by this committee of the sources from which 1 get my 



660 OLEOMAEGAELNE. 

information will make tbat fact appear. Mr. Tomlinson, from Chicago, 
is here, who represents the Live Stock Exchange, and he can speak of 
that also. 

Mr. Neville. This resolution speaks of placing a tax on oleomarga- 
rine, and does not seem to include the fact that it is merely upon the 
colored oleomargarine. Did these people understand that the object of 
this tax was to reach the oleomargarine colored in imitation of butter? 

Mr. Cowan. I do not know that they did. I never heard that dis- 
cussed or mentioned. 

STATEMENT OF T. W. TOMLINSON, RAILWAY REPRESENTATIVE 
OF THE CHICAGO LIVE STOCK EXCHANGE, OF THE UNION 
STOCK YARDS OF CHICAGO. 

Mr. Tomlinson. There is very little I can say about this that will 
not be practically a reiteration of what has been said by Judge Cowan. 
I might, however, add that the various bills on this matter have been 
very carefully considered by the National Stock Exchange and the 
Live Stock Association, and these organizations and the Cliicago Live 
Stock i^jxchange are very fully aware of this. I will say this, in reply 
to your question to Mr. Cowan, as to whether they know that the tax 
on oleomargarine is to be reduced. They are fully aware of the features 
of the bill. They are very practical people, and not interested directly 
in butter or the cattle of the country. They are of course very much 
interested indirectly in the people whom they represent, who are pri- 
marily the raisers and growers of live stock; that is, the cattle and 
sheep and hog men. The Chicago Live Stock Exchange and the 
National Live Stock Exchange are primarily composed of commission 
men, who represent the producers and raisers of these cattle. I came 
to Washington for practically the same reasons that Judge Cowan did, 
but was directed by wire to represent the National Stock Exchange, 
and to present to this committee the resolutions which were passed by 
that exchange in opposition to this bill. I have not with me the reso- 
lutions, but I will see that they are filed with this committee — both the 
resolutions of the National Live Stock Exchange and of the Chicago 
Live Stock Exchange. The constituent members of the National Live 
Stock Exchange are composed of the members of the various exchanges 
in the large cities of the country, as Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, 
Louisville, Indianapolis, and so forth. 

I believe that is all that I care to say, except that the gentlemen of 
the executive committee of the National Live Stock Exchange and the 
Chicago Live Stock Exchange are people who are thoroughly familiar 
with the manufacture of oleomargarine, and are ])ractical men, and 
know the effect which it would have upon the value of cattle if this 
bill were passed, because their business is to sell cattle. 

Mr. Neville. Are there any of them here who are acquainted with 
the manufacture of oleomargarine? 

Mr. Tomlinson. No, sir; I think not. I do not claim to be familiar 
with it myself. I am simply their mouthpiece before you. 

Mr. Allen. What relation do you bear to that exchange? 

Mr. Tomlinson. I am the railroad representative of the Chicago 
Live Stock Exchange. 

Mr. Allen. A sort of traffic manager? 

Mr. Tomlinson. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Allen. You have no interest in the railroad? 

Mr. Tomlinson. No, sir. 



OLEOMARGARINE. ggl 

Mr. Williams. You represent tliis association of commission mer- 
chants, wlio sell cattle tor the stock raisers, in their relations to the 
railroads'? 

Mr. ToMLiNSON. Exactly. 

Mr. Neville. You make arrangements for traffic and represent 
them in that respect? 

.Mr. ToMLiNSON. Yes, sir; the commission men. Their opinion, it 
seems to me, in regard to the eftect of legislation against oleomargarine 
would be ])robably better than anybody else's so far as its effect on the 
price of cattle is concerned, because tliey are the people who sell the 
live stock of the country; and their resolution points out that it would 
cut down the price of cattle from $3 to $4 a head. 

Mr. Neville. Do you know the relative number of cattle raised in 
this country now and last year, and the amount of fat in each animal 
on the average? 

Mr. TOMLINSON. That would depend. 

Mr. Neville. So as, I mean, to be able to determine the actual 
value in the animal of this fat? 

Mr. TOMLINSON. I could furnish you with some accurate figures on 
it, but I should dislike to make a rough statement. I sliould think, 
however, it would run forty to fifty pounds. I am satisfied that is a 
conservative estimate. 

Mr. Neville. How can you determine that if you know nothing about 
the manufacture of oleomargarine? 

Mr. TOMLINSON. The Chicago Live Stock Exchange slaughters all 
the animals suspected of any disease, such as tuberculosis, and a num- 
bei- of them are passed as fit for food after inspection, and they sell the 
various portions of the animal so slaughtered at the market value of 
it, and butter stock constitutes one part of that. I have occasion to 
look over their reports, and know about what it would average. That 
is the basis of my statement in that respect. 

Mr. Neville. All you know about it is from looking over those 
reports ? 

x\Ir. TOMLINSON. Do not misunderstand me. I have been present at 
a number of meetings of the executive committee of the National Live 
Stock Exchange, and have talked with the oflQcials of that exchange, 
and, of course, my information is largely hearsay to that extent, but it 
is what they say on the matter. They had no occasion to misrepresent 
it, of course. It was a matter they were considering. 

In the annual meeting there were two papers read on the matter, one 
by Colonel Hobbs, of New York, and some other gentleman whose 
name I do not remember, but there was, I think, but very little discus- 
sion regarding the merits of this pending legislation. 

Mr. Neville. You were there? 

Mr. TOMLINSON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Neville. Can you explain why this measure, which, if passed, 
would tax oleomargarine, why the resolution did not contain the fact 
that the tax of 10 per cent was simply to be imposed upon the colored 
oleomargarine? 

Mr. TOMLINSON. No, sir; I can not. It is readily understandable 
that an association, while they might have some notion of such a thing 
as this, might not have the exact details of it. 

Mr. Neville. Does it mention the 10 per cent at all? 

Mr. TOMLINSON. No, sir. 

Mr. Bailey. The referen(;e was in a general way to the bill? 

Mr. TOMLINSON. Yes, sir. They all thought that it was very impor- 



fiG2 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

tant as affecting the value of their steers to the extent of a couple of 
dollars a head. It was really oue of the most important things done 
there. 

Mr. INEVILLE. Is it not true that practically all of the cattle shipiied 
to Chicago from the Sixth Nebraska District, which I represent, there 
being 33 counties there whose chief product is cattle, sheep, and horses — 
is not it true that those people ship practically all of their cattle into 
Chicago? 

Mr. ToMLiNSON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Neville. So that, in your opinion, you ought to be familiar with 
the individual cattlemen of that country as to their notions of this 
matter? 

Mr. ToMLiNSON. Well, I know a few of them. I have attended a 
good many of those meetings at Rapid City there, and I guess a good 
many of you come down there. I notice thiit the Western Nebraska 
Stock Raisers' Association was represented there. 

Mr. Neville. If you had received personal letters and petitions 
from nearly every cattle owner in that country, urging this tax, you 
would not feel that the people had been represented there, would you, 
when this resolution was passed? 

Mr. TOMLINSON. From that country? Do you mean to say that the 
cattlemen out there are not opposing this? 

Mr. Neville. I mean to say the cattlemen are not opposing it. 

Mr. TOMLINSON. Answering your question, I must say that on the 
premises of your statement I would say that they were not represented. 
I think there must be some grave mistake. 

Mr. Neville. Do you remember the name of the chairman of the 
committee? 

Mr. TOMLINSON. Matt Daugherty. 

Mr. Neville, Was John Bradt there, too? 

Mr. TOMLINSON. I could not tell you. There were 1,500 delegates 
down there, and while I know a good many of them I would hardly 
undertake to say who was and who was not there from Nebraska. 

Mr. Neville. I am satisfied that Daugherty opposes this bill. 

Mr. Cowan. Are not the range cattlemen out there opposed to this 
bill? 

Mr. Neville. No, sir; except a few range cattlemen who have a 
few thousand head of cattle and are interested in the Omaha stock 
yards, and I do not know but they are interested in some of the pack- 
ing houses. They are opposed to this bill. But my opinion is that the 
cattlemen of that market are the other way. 

Mr. TOMLINSON. If there is any other information the committee 
desire me to give to them with reference to oleomargarine, I shall be 
glad to do so. 

The Chairman. If you have anything in addition to what you have 
said which you would like to send to us, address it to the committee in 
writing at any time, and we shall be glad to have it. 

Mr. Stokes. Mr. Chairman, we have here to-day a committee repre- 
senting the cotton-oil industries of South Carolina, North Carolina, and 
Georgia, and I ask that they be heard in this connection. The follow- 
ing gentlemen are present in this delegation: Fred Oliver, Charlotte, 
N. C.; George S. Barber, Augusta, Ga. ; C. Fitzsimmons, Columbia, 
S. C; Thomas Taylor, jr., Florence, S. C; F. K. Barden, Goldsboro, 
N. C, and A. C. Phelps, Sumter, S. C. These gentlemen have their 
counsel present, Mr. Fred Oliver, of Charlotte, N. C, who will present 
their case. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 663 

Mr. Stevens. Mr, Gliairniiui,! wish to be heard just a moment to 
indorse what Mr. Cowau had to say in regard to the cattle interests, 
and I would st;ite that there is no set of men on earth more alert to 
their own interests than the cattlemen of the United States, and they 
meet and discuss these questions, and the oleomargarine question, in 
the interest of cattlemen, and they certainly would not make a mistake. 

I have received numbers of letters from my district from cattlemen 
opposing this bill, and 1 have yet to hear from any one of them who is in 
favor of it, and I disagree with Mr. IsTeville when he says that the cattle- 
men of the country are in favor of its passage. I represent certainly the 
largest cattle district in the United States. I represent eighty counties 
in the northern ]>art of Texas. I represent the owners of probably one- 
half of the cattle of Texas. You know that Texas produces more live 
stock than probably any other two States of the United States, and I 
think my people are universally opposed to this bill. In the first place, I 
think it is a species of class legislation, and second, it will probably add 
10 per cent a pound to the value of the product of the men who make 
butter or have their money in that industry, and take off that much from 
the cattle raiser, and we find that it would be a class discrimination. 

STATEMENT OF MR. FRED OLIVER, REPRESENTING THE COTTON 
SEED-OIL INTERESTS OF NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA. 

Mr. Oliver. To facilitate the presentation of our views in regard to 
these bills we have prepared a paper addressed to the honorable Com- 
mittee on Agriculture, which 1 will ask ])ermission to read. Mr. Stokes 
has said that we represent the cotton-seed-oil interests of North Caro- 
lina, South Carolina, and Georgia, but I would like to state that the 
greater part of that industry is in the States of North and South Caro- 
lina, there being but one delegate from Georgia. 

Mr. Oliver here read the paper referred to aloud, as follows: 

We appear before you as a committee representing the cotton seed-oil 
interests of North and South Carolina to protest against the injustice 
and damage to our business that would be caused by the passage of any 
of the proposed bills now before your committee and various other 
committees of the House and Senate relative to the manufacture of 
oleomargarine. We do not exjiect to be able to present to your honor- 
able committee any new facts or arguments why these proposed laws 
should not be enacted, for we lealize that all arguments and reasons 
pro and con have been presented to you before, and all we can, there- 
fore, do to-day is, perhaps, to present them in a new light, and impress 
upon you the injustice and damage to our particular business that such 
class legislative enactments would cause. We propound two questions 
to your honorable body, and will give our answers in the light we 
see it: 

First. Why are there each year one or more bills introduced to regu- 
late the manufacture of oleomargarine? 

Second. By whom are they introduced? 

The answers to the above questions are apparent to you and every 
one, for they are always originated and introduced by a Sjiecial class of 
the country's population — the dairy farmers; not as a unit, however, for 
there are many honorable, conscientious, justice-loving dairy farmers 
who do not approve of such class legislation. The object to be obtained 
by having these proposed laws enacted is to create a scarcity tor the 
lower grades of genuine cow butter, and thereby enhance its price to an 
artificial figure for the special benefit of a certain class of dairymen and 



664 OLEOMAEGAKINE. 

to the damage and loss of various other producing classes, aud at the 
expense of a very large class of worthy consuming citizens of moderate 
means. We doubt if there ever has been any producers of genuine, 
high-grade, gilt edged butter who have been spending their time and 
money trying to pass such unjust class laws. It is only the producers 
of low-grade butter, who find their wares shelved or required to be sold 
at less price than oleomargarine, who are always agitating the subject 
of taxing oleomargarine to make its sale ])rohibitory. We firmly believe 
that there is now produced b^^ the small country butter makers large 
quantities of adulterated butter or oleomargarine, which, under the 
present law, enacted years ago, should pay a tax of 2 cents per ])ound 
and be subject to all the vexatious sale regulations that are now on the 
statute books, but which goes scot free, simply because the butter is 
offered by a so-called " guileless farmer." 

Any farmer keeping half a dozen or more cows for butter making can 
run his own little oleomargarine factory by mixing neutral lard oil, 
cotton-seed oil, oleo oil, etc., in his churn with cream or milk, thereby 
producing an inferior oleomargarine, which he sells as "homemade," 
"pure country butter," without tax or restriction; and it is this class 
of dairymen and producers of dirty, unscientifically made "pure but- 
ter" that are asking for a tax and sale restrictions on the products of 
the large manufacturers of oleomargarine who are now paying the unjust 
2 cents per pound tax and submitting to all the vexatious regulations 
necessary to sell same. No manufacturer of "Philadelphia print" or 
"Elgin creamery" grades of butter is asking for a tax on oleomar- 
garine. Why should " genuine butter," so called, be allowed a monoply 
to use the butter coloring article of commerce, "annotto," that has been 
for about thirty years, or ever since oleomargarine was invented, one 
of the ingredients in its manufacture*? There is no question or doubt 
but what the present artificial butter coloring was used in the first 
oleomargarine placed on the market, and has always been so used ; also, 
that its use in so-called "genuine butter" has been brought about by 
the impossibility of " genuine butter" when uncolored to compete with 
the oleomargarine of commerce, that has always the same color because 
it has always used the artificial coloring agency. If a monopoly of 
artificial coloring should be enjoyed by anyone it should be the oleo- 
margarine manufacturers, not the cow butter makers. 

If it was possible to educate the small producers of butter and thereby 
make their production of "genuine butter" equal in quality to the 
product of the best dairymen and creameries, there would be a ready 
market for it all at about the present price for the very best grades of 
cow butter, in which case oleomargarine would sell for several cents 
less per pound and be used almost exclusively by those consumers with 
limited means who are willing to use an article that is sold at less 
money and which suits them about as well as a higher-priced article; 
but it is not possible to so educate the mass of dairymen, and as long 
as the large proportion of the dairymen abuse their production by 
making bad butter, just so long will the oleomargarine find favor with 
the consumers with limited means, for it is recognized by all as being 
fax superior as an article of food to at least half if not two-thirds of 
the butter, genuine and artificial, produced by the farmers and others. 
Legislative enactments should be for the benefit of all, not for a favored 
class. The enactment of any one of the proposed 10 cents per pound 
tax or anticoloring bills will prohibit the manufacture of oleomaiga- 
rine openly and aboveboard bwt will not prevent its being carried on 
by an increased number of farmers and moonshine manufacturers in 
defiance of the laws and without paying taxes. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 665 

There will be a marked increase of "molasses" and such articles 
apparently consumed by tlie farmers, but which are in reality lard oil, 
neutral oil, cotton-seed oil, or oleo oil, which the farmers will take to 
their homes to manufacture into "genuine butter," so called. There 
will be a decreased amount of country tallow and lard brought to the 
markets, for farmers will sell to each other to use in increasing their 
yield of butter from their small dairy herd. There will, no doubt, be 
l)ropagated new breeds of so-called butter cows that will excel in the 
production of butter the Jerseys and other famous breeds. The limit 
in the production of butter from any one dairy will be regulated only 
by the supply of neutral oil, lard oil, etc., that the farmer cau smuggle 
to his home. Farmers will become as skillful in evading these laws as 
the western North Carolinian is in evading the liquor laws. Increase the 
tax on whisky to $2 per gallon, and then see how many more men all 
over the United States will be making "moonshine" goods, lieduce 
the tax to 25 cents per gallon and you will reduce the number of cases 
before each United States criminal court in North Carolina to probably 
one-tenth the present number. If the j^roposed laws to impose 10 cents 
per pound tax on oleomargarine are enacted you will have to increase 
the revenue detective service many times its i)resent number and hold 
criminal United States courts every week in every district. Butterine 
or oleomargarine will be produced, and the laws will not prevent it. 
The proposed laws, if passed, will prevent open, aboveboard, tax- 
paying, honorable manufacturers from continuing to carry on their 
present: business, but it will not prevent the secret manufacture of the 
article by a class of men hard to detect and still harder to convict. 

We earnestly protest against the passage of the proposed bills as 
being unnecessary and very harmful to our business, to the country's 
business at large, and to the morals of many farmers and others. It 
will be a temptation that a great many present law abiding, honorable 
farmers will not be able to resist, and they will become the same as a 
great many western North Carolinians, "moonshiners," for the manu- 
facture of oleomargarine. 

The cotton-seed-oil interests of the South have invested in plants not 
less than $50,000,(100. The working capital necessary to conduct the 
business is not less than $50,000,000 more, making $100,000,000 
employed in the business. The mills have converted a product, namely, 
cotton seed, which was once considered a perfect nuisaiu^e by the 
farmers and ginners, into an article bringing to the cotton planter 
millions of dollars and to the laboring man millions more and to the 
railroads a large and profitable tonnage in and out, amounting to 
millions of dollars in freight. There has been paid to the cotton pro- 
ducers this season not less than $40,000,000 for about two-fifths of the 
seed produced. There has been paid to the railroads to haul the seed 
in and the products of oil mills out not less than $15,000,000. There 
has been paid to laborers dependent upon the manufacture of cotton 
seed at least $10,000,000, making a grand total paid out by the oil 
mills of not less than $05,000,000, and this for a product that forty 
years ago was considered absolutely worthless, and for only two-fifths 
of the seed produced, the balance being used on the farms for fertil- 
izing and for cattle feed. 

If the oil mills are not crippled by adverse legislation in this coun- 
try and others it is only a matter of time when all cotton seed not 
required for planting will be worked up in oil mills, creating a market 
value for the seed, money paid out for transportation and labor, from a 
croi) of 12,000,000 bales of cotton, a grand total amounting to at least 



eee 



OLEOMARGARINE. 



$150,000,000, or about oiie-lialf of the value of the cotton crop itself. Oil 
mills employ colored men exclusively in every department exce]»ting 
superintendents and skilled mechanics— at least 95 i)er cent of all the 
help employed being colored. These colored men earn from 75 cents to 
$2.50 per day, and are a very worthy, self-sustaining, law-abiding class 
of citizens. Why should the product of their lab ir be legislated against 
simply to give another class of citizens — the dairymen — a monopoly as 
against oleomargarine, a food product that the buying consumer is now 
satisfied to furnish to his family and himself. The consumer knows 
that this product, oleomargarine, is healthy and clean, and it costs him 
much less money than cow butter and is equally as satisfactory, and 
suits him much better than low grades of dirty butter costing the same 
or less money. 

It is simply a fight in which the "survival of the fittest" should be 
allowed to prevail, and it is not right or just, no matter in what light 
it is looked upon, to handicap, by a 10 cent per pound tax, or any 
other tax or regulation, a manufactured article that has been, is now, 
and always will gradually overcome the j)ublic prejudice and work 
itself into public favor to the detriment of much so-called butter that 
is only fit for the soap boilers' kettle. Why not tax cotton clothing of 
all kinds, simply because it is supplanting woolen and silk goods? VVhy 
not tax beet sugar because it will, in the end, drive out cane sugar if 
left to a free fight on their merits and cost? Why not prohibit by tax, 
or impose restrictions upon electric light and power, because it is 
driving out of use gas and horse power ? Why, oh, why, did not the 
farmer that furnished tallow to the candle makers look far enough into 
the future, years ago, and prevent the almost total annihilation of the 
candle manufacturing by the products of petroleum? Why not pass 
laws to i^revent all inventions and improvements to the conditions of 
the human race just because there are some farmers selfish enough and 
self satisfied to live and die as their fathers and grandfathers lived 
and died years before them ? 

Geo. L. Baker, 
A. C. Phelps, 
Thos. Taylor, Jr., 
F. K. Borden, 

C. FiTZSIMMONS, 

Fred Oliver, 

Committee. 

Eepresenting mills in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia 
as follows : 



Southern Cotton Oil Co., Columbia. 

Produce Mills. 

Interstate Cotton Oil Co. 

Newberry Oil Co. 

Laurens Oil and Fertilizer Co. 

Union Oil and Mfg. Co. 

Greenwood Oil Co. 

Victor Cotton Oil Co. 

Woodruif Cotton Oil Co. 

Simpsouville Oil Mill. 

Easley Oil Mill. 

Honea Path Oil Mill. 

Ninety-Six Oil Co. 

Greers Cotton Oil Co. 

Coronaca Oil Mill. 

Belton Oil Mill. 

Liberty Oil Mill. 



Williamston Oil and F. Co. 

Clinton Oil Mill. 

Gray Court Oil Mill. 

Seneca Oil Mill. 

Southern Cotton Oil Co., Savannah. 

Saluda Oil Mill. 

Campobello Oil Mill. 

Excelsior Oil Mill. 

Abbeville Oil and F. Co. 

Llberton Oil Miil. 

Fountain Inn Oil Mill. 

Tiger Shoals Oil Mill. 

Goldville Oil Mill. 

Fair Forrest Oil Mill. 

Anderson Oil and F. Co. 

Lowndesville Oil Mill. 

McCormick Oil Mill. 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 



067 



Atlantic Cotton Oil Co. : 

Snnitei', 

Bennettsville. 
Southern Cotton Oil Co., Columbia. 
Southern Cotton Oil Co., Barnwell. 
Darlington Oil Co. 
Dillon Cotton Seed Oil Co. 
Orangeburg Oil Mill. 
Florence Oil Mill. 
Marion Oil Mill. 
P'dgefield Manufacturing Co. 
Ridge Spring Oil Mill. 
St. Matthew's Oil Mill. 
Chester Oil Mills. 
Fairfield Oil and F. Co. 
Kathwood Mfg. Co. 



Monevnick Oil Mill. 
Charlotte oil and F. Co. 
Concord Cotton Oil Mill. 
Davidson Cotton Seed Oil Mill. 
Monroe Oil and F. Co. 
Rowland Oil Mill Co. 
Laurinbnrg Oil Co. 
Gibson Station Oil Co. 
Fayetteville Oil Co. 
Selma Oil and F. Co. 
Goldsboro Oil Co. 
Wilson Oil Co. 
Tar River Oil Co. 
Edgecomb Oil Co. 
Newbern Oil Co. 
Weldon Oil Co. 



This paper is subscribed by a committee representing in North and 
South Carolina and Georgia about 70 oil mills, and representing in the 
South about 400 oil mills. 

Mr. Haugen. How much of this $65,000,000 goes into the butterine? 

Mr. Oliver. Of this -$6.5,000,000? 

Mr. Haugen. I understand you to say that $65,000,000 goes to the 
interests of the cotton raisers of the South'? 

Mr. Oliver. About $40,00 ,000 was ijaid to the farmers for seed, 
about $15,000,000 for the transportation of the seed in and products 
out; about $10,000,000 for labor. In this country there is used proba- 
bly 150,000 barrels of 50 gallons each of butter oil in manufacturing 
oleomargarine — at least aboveboard. How much there is used secretly, 
I do not know. 

Mr. Haugen. What part of it is cotton-seed oil? 

Mr. Oliver. About 150,000 barrels of cotton seed oil of 50 gallons 
each goes into the oleomargarine through the large manufacturers that 
are now being taxed and living up to the regulations. 

Mr. Haugen. About how much is this worth? 

Mr. Oliver. About 40 cents a gallon of 7^ pounds to the gallon. 

Mr. Neville. Have you figured out the number of pounds so that 
you know? 

Mr. Oliver. No; it is only from what is published and the amount 
of taxes paid on oleomargarine. Oleomargarine contains from 25 to 40 
percent of cotton seed oil, depending upon the weather and the season 
of the year it is made. 

Mr. Allen. Are you engaged in the manufacture of oleomargarine 
in any way? 

Mr. Oliver. Not at all, sir. 

Mr. Allen. Are you a cotton raiser ? 

Mr. Oliver. Yes, sir; to a limited extent I am a cotton raiser. I am 
more of a wheat and oat raiser in the farming line. 

Mr. Allen. Are you engaged in the manufacture of cotton -seed oil? 

Mr. Oliver. Yes, sir; in that I am very largely engaged. Our plant 
to day has more than $1,000,000 right now invested in cotton-seed oil 
machinery and products. 

Mr. Neville. 0«e hundred and fifty thousand barrels, of 50 gallons 
each, or 375 pounds to the barrel. Do you mean that that amount you 
liave given is for the oil sold, or is that including the cake sold for 
feeding cattle? 

Mr. Oliver. No, sir; only the cotton-seed oil used in butter making. 

Mr. Neville. I will ask you if you have figured the number of 
pounds of oil cake sold to feeders 1 



6fi8 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. Oliver. There is about $3,000,000 worth sold this year and last, 
and 1,000,000 tons of cake ground into meal, or sold as meal. Kight 
there, why not tax cotton seed cake to prevent its being a competitor of 
oil cake, and corn meal, and wheat bran. You have just as much right 
to do it, and it is exactly as just. 

Mr. Neville. Speaking of oleomargarine being made of the oil of 
cotton seed, I will ask you if it is not a fact that cotton-root tea and 
cotton seed tea have not been used for the purpose of producing 
abortions'? 

Mr. Oliver. Cotton seed or root tea has been used ever since it has 
been known for that i)urpose, but cotton-seed oil has no such effect. 

Mr. Neville. Have you ])osirive proof tliat it has no such effect"? 

Mr. Oliver. We have chemists all over the world, who are constantly 
experimenting, and as they have experimented with oleomargarine, I 
think they would have discovered that fact if it had been a fact. I do 
not believe you can find a chemist who has given an adverse opinion 
against oleomargarine. 

Mr. Neville. Don't you know that it is a fact that chemists have 
given ample evidence on both sides of this question? 

Mr. Oliver. I presume that that is true to some extent, and the 
evidence they have given has generally been according to the interests 
of those who emidoyed them. There are dishonest chemists. But 
almost invariably the evidence has been favorable to the cotton seed 
product. 

Mr. Neville. Now, you have stated it as a fact that there was no 
one advocating this legislation excepting a few farmers, disreputable 
and dishonorable men, who wanted to palm off a fraud with their home 
manufactured oleomargarine; that they were the only ones urging this? 

Mr. Oliver. That was my statement, that it was being urged by 
that class. 

Mr. Neville. How do you account for the fact that the legislatures 
of thirty-two States have already passed stringent laws prohibiting the 
sale of oleomargarine? 

Mr. Oliver. Simply because the political power of the parties in 
those States has been used in that way, and those in power are dic- 
tated to, or their leg pulled, or wire-pulling of some kind, which made 
them think it was necessary to advocate these laws. 

Mr. Neville. That would not apply to those who are represented 
by legislators who are not of their political faith? 

Mr. Oliver. It applies to both parties, or all three parties, if you 
want to call it three parties. 

Mr. NEViiiLE. Then it is simply that condition of corruption which 
you think has spread all over this country to which your remarks 
apply ? 

Sir. Oliver. Yes, sir; I do think so, in this line. But, when it comes 
to corruption and defrauding of the public, there is more defrauding 
to day in the clothing you are wearing and others are wearing in this 
room than in any article you can mention. 

Mr. Neville. Do you believe, because it has gotten to this corrupt 
state in all manufacturing matters with the ])ebple of this country, 
that it is too late, and no use to try to do anything to make it better? 

Mr. Oliver. I believe the more laws you have the greater will be 
the corruption. You will kill, absolutely, the manufacture of oleomar- 
garine on an honest, honorable basis; and you will put it into the 
hands of the secret manufacturers, farmers, and others, who are like 
^noney shavers, and the Government will not receive any tax to 
amount to anything. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 669 

Mr, Neville. So you think that the plan was in the beg;inning that 
the big- fish should eat the little fish, and the big aiftinals should chew 
u]) tlie little ones, and therefore it ought to be allowed to go on as it 
was intended? 

iMr. Olivee. No, sir; I think it is simply the case of one class in this 
country trying to benefit itself at the expense of another class. The 
South has no interest in the dairies, and they have a very large interest 
in the cotton seed oil. 

IMr. Neville. Is not it a fact that all the Southern States have this 
law? 

Mr. Oliver. I do not know of a single Southern State that has a law 
against oleomargarine. And, while we use in this country 150,000 bar- 
rels of oil, they use on the Continent the much larger amount of 500,000 
barrels in butter making. The passage of this law will be an incentive 
for every country to i)ass something of the same kind in order to put 
their farmers on the same level with ours. 

Mr. Wjlson. I would like to know whether you have any reports as 
to the healthy qualities of oleomargarine? 

Mr. Oliver. I have not here. 

Mr. Wilson. They are to be had, are they not? 

Mr. Oliver. 1 have read plenty of such reports from the United 
States Government chemists passed on it. 

Mr. Wilson. The reports on that would be of more information to 
us than all the testimony on earth. 

Mr. Oliver. I think the last Congress appointed a committee which 
has already reported favorably on oleomargarine as a food product} it 
was Senator Mason's committee. 

Mr. Allen. Yes; Senator Mason's committee. 

Mr. Wilson. If this bill is passed will it not have the effect of an 
absolutely probibitory tax? 

Mr. Oliver. It will, so far as aboveboard manufacturing goes. 

Mr. Wilson. That is what I mean. 

Mr. Oliver. It will induce all sorts of people to go into the secret 
manufacture of oleomargarine. 

Mr. Wilson. What is the cost of manufacturing oleomargarine? 

Mr. Oliver. It has about 50 per cent of butter, cream, or milk, 
churned with the cotton seed oil, neutral oil, oleo oil, etc. 

Mr. Wilson. What will it cost? 

Mr. Oliver. It will depend on what milk and cream is worth at any 
particular season of the year, and on the prices of the oils used. To day 
tliey are worth almost double what they were. 

Mr. Wilson. I want to know what the cost is, and as to whether 
this tax will drive it out of the market? 

Mr. Oliver. As I say, you can not take any one date for the cost 
of oleomargarine. Right now, the cost of oleo, stearin, neutral oil, and 
cotton-seed oil are almost double what they were a year ago. 

Vv. Neville. What does it amount to now approximately, per 
pound? 

M.V. Oliver. I suppose oleomargarine, the best grades, is selling at 
15 cents, probably costing the manufacturers 10 cents, making 2 cents 
tax and 3 cents profit. 

Mr. Neville. Then a tax of 10 cents per pound will put it above 
the price of butter? 

Mr. Oliver. Above the best grades of butter on the average. 

Mr. Neville. So that butter that would go below that would 
simply undersell it and drive it out of the market? 

Mr. Oliver. Yes, sirj butter will simply drive it out of the market. 



670 OLEOMAKGARINE. 

You will draw from oleomargarine $100,000,000 in this case, and I think 
that .you will 11 nd tliat the value of butter, genuine butter of the low 
grades made by the farmer, will be enhanced very much. 

The Chairman. Do you manufacture more than one grade of oil? 

Mr. Oliver. Yes, sir; you can manufacture a dozen grades. 

The Chairman. What grade do you sell to the manufacturers of 
oleo? 

Mr. Oliver. They buy the highest grade made in the South. 

Mr. Neville. That is called butter oil, and takes its special name 
from its use. 

The Chairman. What, if anything, have the chemists said about 
the healthfulness of butter oil? 

Mr. Oliver. All chemists, without exception, agree that cotton-seed 
oil is as healthful as olive oil, and that it is one of the healthiest kinds 
of oil that can be used in food. 

The Chairman. What relation does it bear to olive oil? 

Mr. Oliver. It is almost identical in every respect. 

Mr. Wilson. It goes to England as cotton seed oil and comes back 
here as olive oil. 

Mr. Oliver. I suppose there is some of that done. 

Mr. Wilson. Why would the prohibition of the color in oleomar- 
garine stop the sale of it? 

Mr. Oliver. Just because your palate is the same as your idea, and 
you would not buy natural white butter if you could buy natural 
yellow butter; and I claim that the coloring of oleomargarine is being 
copied by the butter makers and not the coloring of butter by the oleo- 
margarine makers. Oleomargarine has always been colored and but- 
ter has not. It is only since the finely colored oleomargarine has been 
on the market that it has been found necessary to color butter. 

Mr. Neville. Do you know where oleomargarine was first manu- 
factured ? 

Mr. Oliver. A French chemist discovered it in 1870. 

Mr. Neville. Didn't it grow out of the necessities of the people 
during the Franco-Prussian war? 

A Member. It was during the siege of Paris. 

A Member. Uo you think the GoA^ernment would have trouble in 
collecting the tax, if this bill was passed? 

Mr. Oliver. Ten times more than in South Carolina and in Ken- 
tucky collecting the internal revenue tax on whisky. 

A Member. Would they have any considerable diflQculty in collect- 
ing the internal revenue tax? 

Mr. Oliver. They have no trouble now with the large manufacturers 
of oleomargarine. 

A Member. But they would have. 

Mr. Oliver. They would have with everybody, because anybody 
could buy what is necessary to make oleomargarine and take it home 
with them. But there would not be a i)oiind of oleomargarine made 
where there is 10 pounds made now if it had to be placed on the mar- 
ket as oleomargarine and uncolored. 

Mr. Neville. Is there any competition of paraffin with cotton-seed 
oil for use in making oleomargarine? 

Mr. Oliver. None whatever. Paraffin is worth 14 cents a pound 
and cotton-seed oil 5 cents. 

Mr. Neville. Paraffin is worth almost what it is worth to manufac- 
ture oleo. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 671 

Mr. Oliver. It is worth more to-day. It was, until two or three 
years ago, a drug on the market, and it was then discovered that parattin 
was tlie best insulator that could be had for electric light wires and 
tubes, filling- the tubes with paraffin, and its present value is two or 
three times what it was several years ago. 

JNlr. Haugen. You stated a while ago that this legislation grew out 
of iiolitics, and that the politicians had been bulldozed and hoodwinked. 
I will state for your information that you are mistaken. I happened to 
be a member of the legislature of Iowa when such legislation was 
])assed, and I will state that it received the support of Populists and 
Kepublicans and Democrats by nearly a unanimous vote, and I do not 
believe they were all representatives of the moonshiners. As I under- 
stand you, if this matter is left to Armour and the other large manu- 
facturers, there is no danger of their violating the law, but if it should 
pass into the hands of the farmers they would violate the law. 

Mr. Oliver. They are violating the law to day. 

Mr. Haugen. You say they are violating the law now"? 

Mr. Oliver. I know personally from seventeen years ago, when I 
knew a man at Paterson, N. J., who was mixing oleo oil in his churn on 
his farm, and churning it into butter, and. selling it as natural butter in 
the country back of there. 

Mr. Haugen. There is at present of course a tax on it. 

Mr. Oliver. There is a tax of a dollar and ten cents a gallon on 
whisky, but, are you collecting it? 

Mr. Haugen. I think so. 

Mr. Oliver. Y"ou are not collecting one tenth part of it. 

Mr. Haugen. I want to know what the objection of the opposition is 
to this bill. As I understand it now, you say it is safer to leave this 
matter in the hands of the Armours and other large manufacturers than 
to leave it in the hands of the farmers because the farmers are all dis- 
honest. That is the principal objection ? 

Mr. Oliver. No, sir; it would throw it in the hands of the farmer. 

Mr. Haugen. That is your principal objection? 

Mi. Oliver. No, sir; it would curtail the use of cotton -seed oil, and 
finally, in the end, curtail the use of it in the countries of the Continent. 

Mr. Neville. Is not it a fact that this law aims to do away with the 
infringement with a tax, and that it may be sold uncolored without 
tax? 

Mr. Oliver. Yes, sir; provided you do not color it. But why should 
not genuine butter pay a tax when it is colored? It is not genuine 
butter when it is colored. Oleomargarine has been colored from the 
first, and butter has been colored, since the introduction of oleomar- 
garine, universally. I say, why should the butter have a monopoly 
of it? 

Mr. Haugen. That question was asked and fully answered before the 
committee the other day. 

A Member. Do I understand you to say that the oleomargarine that 
is made consists of from 25 to 40 per cent of cotton-seed oil, depend- 
ing upon the tem])erature and the weather at the time it is made and 
sold? 

Mr. Oliver. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Haugen. And 50 per cent of it is milk and cream? 

Mr. Oliver. Y'es, sir; about 50 per ceut^ 

Mr. Haugen. That leaves only 10 per cent 

Mr. Oliver. No, sir; you can make it without any cotton-seed oil. 
It is made with neutral lard oil, exclusively, but I believe the most of 



672 OLEOMAEGARIIfE. 

the manufacturers make a combination. They have to use stearin, or 
some such substance, in order to hold it properly. 

Mr. Uahlb. Do you think a large percentage of butterine is made in 
this way? 

Mr. Oliver. In what way? 

Mr. Dahlb. Do you think about all the butterine is made in the way 
you say? 

Mr. Oliver. In what way? 

Mr. Dahle. Do you believe that 40 per cent of oil and 50 per cent of 
milk and cream 

Mr. Oliver. Its basis is about 50 per cent of oil of some kind, not 
all cotton-seed oil, and not all oleo oil, and not all neutral oil, or peanut 
oil, if they are making it, wliich is used largely in the business, and 
about 50 per cent is from butter and milk. 

Mr. Dahle. Do you know this to be a fact? 

Mr. Oliver. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Dahle. And there are more farmers, the small farmers that are 
making butter now — they are the ones that are asking for this law, 
rather than the larger farmers patronizing the creameries? 

Mr. Oliver. It is my honest belief that a large part of the interest 
taken in this bill is for the sake of throwing it into the hands of the larger 
farmers to-day. 

Mr. Dahle. It is not the creamery men? 

Mr. Oliver. ISTo, sir; it is the small dairymen. 

Mr. Dahle. Do you know that? 

Mr. Oliver. I say that I know personally that seventeen years ago a 
man was doing that out there near Paterson, IST. J., and from what I have 
learned and heard, I should say that can be done and is being done 
to day. 

Mr. Dahle. Suppose that we members get letters asking for this leg- 
islation. Do you believe tiiat these letters, judging from your experi 
ence, come from this kind of i^eople? 

Mr. Oliver. Some do. 

Mr. Dahle. A large pc centage? 

Mr. Oliver. I believe that a large percentage of humanity are hon- 
est. 

Mr. Dahle. Do you believe a large percentage 

Mr. Oliver. I do not know whom you have letters from, for or 
against. 

Mr. Dahle. No, I do not think you do, according to your statement. 

Mr. Allen. I understand that you do not undertake to speak for the 
farmers of the United States generally, but so far as your knowledge 
extends in your h)cality. Is that it — the dairy farmers ? 

Mr. Oliver. No, sir; I do not think the diiiry farmers of North 
Carolina and South Carolina are doing an illegal oleomargarine busi- 
ness any more than anyone else. It is only here and there now that it 
is being done; but I think it would be done almost universally, or at 
least one fourth or one-half of the farmers would make oleomargarine 
and sell it for butter if this tax was placed upon it. 

Mr. Neville. How would that atiect the cotton-seed oil? 

Mr. Oliver. I do not know that it would affect it, except that it 
would be sold to men that would carry it back into the country secretly. 
The chances are that they would try to get all the oil they could use 
from their home market, 

Mr. Stokes. I think Mr. Oliver, as I understood his presentation, so 
far as related to the reasons why certain legislatures have passed such. 



OLEOMAKGARINE. 673 

legislation, said tliat that was his oi)iiiion, that that was the tendency, 
and he stated that it applied to all parties; and then on the otlier 
question, as to why that should not be passed, was it not your state- 
ment, Mr. Oliver, that you undertook to say that that would be the 
tendency of this legislation, and not that it was already going on, except 
to a very limited degree? 

Mr. Haugen. But he stated this was his opinion, and as the repre- 
sentative of the cotton-seed industries of North and South Carolina. 
There will be other parties, as 1 understand, from other States that 
will ask for hearings before this committee. 

Mr. Bailey. I would like to ask what States he thinks this counter- 
feiting of butter is carried on in? 

Mr. Oliver. Every one. 

Mr. Bailey. In every State of the Union? 

Mr. Oliver. Yes, sir; wherever there is a smart Aleck of a farmer 
that can make butterine. Any man can make it. 



Saturday, March 31, 1900. 
The subcommittee of the Bureau of Animal Industry of the Com- 
mittee on Agriculture met at 10.30 o'clock a. m., Hon. William Lorimer 
in the chair. 

STATEMENT OF W. S. HANNAH, PRESIDENT OF THE KANSAS CITY 
LIVE STOCK EXCHANGE. 

The Chairman. Mr. Hannah, will yon state in your own way your 
views on this bill that is under consideration, commonly known as the 
oleomargarine bill? 

Mr. Hannah. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I am 
here in an official capacity representing the Kansas City Live Stock 
Exchange. Believing that the legislation proposed by the bill under 
consideration by your committee means a loss and damage to the live- 
stock interests of the whole country and that we Western ]>eople are 
particularly affected, and while we disclaim any technical knowledge 
of the oleomargarine industry, we feel that our knowledge of it makes 
it appear to us that it means a loss and damage to the live stock trade, 
and that, as a consequence, we feel like protesting against the passage 
of this bill. 

Now, the growth of the packing industry from the earliest days, from 
its inception to the present day, while I am not able to trace it in all 
its details, yet it is a well-known fact, and can be substantiated by my 
colleagues on our committee and doubtless by members of your com- 
mittee, that there was a time in the history of the packing industry 
when a good deal of the product went to waste, when the hoofs and 
horns, and blood, and other j)arts of the animals slaughtered went to 
absolute waste, and as the packing business grew and developed, and 
they learned how to utilize the product, the time came when the dis- 
covery of the butterine or oleomargarine gave another use for beef fat, 
certain beef fat, and as a consequence there was a utilization of that 
product and, as well, another use of the leaf lard of the hog, and in 
that way the matter has grown and developed, and has presented a 
good food for the liuman family, and we have found a natural demand 
for it, and we believe it to be a pure, wholesome food. We believe 
there is need for it, that the public demands it, and wants it, because 

S. Rep. 2043 43 



gY4 OLEOMARGARINE. 

it is a food product within the reach of all, and pnrticnlarly of advantage 
to that class of our people who must economize in their exi)enses, and 
must of necessity take ])ains about their expenditures, and in spite of 
the growth and development of the oleoinargai ine industry the butter 
interests have also grown, and we feel that there is room enough for 
both products in the markets of the world, that tiiere is room enougli 
for both products in this country, and we consequently believe that any 
legislation that atteniftts to put dowu one industry at the expense ot 
the other is not just legislation. 

I am not here to present any ])articular argument in my capacity tor 
the industry, as my committee has arranged for the i)resentation of a 
specially prepared paper by iNIr. McCoy, and it is through him that we 
desire to present our main argument, but A;r. Walden, a member of our 
committee, would like to be heard in a few words, and 1 shall be glad 
to give way to him and subsequently to Mr. McCoy. 

STATEMENT OF G. M. WALDEN, DIRECTOR OF THE KANSAS CITY 
LIVE STOCK EXCHANGE. 

The Chairman. Just state to the committee in your own way, Mr. 
Walden, your views on this bill. 

Mr. Walden. Mr. Ciuiirman and Gentlemen : The president of our 
exchange has outlined, in a general way, something of the nature and 
purpose of our visit. He has told you that Mr. McCoy will follow with 
the argument. 

As live stock men we are busy. You understand the magnitude ot 
that trade in the United States, and you understand, gentlemen, that 
we are here in the interest of that body alone. I care nothing what- 
ever about all the side issues that may be brought into the question; I 
look upon it solely in its relation to us as cattle and hog men. 

Much has been said and written of this industry of the manufacture 
of oleomargarine. Much that has been said and written, no doubt, has 
been born of prejudice in one direction or another — local interests, etc. 
Much has been said about its hurtfulness, its harm fulness as a food. I 
weigh 230 pounds and have not been sick a day in years. I eat it three 
times a day and it has never hud any bad effect on me. 

Much has been said about the cleanliness of food products generally. 
You gentlemen are all busy men. I take it that you are very much 
interested in this problem before you. Would it not be wise for you, 
as business men, to understand the subject from personal observation. 
What I mean by personal observation is to go to the centers of this 
great industry and investigate its methods, its maoufacture, etc. 

My purpose simply is to invite this committee as a whole, or any sub- 
committees that you may appoint, to go to these great centers of this 
manufacturing interest— Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, and other 
points in your country — and go through the institutions and learn 
about the manufacture of this product. It is simple. There is noth- 
ing that you can not understand about it from the time the bullock is 
taken out of the yard, sold, taken to the scales, inspected there by 
your Government inspectors, passed, if you please, and sent to the 
slaughterhouses. There is nothing that you can not see from the time 
he is knocked down until this great feature of the butterine or oleo- 
margarine is taken from hin>, and sent right through the different pro- 
cesses until it comes out butterine. And if you will come into that 
locality we gentlemen from Kansas City will furnish you an escort from 
our exchange, take you through the packing houses, and assist you in 



OLEOMARGARINE. ^75 

every way in our power. We will not wine and dine you; we will not 
go out and j^et drunk with you, or anything of the kind. I take it for 
granted that none of you gentlemen do such things: we do not in the 
West. We simply want you to come as business men and understand 
what the manufacture of this great food product means to the millions 
who are compelled to buy it, and who can not buy the higher priced 
butter. 
I thank you, gentlemen. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN C. McCOY. 

Mr. McOoY. Gentlemen, I am a member of the Kansas City Live 
Stock Exchange, a commission merchant, a farmer, a stock raiser, and 
a feeder. 

I am one of those persons who believe the Lord made everything for 
some purpose, and all men for si)ecial lines. While I have been trying 
for a good many years to find out just exactly what I was made for, I 
learned a good many years ago that it was not to make a speech. And 
if this committee will pardon me in what I have to say, I would like 
the privilege of reading. 

There is a bill |)eiiding before the House of Representatives, viz, 
House bill No. 3717, known as the Grout bill, which has been referred 
to your honorable body, and it is for the purpose of discussing that 
measure we have asked for a hearing. This bill is aimed at the life of a 
great commercial industry, that of oleomaigarine. We believe it will, 
if enacted into a law, seriously cripple one with which by comparison 
both oleomargarine and that of its opponent, butter, pale into insig- 
nificance. 1 refer to the Hve-stock industry. My associates and myself, 
representing as we do the second largest live-stock market in the world, 
a market at which was received, during the year 1899, 5,963,573 head of 
live stock that had a valuation of $120,940,439; a market which loans 
annually from $20,000,000 to $30,000,000 to the formers, feeders, stock 
growers, and ranchmen to assist them in carrying on their industries: 
a market that had for its patrons during 1899 the stock raisers of 
thirty-two States and Territories, feel thatour interests in these measures 
are of sufficient importance to be our apology for thus trespassing upon 
the time of the committee. 

In discussing tiiis bill it is not my purpose to go into the relative 
merits of oleoniargarine and butter as an article of food, as I am will- 
ing to leave that to such eminent students of economic questions as 
Professor Schweitzer, jnofevssor of chemistry, Missouri State University; 
Prof. G. C. Caldwell, of Cornell University; Prof. W. (). Atwater, Direc- 
or of the United States Agricultural Experiment Stations; Prof H. W. 
Wiley, chief chemist of the United States Department of Agriculture, 
and scores of others who have expressed themselves on the subject. 
Nor will I discuss the purity or healtlifnlness of the two commodities, 
as the subcommittee appointed by the United States Senate Com- 
mittee on Manufactures, of which the Hon. W. E. Mason was chairman, 
found "that the product known as oleomargarine is healthful and nutri 
tious and no further legislation is necessary." But, even if that were 
not the case, the most scientific chemists of the National Laboratory 
are available to this committee for that purpose. Nor will I touch 
upon the question of coloring matter, wlietlier each commodity has a 
dift'erent material or both the same, whether it be harmless or nnhealth- 
fal, for that question (;oul(l be settled within twenty-tour hours to the 
entire satisfaction of this committee by the Government chemist just 



676 



OLEOMARGARINE. 



referred to. While to my mind the enactment into laws of such meas 
ures as tliose under discussion — hiws which put a prohibitive tax ui)on 
one commercial industry for the benefit and upbuilding of another, that 
permits the introduction of one healthful and harmless ingredient into 
an article of food in order to make it more palatable and prohibits the 
introduction of the same ingredient into an equally healthful and harm- 
less article of food — smacks of class legislation of the most objection- 
able character, I admit my deficiency in legal knowledge and training 
and leave that to the eminent legal minds both on this committee and 
in the country at large. I do not believe there is any doubt in the 
minds of this committee that the proposed mensure is intended to place 
a prohibitive tax upon the manufacture of oleomargarine, thus legisla- 
ting the industry out of existence. Let us see what effect it woidd 
have upon the cattle industries of the country. 

It is a well known fact that the i)rincii)al ingredients of oleomargarine 
are the caul fat of the beef steer, the leaf lard of the hog, pure cream, 
milk and butter, cotton seed oil, salt, and coloring mutter. In each 
beef steer there is an average of 50 pounds of caul fat from which the 
oleo oil is extracted, and in each hog there is an average of 8 ])ounds 
of leaf lard which forms the neutral oil. The market price to day for 
caul fat for oleomargarine purposes is 10 cents per pound, while tallow 
is worth 6 cents; leaf fat is worth, for oleomargarine purposes, 8^ cents 
per pound, and for lard cents. There were slaughtered at Kansas 
City from January 1, 1891), to January 1, 1900, 991,78,3 head of cattle, 
producing 49,589,150 pounds of oleo oil, worth to day 10 cents per 
pound, a total value of $4,958,915. Were it not for the demand the 
manufacture of oleomargarine has created for oleo oil this product 
■would have been sold for tallow, which is worth cents per pound, 
netting for the above production $2,975,349, a difference of $l,983,5G(j, 
or $2 less to the cattle raiser for each steer slaughtered. There were 
slaughtered at Kansas City during the period mentioned above 
2,700,109 hogs, producing Ul,(i(tO,87li pounds of neutral lard worth 
to-day 8J cents per pound,-^ total value of $1,836,074. 

The demand for neutral lard as an oleomargarine ingredient removed, 
this product would have been sold for lard at 6 cents per pound, a 
total value of $1,296,052, a difference of $510,022, or 20 cents less to the 
farmer for each hog slaughtered. Thus it can be readily seen from the 
above figures that had the oleomargarine factories been closed January 
1, 1899, it would have cost the cattle and hog raisers marketing their 
stock at Kansas City for the year 1899 the sum of $2,523,588. And this 
amount does not by any means represent what the total loss would have 
been, for if all the oleo oil and leaf fat used in this country for oleo- 
margarine purposes were to be used as common tallow and lard, and 
for soap making purposes, it would make an over supply of those com- 
modities, thereby reducing the market price from 1 to 2 cents per pound, 
but that is a matter iii)on which no reliable data can be given. Have 
we not a right, therefore, to step in and file our protest against so unjust 
a measure? But some one may say, that presents a condition entirely 
local. Then let us step up to higher ground and take a broader view. 

The Government report shows that on January 1, 1900, there were in 
the United States 43,902,414 head of cattle, of which 16,292,360 head 
were milch cows; and of cattle other than milch cows, 27,610,054. By 
the enactment of laws prohibiting the use of oleomargarine each head 
of those cattle other than milch cows would have a depreciation in 
value, as shown above, of $2 per head, or a total of $55,220,108. Again, j 
the Government report showed that on January 1, 1899 — no estimated' 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 



677 



being made by the Government for the year 1809, it having det^ded to 
auait the census enumei'ation in June, but it is safe to assume that the 
numbers were approximately the same January 1, 1899, and Jannaiy 1, 
1900— there were in the United States 38,(j51,63l hoojs. If the leaf 
lard of the hoj^s of the United States had to be used for lard by the 
death of oleomargarine, it would mean a depreciation in value of 20 
cents per head, a total of $7,730,326. Thus it will be seeu if these 
measures become laws, at that instant $02,950,434 will be taken directly 
tVom the farmers and stock raisers of the country. To that could be 
added the vast sums invested in manufiicturing plants and the loss in 
wages to an army of laborers; but that is a field outside of my domain. 
And now, gentlemen, I wish to call your attention to another phase 
of this question, and to illustrate it you will find below the number of 
cattle in the United States as given by the Government report, those 
States divided into three classes, viz, dairy States, cattle-growing 
States, and States that are agricultural, but having fewer milch cows 
than other cattle, which I will term Southern States: 



CATTLE-GROWING STATES. 

Arkansas 419,422 

Texas 5,046,335 

Ken tucky 539, 449 

Iowa 3,442,012 

Missouri 2,047,346 

Kansas 2, 867, 224 

Nebraska 2,206,792 

South Dakota 879,200 

North Dakota 431,371 

Montana 959.808 

Wyomini; 747^826 

Colorado 1,115,421 

New Mexico 679,359 

Arizona 381,861 

Utah 336,076 

Nevada 238,081 

Idah<. 397,928 

Washington 390,444 

Oregon 637, 433 

California 913. 7o3 

Oklahoma 323, 971 



Total 25,001,112 



DAIRY STATES. 



Maine 

New Hampshire. 

Vermont 

Massachusetts. .. 
Rhode Island 



316, 537 
214, 678 
401, 336 
254, 967 
35, 405 



Connecticut 210,717 

New York 2,059,715 

New Jersey 263, 157 

Pennsylvania 1, 494, 126 

Delaware 58,035 

Maryland 257, 435 

Ohio 1, 455, 558 

Michigan 801,818 

Indiana 1, 234, 930 

Illinois 2,324,254 

Wisconsin 1,598,529 

Minnesota 1, 237, 003 



Total 14,218,200 



SOUTHERN STATES (MORE CATTLE-GROW- 
ING THAN DAIRY). 



Virginia 

North Caridina. 
South Carolina. 

Georgia 

Florida . ., 

Alabama 

Mississippi 

Louisiana 

Tennessee 

West Virginia. . 



567, 488 
518, 141 
260. 223 
666, 147 
412, 820 
511,080 
517, 809 
294, 961 
526, 235 
408, 198 



Total 4,683,102 



Grand total 43, 902, 414 



By the above it is shown that seventeen States, all of them in the 
extreme East, except six which arein the middle West, have 14,218,200, 
while thirty-one States in the West and South have 29,084,214; the six 
great cattle-growing States of the West, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, 
Nebraska, Texas, and Colorado, alone having 16,724,930, or 2,500,730 
head more than the whole seventeen dairy States combined. Where 
then, gentlemen, will the burden of such legislation fall? Nor is that 
all. Is it to be supposed that the stock raisers, farmers, and feeders of 
the State of Illinois, with their 1,303,018 cattle, other than milch cows, 
will willingly consent to have their property depreciated $2,000,030 for 
the benefit of their creamery neighbors? Is it right to tax the stock 



g78 OLEOMARGARINE. 

growers of the great Stato of Iowa — the second largest cattle growing 
State in the Union— witli their 3.442,000 head of cattle, $4,357,458 to 
build up the creamery industry of their State? Or the Kansas stock- 
men contribute $4,310,098 to the creamery industry wlicn the total out- 
put of butter for the entire state was only $5,890,272? Sliiill the owners 
of the 1,387,615 head of beef and stock cattle in the State of Missouri 
consent to a depreciation of $2,775,230 in their property when the State 
contains only 059,731 milch cows and not one third of those used for 
commercial purposes, their uses being entirely domestic? The same is 
true of many of the other States. New York has one-third as many 
other cattle as milch cows, and Pennsylvania one-half as many. 

By this bill you are asked to do three things: Take from the fruits 
of labor by depreciating the property of a large class of the American 
peoi)le over $(12,000,000 that another and a far less numeious class 
might profit thereby ; to (•rii)ple tlie industries and retard the growth 
of thirty one States and Territories of this great Union that a favored 
few in the remaining seventeen States might be correspondingly bene- 
fited, thus helping to establish a commercial sectionalism, to close and 
destroy one vast l)ranch of our commercial industries in which are 
employed over $5,000,000 and thousands of laborers, that a lesser indus- 
try, which is unable to conipeteon fair and eijual grouiuls, might assume 
to itself the monopoly in its line of trade. The enaitment of such laws 
is a long step toward paternalism, antagonistic to the freedom of our 
American institutions and contrary to the principles of our iei)ublican 
form of government. An able writer in a paper on the subject of "Food 
and legislation" before The National Pure Food and Drug Congress, 
held in Wasliington March 7 to 10 of this year, said: 

The aim of all food legislation should be for the general weal and the puMic 
health. The tendency of State legislatures is to control by local interests, and the 
result of this domination is a breed of selfish local statutes which tend to blocii 
national distribution. The primary object of such provincialism is gain and not the 
public welfare. Interstate free trade and free distribution has been the boast of 
our federal system of sovereign States. In spite of this boast State legislatures, 
influenced by local interests for the mere jiurpose of additional profit, are erecting 
State-line barriers and manacling the internal commerce of our free system. No 
wise economist can ask a State legislature to destroy competition, and Congress 
should not do so. If a thing is an injury, kill it entirely. If bulterine is pure in its 
constituent parts and is healthful food, it has a free and perfect right to an unham- 
pered market. 

It is therefore to Congress that the live stock-growers of the country 
look for protection of tlieir rights and their interests, and they ask and 
expect absolute fairness and impartiality. The cattle and hog growers 
of the West could with as much consistency ask Congress to put a 
prohibitive tax on mackerel from the coasts of Maine, the oysters along 
the Maryland shores, or the fish from the northern lakes, thereby 
increasing the consumi>tion of beef and pork, as well as the creamery 
interests to ask the ]>assage of this bill. 

But, gentlemen, do tlie creamery and dairy interests need your fos- 
tering care in the shnpe of special legislation, or is it for the purpose 
of getting a monoi)oly on one of the chief necessities of life? Legislate 
out of existence their only competitor, oleomargarine, and might not 
thesupi)lyof butter in tli is country be regulated by the Elgin Dairy 
Exchange as the price of butter is now fixed for the United States by 
that institution every Monday morning'? 

Pepresentative Allen. You say that the price of butter "is fixed 
by tliat institution every Monday morni?ig"? 

.Mr. McCoy. Tliat is common re])!»rt. I suppose it is within the 
power of this committee to find out absolutely whether that statement 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 579 

isconect or not. It is the general report all tbrougli our coniitiy. and 
is j»en (.-rally understood ou the commercial exchange, and by people 
generally, that the Elgin Dairy Exchange meets Monday moining and 
fixes the price at which butter shall be sold throughout the couutry. 

Representative Allen. For that ensuing week t 

Mr. McCoy. Yes, sir. That is not from my personal knowledge. 

Representative Allen. It is currently understood? 

Mr. McCoy. It is currently understood — common report. I asked 
as to whether the creamery interests as dairy interests needed special 
legislation to foster their industry. 

On January 1, 1890, the number of milch cows in the United States, 
by Government report, was 15,952,883, and on January 1, 1900, the num- 
ber by the same authority was 16,292,300. The butter exported from 
the United States during 1894, as given by the Department of Agri- 
culture, was 11,812,092 pounds, valued at $2,077,608, and in 1898—1 
reg' et I have not later statistics — was 25,690,025 pounds, valued at 
$3,81)4,765. Does that, gentlemen, seem to bt^ a waning industry "} Now 
let us look at the other side. On .January 1, 1890, by the same authority 
quoted above, there were in the United States cattle other than milch 
cows 36,849,024, and on January 1, 1900, only 27,610,054. In other 
words, while the cattle growers were struggling through hard times and 
prices were at such a low ebb as to discourage the growing of herds to 
such an extent as to show a decrease of 9,238,970, the dairy interests 
were enabled not only to remain in business, but to increase their herds 
339,447. The Orange Judd Farmer, published in the State of New York, 
an agricultural journal of exceptionally high standing, and one that has 
enjoyed the confidence of the agricultural community for a decade, in 
a ret*ent issue says: 

Cows are worth 50 per cent more now than during the ten years preceding 1897, 
and are fully as high as during the boom of 1884-85. Last summer cheese got hack 
to old-time prices. Butter has of late sold much above the low quotations of four 
or live years ago. Even milk sold in market is stiffening in jirices and may go nji to 
the values of the early 80's, and will go there with organized persistency by pro- 
ducers and reasonable coojieration from the trade. 

If I understand the bill under discussion it provides for a tax of one- 
quarter cent per ponnd foruncolored oleomargarine and ten cents per 
pound for colored, thereby inferring that uncolored oleomargarine is a 
harmless article of food and on the same plane with uncolored butter, 
but should pay into the internal-revenue department ol' the Government 
a tax of one-quarter cent per pound in order that the public officials 
might see, for the benefit of the general health, that it was kept in the 
best of sanitary condition, but thatcolored oleomargarine is an unliealth- 
ful and dangerous substance that should be suppressed by nuntns of a 
proiiibitive tax. The only question, therefore, in this bill is. Do tlie oleo 
manufacturers use as harmless an ingredient for coloring purjyoses as do 
the creameries; and if so, shall Congress say to one industry yon shall 
not and permit it to be used by the other? As this and similar bills have 
been introduced by the creamery interests, as is clearly shown by iheir 
advocacy of the same, we can say to them that it would be of iar greater 
benefit to the public health were they to follow the teachings of the Great 
Master when he said: "Cast out first the beam out ot thine own 
eye, and then Shalt thou see clearly to pull ont the mote that is in thy 
brother's eye." It is a well established fact that diseases may be trans- 
mitted of a most malignant tyi)e from animals to the human system 
tlirough the medium of food and drink, and the American peo])le have 
cause to congratulate themsel vcs upon the great work that is being done 



980 OLEOMATIGAKINE. 

and has hoen done during the past ten years by tlie Department of 
Agriculture, through its most excellently conducted Bureau of Animal 
Industry, to reduce that danger to a minimum. While the Bureau of 
Animal Industry, assisted by State sanitary boards, are endeavoring to 
stamp out and protect the public health from several diseases of minor 
importance, there is only one disease among the cattle of the United 
States to-day that is of sufficient importance to menace the public 
health, and that is the great archenemy of the human race, tuberculosis. 
And, again, we desire to commend the Bureau of Animal Industry for 
the scientific knowledge and successful experiments that enabled it to 
bring forth tuberculin, with which they are so nobly fighting that fell 
destroyer. The Department of Agricul' ure, appreciating the necessity 
for vigorous measures for its suppression, said in its " Year Book," 
published January 1, 1899 : 

The health of animals and of men is very largely dependent upon the use of sani- 
tary precautions and the eulbrcemeut of sanitary regulations. As tuberculosis in 
animals is reduced, so will the disease in man be proportionately decreased. There 
is every evidence to prove conclusively that man may be infected with tuberculosis 
by drinking the milk from tuberculous animals. 

I call upon this committee to ascertain from the Department of 
Agriculture if it is not a fact that tuberculosis exists to a very large 
extent among the dairy herds of this country, and is of very rare 
occurrence among the beef herds, and practically unknown among the 
vast herds of the great West, The State board of live stock com- 
missioners for the State of Illinois in its thirteenth annual report, 
issued October 31, 1891), said: 

The experience gained through tuberculin tests made in dairy herds by the board 
since the efficiency and accuracy of tuberculin as a diagnostic agent has become 
e8tal)lished points very clearly to the fact that throughout the dairy districts of the 
State tuberculosis prevails among the dairy cattle to a considerable extent. While 
in many herds only a few cases have been disclosed, in a large number of herds a 
considerable percentage has been found aftected. 

And in another place this board in the same report says: 

The persistency of tuberculosis in remaining in a herd when once introduced, the 
certain ultimate destruction through the disease of each affected animal, and its 
certainty to spread to other animals through contagion, * * * and the danger 
that exists of the disease being communicated to human beings through the milk or 
the meat of atit'ected animals, makes the qnestion of eliectuaily dealing with tiiis 
disease, an effort to eradicate it from among the breeding and dairy herds of the 
State, one of the first importance to every taxpayer and citizen. 

This same board reports that in two years — 1897 and 1898 — out of 
929 dairy cattle tested, over 12 per cent were found, upon post-mortem 
examination, to be diseased. 

About six years ago the Department of Agriculture, through the 
Bureau of Animal Industry, instituted the system of governmental 
inspection of live stock, and at all the princii)al live stock and packing 
centers have maintained an efficient and intelligent corps of inspectors. 
They have gradually improved the service, as experience demonstrated 
the requirements, until to day it is one of the most valuable branches 
of the Dei)artment. Graduates of veterinary colleges are placed at the 
head of the various stations, and the inspectors, with a few exceptions, 
are under the civil service, and must pass examination for proficiency. 
Each animal, before being permitted to enter the premises of a slaugh- 
tering establishment, must pass an antemortem examination, and if 
found to have tuberculosis, actinomycosis (or lumpy jaw), hog cholera, 
far advanced in pregnancy, or if it is diseased in any manner so as to 
render it unfit for food, it is condemned. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 681 

At each killing establisbment inspectors are stationed who make 
post mortem exaniiDatioii of each head of cattle killed, placing a Gov- 
ernment certificate of inspection ou each carcass, and in case of hog 
products for export microscopical examinations are made. 

There are no diseases of a malignant type among the beef herds ot 
the United States, and all claims of impurity by foreign countries are 
like the features of this bill, mere subterfuges made for the purpose of 
advancing selfish interests, and even if tbere were the thorough inspec- 
tion given by the Bureau of Animal Industry, assisted by State sanitary 
boards, and such associations as I have the honor to represent, the 
health of the public would be amply protected. The past three years 
the cattle industry of the country has taken rapid strides on the road 
to recovery from the extreme depression which reached its lowest i)oint 
in 1890. A reversal at this time would be of serious consequence to the 
country at large, especially all that territory west of the Mississippi 
River. The only two dark clouds that appear on the horizon to threaten 
the industry are bills before our own Congress, which, if passed, would 
surely cause an enormdus decrease in values, and the bill now pending 
before the Keichstag of Germany to prohibit the importation of American 
meat products into that empire. 

They are equally unjust and unwarranted. If the seal of official con- 
demnation is thus placed by Congress upon two of the important 
products from our cattle and hogs, with what grace or under what pre- 
text can the people of this country demand retaliation on the part of 
our Government, should the German bill become a law? 

The Chairman. Does any member of the committee want to question 
Mr. McCoy? 

Representative Bailey. Mr. McCoy, I notice that you make the claim 
ol a certain loss to animal industry on account of the passage of this 
bill, which, if true, would of course be a very potent reason why it should 
not become a law. The National Dairy Association has published a 
pamphlet in which they take issue with that proposition, and have 
comi)iled some figures to prove that the number of cattle slaughtered 
in this country and the number of hogs slaughtered in this country, as 
compared with the amount of oleomargarine which is made, would only 
reduce the price about 20 cents a head. Can you tell us how this would 
be — why there is such a difference in figures between the Dairy Associ- 
ation and the Cattle Association? 

Mr. MoCoY. In this day of close competition and great manufactur- 
ing interests, every commodity, as I understand it, is bought with a 
view to what can be brought out of the raw material. If, in these late 
days, when the killing establishments can use every part of an animal, 
and, through improved machinery and processes of manufacture, can 
use parts that were unavailable before, you reduce the articles that can 
be manufactured from the raw material in the shape of the beef steer, 
you naturally depreciate him in value. I have seen a statement some- 
where, probably the one to which you refer, in which they claim that 
there would be a depreciation of only 20 cents per head, and claim that 
of the output of oleo product, leaf fat, amounting to in the neighbor- 
hood of 80,000,000 to 83,000,000 of pounds for the year, only a very 
small percentage went into oleomargarine. It seems to me that the 
foreign demand for this i)roduct, the immense amount of this ])roduct 
that is sold outside ot the United States, has not been taken into 
account in that estimate. Even if that were the case, I have offered an 
explanation on that point right at the very last of this paper — that if 
we ourselves claim that our product is unhealthy, with what grace can 
we ask another country to (jome in and accept it and use it? 



(^ii,2 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Representative Bailey. In other words, then, T nnclerstaud that 
your argument is that this amount of oleo oil is a(;tually uiaiiulactured 
from the animals that are slaughtered, part of it being used in this 
country and part of it being sent abroad, and that this legislation will 
put the seal of condemnation upon its use by our country, the country 
that produces the great bulk of it for the world, and will only be the 
beginning of the destruction of the oleomargarine business of the world ? 
You say that the agrarian people of other countries, if we put our seal 
of condemnation on it, saying that it is impure, will decline to accept 
it, and the result will be the absolute abolisliment of the use of oleo 
oil in the production of butterine as it enters into human food? That 
would be the natural consequence, would it? 

Mr. McCoy. It would be the natural consequence, I should think. I 
do not know what amount of oleo oil is produced in Germany, for 
instance; but if the agrarian party in Germany are able to raise suth- 
cieut cattle to supply their own country with oleo oil, they certainly 
would not use ours if we claim that it is unhealthy and no good. 

Representative Stokes. Mr. McCoy, 1 understood you, in the early 
part of your argument, to present some figures based upon the opera- 
tions of the slaughterhouses in Kansas City. Did I understand you, 
a little further on, to extend those operations or those figures to other 
exchanges'? 

Mr. McCoy. No, sir. 

Representative Stokes. I think your estimate was about $2 a head 
of cattle? 

Mr. McCoy. Yes, sir. 

Representative Stokes. Are we to understand that those same 
estimates would probably apply to the other sections or slaughtering- 
houses? 

Mr. McCoy. Unquestionably; yes, sir. 

Representative Stokes. That is a fair estimate, you think, that 
would apply to any of the slaughter houses? 

Mr. McCoy. I think so. I think the same conditions would exist. 

Representative Stokes. They buy practically at the same figures 
that you do ? 

Mr. McCoy. Yes, sir. 

Representative Stokes. And the same prices prevail? 

Mr. McCoy. Freights considered; yes, sir. 

Representative Allen. You spoke in your paper of condemning 
cattle by virtue of inspection if found diseased. What becomes ot 
those cattle? 

Mr. McCoy. Tiie different markets have different methods of dealing 
with them. In the Chicago market that matter is under the direction 
of the Bureau of Animal Industry, through its chief veterinarian, an 
insjiectorfor the State of Illinois, an inspector for Chicago, Cook County, 
and the secretary of tlie Chicago Live Stock Exchange. The principle 
under which they operate there is this: A man is fined $50 if he under- 
takes to sell a diseased animal knowingly. If an animal is found with 
actinomycosis, or "lumpy jaw," it is the duty of the salesman to imme- 
diately cut that animal out from the herd, and place a tag in his ear. 
Then the committee, which consists of the persons I have named, repre- 
senting the Government, the State, the city, and the exchange, meet 
and decide from observation whether tliat animal is sufficiently diseased 
to render it unfit for food. If it is, it is taken to a rendering establish- 
ment, and put into soap, so far as I know. 

If it is a doubtful case, and they are unable to tell without a j)OSt- 



OLEOMARGARINE. 683 

mortem examination wliether it is so diseased or not, the committee 
lakes tlic animal to a slaughtering establishment, and it is killed. A 
])Ost-mortem examination is then made, and if the animal is diseased 
surticieutly to be considered unhealthy, kerosene is poured over the 
carcass. If it is the judgment of the committee that the aninml is not 
diseased sufficiently to render it unfit for food, it is sold in the open 
market. 

In our city the Government inspectors are all over the yards. They 
stand in the gates as the cattle go to the scales. There are two inspect- 
ors at each scale as the cattle run in the gate. They examine those 
cattle, making what we term an ante-mortem examination; and if, 
from the appearance of any one of the cattle, they deem it diseased, it 
is ( ut out. Then, after those cattle go to the slaughtering establish- 
ment, they are reinspected under anteniortem examinatirm; and when 
they are slaughtered they are inspected post-mortem, as I have stated. 

Now, in that post-mortem examination the Dei)artment of Agricul- 
ture, through its chief veterinarians, oi)eiating under the Bureau of 
Animal Industry, has sole power to decide as to whether tliat animal 
is or is not so diseased as to render it unfit for human food. If it is it 
goes into the rendering tank and is made into soap. If it is healthy it 
is put on the market and sold. 

l^epresentative Allen. You say that kerosene is poured over it? 

Mr. McCoy. That is the Chicago system; yes, sir. 

Kepresentative Allen. If it is found to be diseased? 

Mr. McCoy. Yes, sir. 

Ii'epresentative Allen. Then what is done? 

Mr. McCoy. It goes into the rendering tanks for soap. 

Ifepresentative Bailey. Mr. McCoy, the object of putting the kero- 
sene on it is to absohitely untit it for human food, so that it can not be 
used. It is to prevent any fraud. 

Mr. McCoy. Yes, sir. 

Eepresentative Allen. You do not undertake to say that that would 
l^revent the fat of the animal from being used for oleomargarine, do 
you? 

Mr. McCoy. If you i)ut coal oil all over it? 

Representative Allen. Yes; can you not extract that by some 
process. 

Mr. McCoy. I do not know, sir. I am not suificiently posted to 
answer as to that, but 1 should not think you could. Even if that were 
not the case, the United States Government has its official right there, 
and it is his duty to see that that animal is not used for food ; and the 
burden falls u])on the Government. 

The Chairman. The coal-oil process is a local law, a local ordinance. 

Mr. McCoy. Yes; in Chicago. 

The Chairman. And it was enacted because a large crowd of fellows 
got together and sold the carcases, and shi])ped them down to the Ful- 
ton street niaiket, and sold them there. Tiie idea of jiouring the oil 
over it was to jjrevent it from goiiig down to Fulton street. 

Eepreseutative Bailey. Mr. McCoy, n)ay I ask you a (juestion? Do 
you consider it impossible to get diseased meat, or the i)roduct of any 
part of the animal, upon the market for sale as food under our present 
inspection? 

Mr. McCoy. No, sir; 1 do not; nor do I believe that laws generally 
absolutely eradicate crime. 1 believe that some men will steal in spite 
of the laws on the subject. 



gg4 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Representative Bailey, lu a geueial way, then — in the general 
application of it? 

Mr. McCoy. In a general way, I think it has been a very broad step; 
and our live stock markets have assisted the Government, and worked 
hand and glove with it for the past seven or eight years to perfect the 
system; and wliile there maybe some criticism upon it, I am here to 
say that it has done good work. 

Representative Bailey. 1 will say that my exi)erience (and it has 
been considerable general experience) is that 1 have never been able to 
shove one through that had lumpy jaw, or anything that looked bad 
on it. 

Ke])resentative Allen. You do not mean to say that you have had 
the disposition 

Representative Bailey. Well, I have turned them over to these 
Kansas City fellows to sell them if they could, but they cut them out, 
and 1 lost them. It has been claimed that these cattle go on the mar- 
ket. They do not. I do not believe it can be done. They are sold for 
what they will bring. Five dollars a head is what they get out of them. 

Representative SStokes. Mr. McCoy, you referred to the communica- 
tion of tuberculosis through milch cattle. That disease is communi- 
cated through germs, is it not? 

Mr. McCoy. I supi»ose so, sir. I am not an expert on that question, 
but that is my understanding. 

Representative Stokes. It has been impossible, as I understand, to 
eliminate those germs from the milk, or to so sterilize the milk as to 
render it absolutely safe, if the cow from which the milk is taken 
is infected with tuberculosis! 

Mr. McCoy. Yes, sir. 

Representative Stokes. On the other hand, are you sufficiently 
fainiliar with the process of making oleomargarine to know whether, 
during that process, there is any step taken to eliminate a similar germ 
from the fat of the cattle? 

Mr. McCoy. Of course, not having any chemical knowledge or any 
knowledge of what degree of heat it would take to kill the germs or 
bacilli, 1 can not answer that question positively. I have been through 
]iacking establishments, however, in the course of my business, where 
this oleo, this caul fat and leaf lard, is putto a very high point of heat; 
and it is my impression that the heat is sufficient to kill the germs. 
Whether it does or not I could not say. 

Representative Stokes. I a])i)rehended that at some stage of the 
process these products were subjected to high temperatures, and I 
wanted to develop that fact — whether, so far as your information goes, 
it is a sufficient degree of heat to destroy those germs or not"? 

Mr. McCoy. 1 should say, sir, that if an extremely high boiling point 
would kill the germs, they would be killed; because I have seen this 
I)roduct boiling at a very high temperature. 

Ivepresentative Dahle. Have you seen the stuff boiled that the oleo- 
margarine has come from? 

Mr. McCoy. I have seen it when it came out of the tanks. 

Representative Dahle. In a boiling condition? 

Mr. McCoy. 1 do not know. I have seen it where they had it in 
their furnaces, or rather their boilers, and after it is poured into their 
tanks. I do not know that I have ever seen exactly how high it was 
boiled or how hard it was boiled. It seems to me it was boiling at a 
pretty good boiling point as it came out of those furnaces. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 685 

Representative Stokes. You do not know what the boiling point of 
tliose oils is, do you? 

Mr. McCoy. No, sir ; I do not. 

Representative Stokes. It is higher, I know, than that of water — 
higher than 212° — but I do not know just what it is. 

The Chairman. What Mr. Dahle asked was if you saw it in a 
boiling condition. When it came from the tanks it was at a high 
temperature? 

Mr. McCoy. A high temperature; yes, sir; very hot; but I do not 
know that I have ever seen it at a high boiling temperature. When I 
come to think about it, it was up where I could not see that part of it. 

Representative Stokes. It has to boil in order to extract the oil, 
does it not? 

Mr. McCoy. It had to boil in order to get it to the consistency it 
was. 

Representative Allen. What do you think will be the result of this 
bill, if passed, upon the manulacture of oleomargarine t 

Mr. McCoy. 1 believe that the first result, as a matter of course, will 
be the closing of the oleomargarine factories. 

Representative Allen. You think it will prohibit the manufacture 
of oleomargarine? 

Mr. McCoy. I think it will, sir; that is, it would not absolutely pro- 
hibit it, probably, but it would destroy it. 

Representative Allen. You mean the legitimate manufacture? 

Mr. McCoy. The legitimate manulacture. It would, in my opinion, 
destroy that. If those factories are closed I think a great many 
laborers who have made that a special study, a special line of business, 
will be thrown out of employment. 

Representative Allen. You live at Kansas City, I believe? 

Mr. McCoy. Yes, sir. 

Representative Allen. Have you ever heard any complaints on the 
part of the consumers of oleomargarine? 

Mr. McCoy. None whatever. 

Representative Allen. Of it as a food product? 

Mr. McCoy. No, sir. 

Representative Allen. Is there any complaint that comes from your 
section of the country with reference to oleomargarine? 

Mr. McCoy. I do not recall that I have ever heard of any complaint 
in regard to it. There might be individual cases where there might 
be, in the case of some man whose taste was prejudiced. 

Representative Stokes. You are referring to the consumers'! 

Representative Allen. Yes; of course. 

Mr. McCoy. There has been no organized complaint. 

Representative Allen. Now, do you know any thing about the retail 
sale of it in your city? 

Mr. jNIcCoy. No, sir; except that I know it is sold very largely. 

Representative Allen. Have you ever bought any? 

Mr. McCoy. Yes, sir. 

Representative Allen. For consumption in your own family? 

Mr. McCoy. Yes, sir. 

Representative Allen. In what kind of packages? 

Mr. McCoy. Scjuare-briek packages, about that long and that wide 
[iiiflicating about 3 or 4 inches]. 

Representative Allen. What weight? 

Mr. McCoy, I do not remeuiber — probably pound packages. 



(38H OLEOMARGARINE. 

Representative Allen. Wrapped in paper? 

Mr. McCoy. Yes, sir. 

Kepresentative Allen. Did you notice any stamp upon that paper 
characterizing it as oleomargarine? 

Mr. McCoy. Yes, sir. 

Representative Allen. What position did that stamp bear upon the 
paper? Was it where it could be seen, or was it concealed"? 

Mr. McCoy. Yes, sir; it was generally wiapped up in the shape of 
a brick aud folded at the end, with the brand upon it. Some packages 
bear one brand and some another. 

Representative Allen. Was that plain to be seen by the purchasers? 

Mr. McCoy. It was whenever I have bought it. 

Representative Allen. As far as you have bought it, and as far as 
you have observed the sale, is that the custom that prevails in your 
country, in the sale of oleomargarine, in the way of exhibiting the 
stamp ? 

Mr. McCoy. Well, I am unable to say whether it is sold out of the 
tub or not. I never bought any out of the tub. 

Representative Allen. I mean in the different places where you 
have bought it — the different stores — is that the way it is sold? 

Mr. McCoy. Yes, sir; but, as I say, whether those same stores use 
the tub, the bucket, or not, 1 do not know. I have only bought it in 
bricks. 

Representative Allen. What do you think of it yourself as a food 
article? 

Mr. McCoy. I think it is a very good article of food. 

Representative Allen. What is the retail price of it in your city? 

Mr. McCoy. It varies at different times, according to quality, from 
15 to 22 cents. 

Representative Allen. From 15 to 22 cents a pound? 

Mr. McCoy. Yes, sir. 

Representative Allen. What is the price of creamery butter there? 

Mr. McCoy. We very frequently buy it for almost tbe same price — 
a little bit more. 

Representative Allen. Have you had any occasion in your own 
family to compare the relative mei its of the two products? If so, what 
has been the result? 

Mr. McCoy. Well, no, sir; not as an experiment. 

Representative Allen. Did I understand you to say that you were 
a cattle dealer — shipper — a seller of cattle and a seller of cattle in the 
market? 

Mr. McCoy. Yes, sir; my principal business is that of a live-stock 
commission merchant. My brother and I together run a farm where 
we feed cattle, raise cattle, feed hogs, and raise hogs. 

Representative Lamb. Mr. Chairman, can I ask a question? 

The Chairman, Yes. 

Representative Lamb. You stated a while ago that the probable 
effect of the passage of this bill would be to close the oleomargarine 
factories. Now, what is the present tax upon that article? Is it not 
2 cents? 

Mr. McCoy. I think so, sir. 

Representative Lamb. Does not this bill reduce it to one-quarter of 
a cent? 

Representative Allen. That is the nncolored oleomargarine, I would 
suggest. 

Representative Lamb. That is what 1 am getting at. If the manu- 



OLEOMARGARINE. (>87 

factnrers are able to live jnosixnonsly, as tbey seem to l)e doing, under 
a tax of 2 cents per pound, will they not prosper under a tax of one- 
quarter of a cent? 

Mr. McCoy. They should, if the article were as palatable in its light 
color. As we all know, it is naturally white. 

Kepresentative Lamb. Does the fact of its being colored make it more 
palatable? 

Mr. McCoy. It would very much to me, sir; I suppose it would to 
other people. 

liepreseutative Lamb. Is it not a fact that when it is colored, it is a 
fraud upon butter, an imitation of butter? 

Mr. McCoy. I do not know that it would be, if it is sold under its 
name. Probably ten, twelve, or tifteen years ago tlie public might have 
been imposed on in that way; but I do not suppose in this day there is 
a person in the country of even ordinary intelligence who does not 
understand that it is made; and it is not sold as butter. 

Kepresentative La:mb. But is it not a fact that the same article, out 
of the same vessel, is being sold both as oleomargarine and as butter, 
now, in all of the commercial centers of this country? Is not this 
identical article sold both as oleomargarine and as butter, accord- 
ing to the request made by the consumer of the merchant? 

Mr. Mc(Joy. 1 do not know, sir; I am not posted on that subject. 

Eepresentative Lamb. Those facts seem to have been brought out 
here, and I know from my personal knowledge that they do exist. I 
simply asked those questions to see how the current trend of thought 
upon that subject is. I am only an inquirer myself. That is all I 
wanted to ask. 

The Chairman. You said, Mr. McCoy, that it is possible to place a 
diseased carcass on the market. Is it possible for a diseased carcass 
to pass into the hands of those who use tiie fat for oleo oil? 

Mr. McCoy. Not from a killing establishment. Of course, Mr. Chair- 
man, some man in tlie country districts of Illinois, at some place, might 
kill his own steer, and, under cover of night, slip in and sell it to some 
oleomargarine factory in the city of Chicago; and it might slip through 
in that way. Of course, it is i)ossible for that to oi-cur. 

The Chairman. Is it possible to work in a diseased carcass in the 
institutions where the great bulk of the slaughtering is done in this 
country? 

Mr. McCoy. No, sir. If it is done, it would have to be done through 
the negligence and carele.-suess or the corruption of a Government 
official. 

Kepresentative Stokes. But in case such a carcass should get into 
the possession of the oleo niaker.as I understand the matter, the product 
is subjected to a very high temperature during manufacture? 

Mr." IMcCoY. That is my understanding, sir. From what I have 
seen of the factories, I think it is put to a very high boiling ])()int. 

Kepresentative Dahle. Mr. McCoy, do you make any allowance for 
the amount of oleo oil that is exported, or may be exported, in calcu- 
lating, as you do, the loss to the farmer in case this bill should be 
passed? As I understand, oidy a small part of the oleo oil which is 
made in this country is used here, and the larger amount is exported. 
1 can not see where you make such an allowance. Do you? 

Mr. McCoy. No, sir. 

Kei)reseiitative Dahle. Would it not be fair to make such an allow- 
ance, knowing, as we do, that by far the larger part is exported ? Is not 
that the case? 



g88 OLEOMARGABINE. 

Mr. McCoy. That is my understanding, that the larger percentage 
of the manufactured oleo product is exported. 

Represeutative Stokes. Without attempting to anticipate the gentle- 
man's answer at all, I would like to supplement the question by this 
inquiry: Is it not a fact which is generally recognized with regard to 
all export commodities that the price of the exported part is really the 
principal factor in determining the local price? 

Mr. MoCoY. As a general rule that is the case, yes, sir; because it 
is the only way of getting rid of our surplus. 

Representative Dahle. About how much is exported in proportion 
to what is used here, if yoa can tell? 

Mr. McCoy. I can not tell, except from a statement I have seen. I 
may be wrong in my recollection of it, but I think I saw it stated that 
132,000,000 pounds were exported in 1898. 

Representative Dahle. And about what amount would be used here? 

Mr. McCoy. And 83,000,000 pounds of oleomargarine were manufac- 
tured. !N^ow, that is my recollection of it, and I may be mistaken. 

Represeutative Dahle. If 83,000,000 pounds of oleomargarine were 
manufactured in that year, then only a small fraction of the total amount 
of oleo oil made was used here at home? 

Mr. McCoy. Exactly. 

The Chairman. Your contention, then, is that if you put the stamp 
of disapproval on the article in this country it will drive it out of the 
export trade, and have the effect of reducing the value of that steer fat 
to the value of tallow? 

Mr. McCoy. That is the point which I made in the last part of my 
argument. 

Representative Dahle. Mr. McCoy, along those lines let me ask this 
question: In your oi)iniou does the feeling against this bill come from 
people who are afraid of oleomargarine, claiming that it is not health- 
ful, or does the feeling come from the manufacturers of butter? Do 
the remonstrances against this bill, in your opinion, come from the pro- 
ducers of butter or from health oflficers? 

Representative Stokes. And the people? 

Represeutative Dahle. And the people, along these lines; yes. 

Mr. McCoy. You say there are remonstrances against this bill? 

Representative Dahle. Yes; or, rather, we get prayers asking for its 
passage. 

Mr. McCoy. And some against its passage. 

Representative Dahle. Now then, do those come from the farmers, 
do you suppose, who produce butter, or who produce the milk that is 
made into butter; or do they come from other sources? 

Mr. McCoy. Y^ou say you get petitions favoring its passage? I sup- 
pose they would naturally come from people in dairy districts, who 
have milch cows, and sell their milk to creameries, and make their own 
butter. The protests from our country, however, come from the cattle 
raisers, the farmers, the feeders, the stockmen, and the manufacturers 
of oleomagarine. 

Representative Bailey. And the men who sell it? 

Mr. McCoy. I do not know that there have been any oflBcial pro- 
tests, so far as that is concerned. 

Representative Bailey. Well, there have. I have received them. 

The Chairman. Now, you are a consumer. Will you protest, as an 
individual con^sumer, on the .ground that you ought to have the privilege 
of buying colored oleomargarine? 

Mr. McCoy. Yes, sir. 1 think if it is a pure and healthful article of 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 689 

food — and it is within the province of this committee to determine that 
fact — and can be sold for a less price than a hij:her valued product, 
I believe every man has got a right to buy it if he wants to. 

Eepresentative Lamb, Mr. McCoy, are there not three classes, so to 
speak, advocating the passage of this bill — first, the dairy; second, the 
small farmer throughout all the rural districts of this country; and 
third, the man who sells this article, the butter merchants in all the 
towns'? From the hearings at which I have been present and the 
observations that I have made upon both sides, I have been convinced 
that those three factors enter into the application here tor the passage 
of this bill — the dairyman, the small farmer (and the large farmer, so 
far as that is concerned, the butter maker), and the man who sells the 
butter in the town. I gather that from observations in my own dis- 
trict and from telegrams received this morning. I have received half 
a dozen or more telegrams this morning from men who sell this butter 
to the working men and the laboring people. ]^ow, if any protests come 
from the consumer, it seems to me they would reach us through the 
man who sells the butter to the consumer. 

Eepresentative Allen. I will ask the gentleman from Virginia, 
right there, if his district ships any beef cattle or sells any beef cattle 
on the market"? 

Eepresentative Lamb. A good many people in my district fatten 
beef cattle and sell them. 

Eepresentative Allen. And ship them to the market and sell them? 

Eepresentative Lamb. And ship them to the market. 

Eepresentative Allen. Do you know the amount of the exportation? 

Eepresentative Lamb. No; but it is nothing in comparison with 
your district, for this reason : My district was a storm center of war, 
and it never has recovered from it, while along the rivers, the James 
Eiver, etc., there are numbers of men engaged in the cattle industry. 
They not only raise them, but they buy a great many steers in the fall 
to fatten. They feed their corn and hay to tbemin the fall and winter, 
and turn them on the grass in the spring. Some of the best people in 
Eichmond buy those cattle raised in my district. 

The Chairman. Mr. Lamb, you say there are three elements. Now, 
after all, are not the man who milks the cow, who produces the milk, 
the dairyman who makes the butter, and the agent who sells it for them 
in the city, all one interest, and not three interests? 

Eepresentative Lamb. I did not say they were separate. As I say, 
they are three factors. 

The Chairman. Three factors of one interest? 

Eepresentative Lamb. Yes. 

The Chairman. Just like the clerks and the teamsters 

Eepresentative Lamb. There is a community of interest, yes, sir. 

The Chairman. It is one interest; without any element of it, any 
one element, there would be no interest. 

Eepresentative Stokes. I would like to ask the gentleman one ques- 
tion myself, growing out of his remark. 

I epreseiitative Lamb. I do not know that I am on the stand. I am 
getting information here. This is the first time I have not had an 
opportunity to hear the otlier side. However, go on. 

Kepresentative Stokes. I thought the gentleman was giving us a 
little testimony a while ago, from his personal kno^\ ledge. That is the 
I i';is(ni I ask. 

' tjtrcsentative T-AMB. Yes: T will hear you on that point. 

lltprefc^entative Stokes. The question l\\ anted to a^k you was this: 
S. Rep. 2043 4A 



690 OLEOMARGARINE. 

The gentlemen seem to assume that the country merchant, the local 
merchant, the local groceryman, who sells this butter or butterine to 
the consumer, is the mouthpiece of the consumer — that their interests 
are identical. 

Representative Lamb. To a certain extent. 

Eepresentative Stokes. It seems to me that in the general concep- 
tion, they are considered, to be diametrically opposed — that is, that the 
seller and buyer are usually on oj tposite sides of the proposition. 

Representative Lamb. Yes. Well, I mean by that that the most nat- 
ural thing in the world would be for the seller of that butter to respond 
quickly to the demands of his customer. If his customer preferred this 
manufactured article to genuine butter, he would say to him, "We pre- 
fer this oleomargarine, and we will buy it." The fact of the business is 
that it is not so. 

Representative Bailey. Let me give a little personal experience 
on that subject. I have spent parts of two days in this market here. 
I have made two trips down through it for the puri)ose of getting infor- 
mation on that very point. I went down there absolutely incognito ; 
and I tried my best to buy oleomargarine for butter. I went to this place 
and to that, and did my best to do it, without their knowing a thing 
about 

Representative Lamb. What did you ask for ? 

Representative Bailey. I asked for butter. I would say, "What 
do you sell your best creamery butter for?" "Thirty-five and 40 
cents." "What have you got some other grade for?" They would say 
that they had a cheaper grade down to 28 cents; and I think the lowest 
butter I saw or had priced to me was 25 cents. When it got below 
that, it was oleomargarine or butterine every time. 

Now, I was unable in that market to buy a single pound of it; and 
I could not get a single man to admit to me down there that it was 
sold — not a single man. Now, I want you to go down there, Mr. Lamb. 
I will tell you what I will do. I will bet you a $5 bill that, if you 
choose to try it, you can not get one of those men to sell oleomargarine 
to you for butter. 

Representative Lamb. Do you know the reason? 

Representative Bailey. I do not know ; I suppose the reason is that 
it is a violation of law. That is the reason they gave me, that it is a 
violation of law, and that the law was enforced. 

Representative Lamb. I understand that the law is not enforced. 

Representative Bailey. Does not that settle the whole thing? 

Representative Allen. Will not the enforcement of law remedy the 
whole thing? 

Representative Lamb. Is not this law trying to supplement the State 
acts in doing that very thing? There is not a better law in the 32 States 
than Virginia has got on her statute books in regard to this matter, but 
it seems to be utterly impossible to enforce it for some reason or other. 

Re])resentative Allen. Because it is against public sentiment. The 
consumers do not want it enforced. That is the reason. 

Representative Lamb. Well, I do not think it is against public senti- 
ment in my State. I can not tell the public sentiment everywhere, of 
course. 

Representative Bailey. You know, personally, that that is the case 
in yoiir section, do you? 

Representative Lamb, Oh, yes. 

Representative Dahle. I notice that the gentleman had something 
to say regarding the value of milk made into butter, or of the value of 



OLEOMARGARINE. GUI 

butter, since the introduction of oleomargarine. I believe you quoted 
tliat up to 1800, and stopped there. Now, what has been the tendency 
of the price of milk during the last ten years, especially during the 
winter months, since oleomargarine got to be more and more commonly 
used? 

Mr. McCoy. I am unable to say, Mr. Dahle, because 1 have never 
looked the question up. But, if you will remember, 1 dealt with it in a 
general way. I stated that while the dairy people had been able to 
hold their own and increase their dairy herds, the cattlemen had suf- 
fered a dei)reciation of over $1),()00,(K)() by reason of hard times, and 
there was not money in the business, and it drove them out of it, while 
the indications were that the dairy men had been prosperous, because 
they had increased their herds in the State of Nebraska 

Eepresentative Dahle. During what years? 

Mr. McCoy. From 1890 to 1900, 

Eepresentative Dahle. But now I know that the price is different — 
that the value of milk has gone down. 

The Chairman. How much? 

Eepresentative Dahle. It is hard to say how much. 

The Chairman. How much was it prior to 1890? 

Eepresentative Dahle, Well, it ranged diiferently, but anyone who 
has handled butter knows this, that butter has been lower during the 
winters of the past two years than it was. There has hec-n a decline. 
This winter it is higher, but there has been a decline, nevertheless. 
Instead of the market going up, as you suggested there, the market, 
since 1890, has been going down. 

The Chairman. The market for milk ? 

Eepresentative Dahlk. The market for milk in the winter months. 

The Chairman. It costs just 1 cent a quart more to buy milk in 
Chicago now than it did two years ago. 

Eepresentative Dahle. That is very likely; I know nothing about 
that; but it is milk made into butter in the country that I am speaking 
of I happen to have dealt in milk for these many years, so that I 
know whereof I speak. 

The Chairman. I have been feeding a family of about 15 for a good 
many years and I know whereof I speak, too. 

Eepresentative Dahle. I have handled 1,000 pounds, then, for every 
1 your family has purchased. 

The Chairman. But you have not paid for it as I have. 

After informal discussion among members of the committee, an 
adjournment was taken until Wednesday, April 4, 1900, at 10 o'clock 
a. m. 



Wednesday, April 11, 1900—10.30 a. m. 

The committee met at 10.30 o'clock a. ra., Hon. W. Lorimer in the 
chair. 

The Chairman. Mr. Aldredge, the committee will be glad to bear 
your views on the Grout bill. 

STATEMENT OF GEORGE N. ALDREDGE. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee: I have made 
some notes with reference to the discussion, and I am afraid that I will 
occupy too much of the committee's time. There are representatives 



692 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

here from Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi, and I would 
be glad to hear from all of them; and I hope the committee will cut me 
oft" in time to give these gentlemen ample opportunity to be heard. 

I desire to be entirely candid with the committee. I have a little 
stock in a cotton seed oil mill, and was appointed by the Oil Mill Asso- 
ciation of the State of Texas to come here as a delegate. Bat my 
interest as a farmer, raising the seed itself, is fifty times as great as my 
interest in the oil mill. In ordinarily good seasons I raise about a 
thousand bales of cotton a year, and this question affects me vitally. 

Gentlemen, every section of this country within the last three years 
has become prosperous, except the cotton raising South. The wave of 
prosi)erity has never struck that section. Its people are as poor to day 
as they ever have been. And why? They have been making cotton 
at 4^ and 5 cents per pound. No man can do that and do more than 
barely live. It is a life and death struggle for his very existence. The 
manufacturing interests have pros])ered ; the cattle interests have pros- 
pered; all interests have prospered, except the man that raises cotton 
and sells it at 4J and 5 cents. 

There has lately been a little spurt in the price of cotton, owing to an 
exceedingly short crop. But, gentlemen, the farmers of the South, the 
men who till the ground, did not get the benefit of that rise. They are 
poor people; they were in debt to the merchants. They had to sell 
their cotton early in the season for cents; and the merchants and 
the bankers and the speculators have reaped the benefit of the rise in 
cotton, and not the men that made it. 

I desire to show you briefly what a cotton farmer has to contend with. 
I mean a tenant farmer. The great bulk of them are negroes. 

He can cultivate about 40 acres of land. Say that he puts half of 
that in corn. The corn will only furnish bread for his family and feed 
his pair of mules or horses and raise the pigs for his family. Very few 
of them ever sell corn in the South. Now, on the other 20 acres he 
raises 7 bales of cotton. That is a little over one third of a bale to the 
acre, and that is a good average for the whole South. Those 7 bales of 
cotton, at 5 cents a pound, are worth $175. From those 7 bales he gets 
3i tons of seed, worth $10 per ton. That is $35. Then his whole crop 
nets him $:^10. But he pays from $2.50 to $3, say $2.50, an acre rent 
on the 40 acres. That takes out $100, leaving him net for the services 
of himself, a pair of mules, a wagon, and all of his family of women 
and children working during the fall picking this cotton, 30 cents a 
day for the whole family. 

Now, you are having strikes all over the North by men who earn from 
$2 to $5 a day. And yet here are a class of people who are striving to 
live and support a family upon 30 cents a day for the whole family. 
These are the people that 1 represent before you. 

Last Christmas eve, a year ago, I received a telephone message from 
my plantation manager. My plantations are near Hern, I live at 
Dallas, 140 miles from there. 1 received a telephone message that the 
town was full of my negroes, and that they wanted money to buy a 
bottle of whisky. They did not have it. Now, these negroes had 
worked faithfully. I had no complaint to make. In the winter storms 
and in the heat of summer they had bent to the plow and the hoe, and 
they had lived on corubread and bacon and cheap molasses throughout 
the year. They had made 985 bales of cotton, and yet they could not 
buy a bottle of whisky to get drunk on at Christmas. Well, I tele- 
phoned my manager to buy every one of them a bottle, on the ground 



OLEOMARGARINE. 693 

that under the Constitution and laws of the United States and of the 
States, a man had an inalienable right to get drunk on Christmas, and 
I furnished it to them. [Laughter.] 

Now, gentlemen, I feel that we of the South have been stepchildren 
of this Government. For a hundred years we have been paying the 
indirect import tax on almost all that we used for the benefit of the 
factories North. We have been paying the fiddler for a hundred years, 
and have never been allowed to dance in the set. But after a while we 
discovered that there was money in cotton-seed oil, and all over the 
South we built up cotton-oil factories. But as soon as we did, why, 
here comes the dairy interest, the curled darlings of the nation, and 
says, " You shall not produce a product that competes with ours." That 
is the proposition. Why, do you know that we are paying taxes today 
on olive oil from Italy, high taxes — why? Because there are a few olive 
orchards in California. We have more cotton interest in one county in 
Texas than they have olive interest in the whole State of California. 
See how anxious the Government is to protect every interest in the 
Government until it comes to the poor devil of a cotton man. 

Yes, sir; we began manufacturing cotton seed oil. One of the 
products of cotton seed oil is oleomargarine. Now they say, " Because, 
forsooth, oleomargarine competes with our product, we, the Imperial 
Oow-Milkers of the United States are to be protected by this Govern- 
ment against the poor cotton farmer." 

Well, if our own Government is going to kick us, that teaches all of 
Europe to kick us. Any mother that kicks her own child licenses tlie 
whole world to kick and curt" it. And they will quickly follow suit. 
We are in competition over there with the olive interest, mainly of 
Spain and France; and they will kick. We thought it horrible that 
those Dutchmen over there objected to the importation of our meat 
against them; yet they are foreigners to us. 

Now, it is not the best butter makers that are in this fight against 
oleomargarine at all. We do not compete with the Elgin peo])le. 
They do notcomplain of us. There are rich people all over this country 
that are going to have butter, and pay for it; and we are not in com- 
petition with the class of butter they buy. But when you go down to 
the low grades, then we are; and they are the people that are com- 
plaining to-day. I heard Bob Ingersoll make a speech at Forest 
Garden in 1890, in the political campaign. While I wanted to throw 
a rock at him all the time he was talking, some things he said have 
stuck to me. I remember a picture he drew of a horse race. He 
said: "Here is a fine race horse, with flashing eye and nostrils dis- 
tended, and sinews of steel, ready to outfly the wind." He said : " The 
owner of that horse does not object if somebody wants to put a mnle 
in the race. But," he said, ''every owner of a little f^crub, who 
doesn't believe he can beat a mule, and is contesting for second, third, 
or fourth money in the race, objects to competition with a mule." And 
today the best butter makers of this country, the clean butter makers, 
are not in this fight against oleomargarine; but it is these men that 
want to offend the nostrils aiul vitiate the taste and i)oison the stom- 
achs of men with inferior butter that are clamoring here to Congress 
to shutout a perfectly ])ure, clean product, with which they find they 
can not compete. That is the situation. 

What is oleomargarine, gentlemen "? Now, I am going to read two cer- 
tificates from gentlemen right here in the city. One is from Professor 
Atwater. It is only a few lines: "Butterine" (which is oleomarga- 



694 OLEOMAKGARINE. 

line) "is perfectly wholesome." This is from Prof. W. O. Atwater, 
Director of the XJiiited States Government Agricnltnral Experiment 
Station, Washington, D. O. 

Butterine is perfectly wholesome and healthy and has a high nutritive value. 
The same entirely favorable opinion I find expressed by the most prominent Euro- 
pean authorities, English, French, and German. It contains essentially the same 
ingredients as natural butter from cow's milk. It is perfectly wholesome and 
healthy, and has a high nutritive value. 

The other is from Prof. Harvey W. Wiley, Chief Chemist of the 
United States Department of Agriculture: 

Tliere can be no reasonable objection to the use of oleomargarine. It is clean, 
wholesome, and digestible. When it is to be kept for a long time before use, as on 
shipboard or in distant mining camps — 

and he might have said, in the Army — 

it is preferable to butter, because it has but little tendency to become rancid. For 
similar reasons, there can be no possible objection to the use of cotton-seed oil as a 
substitute for lard, or when mixed with lard. 

Now, here are certiticates from the greatest chemists in America and 
Europe outside of the ones that I have read ; but I will not take up 
your time with reading them. 

Kepresentative Williams. Just hand them, if you please, to the 
stenographer, so that they may be made a part of the record. 

(The certiticates above referred to by the witness are as follows:) 

Prof. G. C. Caldwell, of Cornell University, says: 

The process for making butterine, when properly conducted, is cleanly through- 
out, free from animal tissue or other impurities, and consists of pure fat, made up 
of the fats ( ommonly known as alaine and margarine. It possesses no qualities 
whatever that can make it in the least degree unwholesome. 

Prof. Paul Schweitzer, Ph. D., LL. D., professor of chemistry, Mis- 
souri State University, says: 

As a result of my examination, made both with the microscope and the delicate 
chemical tests applicable to such cases, I pronounce butterine to be wholly and 
unequivocally free from any deleterious or in the least objectionable substances. 
Carefully made physiological experiments reveal no difference whatever in the pala- 
tability and digestibility between butterine and butter. 

Dr. Adolph Jolles, of Vienna, from address before section 7 of the 
International Hygienic Congress at Budapest, says: 

As regards nutritive value, pure butterine or oleomargarine is as digestible and 
nutritious as pure butter. 

Prof. George F. Barker, of the University of Pennsylvania: 

Butterine is, in my opinion, quite as valuable as a nutritive agent as butter itself. 
It is perfectly wholesome and is desirable as an article of food. I can see no reason 
why butterine should not be an entirely satisfactory equivalent for ordinary butter, 
whether considered from the physiological or commercial standpoint. 

Prof. S. W. Johnson, director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experi- 
ment Station, and professor of agricultural chemistry at Yale College, 
New Haven, says: 

It is a product that is entirely attractive and wholesome as food, and one that is 
for all ordinary and culinary purposes the full eqiaivalent of good butter made from 
cream. I regard the manufacture of oleomargarine as a legitimate and beneficent 
industry. 

Dr. A. G. Stockwell, who needs no introduction, says in the Scien- 
tific American : 

In everyday life butter is very essential. Its free use by sufferers from wasting 
diseases is to be encouraged to' the utmost. Considering the foregoing, it seems 



OLEOMARGARINE. 695 

Straiigp tliJit (ileoniaruarine lias not. been thought of as a iialatable and suitable arti- 
cle of diet lor tlnpsi- snticring from wasting diseases. 

It is Ave from all olijcctions. As a matter of fact, it is a better and jinrer butter 
than nine tenths of the dairy prodmt that is nnirl\ete<l, and one that is far more 
easily preserved. There are a large number who inia;;ine oleomargarine is made 
from any old scraps of grease regardless of age or cleanliness. The reverse is the 
fact. Good oleo can only be had by employing the very best and freshest of fat. 
This artificial butter is as purely wholesome ^and perhaps even better as food) as the 
best dairy or creamery product. 

Jollies and VV^inkler, the official chemists of the Austrian Govern- 
nieut, after tli(»r()n<>h iuvestigatiou of butterine, reported: 

The only germs found in "oleo" are those cnmmou to air and water. Although 
carefully searched for, tubercular bacilli and other obnoxious bacilli were conspicu- 
ous by their abseuce. 

Mr. Aluredge, Now, when these inferior butter makers strike the 
chemist they always dodge. 1 have seen a mule that was beaten over 
the head by a negro until every time a man raised his hand 50 yards 
away from him he would commence to dodge him. And you can't get 
one of them to talk about a chemist. Whenever he gets in the neigh- 
borhood of a chemist he says, " Well, he don't know." Why, that is 
what they arc here for. The chemist is the highest iiroduct of science; 
and he is here to tell us what is in every article about which we want 
to ask him. And yet they say, '' He don't know." They dodge him 
every time. 

Now, gentlemen, I will elevate this butter crowd. I will agree that 
their product is perfectly pure. That is agreeing to a great deal. I 
was raised on a farm, and my business when I was a boy was to mind 
the calf otf and hold him off while the cow was being milked. It is done 
in a little pen; and the cows drop a great deal of manure. That is all 
ground up. You can not milk them in a big pen. That manure is all 
ground up and in the air, and they are walking to and fro; and I can 
show you cei tilicates here from a dairyman in Iowa where he found that 
very stuff in his milk, and complained about it. But we will grant that 
they are making a pure product. Then what? Here is a contest 
between two perfectly pure, wholesome articles of food. And one party 
says, "Stop the manufacture of the other!" 

Now, why should the Government be called upon to interfere in such 
a contest as thatf Why should the Government be called upon to take 
one man's business in its hand, and Hit it up and put its hand upon the 
other and sink itf Gentlemen, government among men never was 
organized or contemplated for such a purpose as that — never. 

There is hxigcd in every man's breast an innate love of justice. You 
can take the vilest criminal, and eliminate his self-interest, and it blazes 
in his bosom. No man can eradicate the love of justice. Kobert E. 
Lee said: "The biggest word in the English language is duty." Well, 
he was close to the mark, but there is one bigger word than that, and 
that is justice and fair dealing among men. 

Now, sir, if I were to see a dog tight out in the street, and if I were to 
see one man go and take hold of the leg of one of those dogs and hold him 
while the other one chewed him up, I would have a contempt for- that 
man as long as I lived. Supi)ose there was a boat race between Yale 
aud Harvard on the Hudson l\iver, and they had been practicing for 
months. iSuppo.se the river was lined with a vast multitude to see a 
fair contest, and just before they started here would arrive a brass- 
buttoned officer, sent by Congress to tie a log to Yale's boat. Every 
man, woman, and child on the bank of that river would curse this 



696 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

Government with curses loud and deep for such an act of ipfamy and 
injustice. 

Yet, gentlemen, tbat is precisely wliat you are asked to do by the 
curled darlings of the dairy. They will admit to you, and they have 
done it before your committee, that this product of ours is pure, it is 
healthful, it is nutritious; and yet they say, "Because it competes with 
us, kill it!" 

Now, I know that there are a lot of Congressmen going to vote for 
just such unjust and outrageous legislation as that. They have got to 
do it. They live in a dairy district. They have got to put their con- 
science deep down in the seat of their pants, and sit on it while they 
vote, too. It is vote that way or lose their place. Well, maybe I 
would do the same thing; I don't know. I hope to God I never will be 
tempted that way. 

Now, these dairymen are wealthy. They tell you how much they 
control. They appropriated $14,000 lately for this campaign; and 
every little dairyman that milks a cow in the United States has run 
around and gotten all his neighbors to sign a petition; and yet, to day 
there are not 20 i)er cent of them who can remember ever signing a 
petition, or who know what was in it when they did sign it, and yet 
they have flooded your committee with these petitions. 

Now, gentlemen, is there any reason why this unjust legislation 
should be accomplished? Why, butter is higher to d;iy than it ever 
was. It is higher than it was forty, twenty, or ten years ago; and they 
can not supply the demand. I see that New York is short of butter 
all the time. They want a monopoly, so that they can put their prices 
out of sight; and when they do, they want the people that are not able 
to pay for it to be denied this wholesome article of food. These dairy- 
men are already immunes from smallpox, and they ask of the Govern- 
ment to give them immunity against competition. That is their posi- 
tion. Now, who are on the other side? Why, the dairyman himself 
is halfway on the other side, because the value of every bull calf born 
on his farm is increased by the manufacture of oleomargarine, fle 
does not know it, but he is. In the first place, these cotton farmers 
that I have been telling you about are on the other side. The oil mills, 
the recent development all over the South, are on the other side. The 
butterine makers are on the other side. The manufacturing establish- 
ments all over the North, that make the machinery for the oil mills, are 
on the other side. The mill in which I am interested bought its machin- 
ery in Ohio, bought part of its apparatus in Chicago, bought another 
part in Massachusetts, and bought something from almost every por- 
tion of the North. Those j)eople, those manufacturers, are on the other 
side. The cattlemen are on the other side. I do not know about it 
myself, as 1 am not a cattleman. But the southwest cattle convention 
that met at Fort Worth declared that the manufacture of oleomar- 
garine added about $3 to the value of every beef steer raised, and 
they protested, in the strongest terms, against this legislation. The 
hog men are on the other side, because butterine or oleomargarine is 
made from the very purest, best fat of the beef, the very purest, best 
fat of the hog, cotton seed oil, cream and butter, churned together. 
And the laboring men, all over this country, are on the other side. 

Gentlemen, the first thing I did yesterday morning when 1 reached 
Washington City was to go over to the market. I found two stalls 
there, butterine stalls. There are quite a number of butter stalls, but 
I found two butterine stalls. One of them had in great gilt letters 
over it, " Only butterine sold here." The other had a great glass sign 



OLEOMARGAEiNE. 69? 

with "Butterine" on it tliat could be read almost a quarter of a mile 
awaj'. I interrogated the first man. I said, " How is your business?" 
He said, "It is good. I think I sell more than any of these butter 
fellows." "Well," said I, "why do your people buy butrerine instead 
of butter?" Said he, "I will tell you. You see, tliis butterine is 15 
cents a pound. Tbey can't buy butter as good as this for less than 30 
or 35 cents a pound." He said, "Poor people buy thisj it suits their 
taste, and it suits their pocketbook." 

I went to the other stall and asked the dealer," How is your business ? " 
"Good." Said I, "Who buys from you?" "Well," he said, "a great 
many poor people; but," he said, "don't you think they are only poor 
people." He said, "A great many people who are amply able to i)ay 
for butter patronize me." "Well," said 1, "why do they do that?" 
"Well," he said, " our product is uniform the year round, and you can't 
get that in butter. Our product is inspected by the Government, and 
guaranteed as to its purity; and," he said, " a great many people who 
want a good article, and a uniform article, all the year round, ijatron- 
ize me." 

Gentlemen, all the butter men in the United States can not answer 
the arguments of those two men. 

You cut off the butterine industry and what are a great maliy labor- 
ing men who work for $1 and $1.50 a day and have a big family going 
to do? It seems that generally the less able a man is to take care of 
a family the more family surrounds him. Now, take a man with a big 
family of children, where is he going to get money to pay 30 or 35 cents 
a pound for butter? Yet these dairymen ask you absolutely to pro- 
hibit it from his table. 

Now, they come before you and they say that thirty-two States have 
adopted this butterine law, and that it has not had any effect. They 
can not stop it. Why is that? Can Congress do any more? Why is 
it they can not stop it? I will tell you. The world has never yet 
found anything that it wanted that it did not get in some way. No 
man can throttle a world's wants. The world has tried oleomargarine; 
it has found out that it is nutritious; it is pure; it is just what they 
want; and all the legislation on earth can not prevent their getting it. 
You might as well stand on the seashore and bid the incoming waves 
recede. 

Why, a great many of the States and a great many cities have tried 
prohibition, but the world likes red liquor, and the result is that prohi- 
bition has been a failure everywhere it has been tried. Almost all the 
States of this Union have legislated against the social evil, but the 
social evil has its attractions, and they have never been able to eradi- 
cate it. They have succeeded in scattering it, and that is precisely all 
that can be done. 

Representative Neville. Will you permit me a question right there? 

Mr. Aldredge. Yes, sir. 

Representative Neville. With reference to the social evil, they do 
fix it so that a man who does not want it need not take it, do they not? 

Mr. Aldredge. Yes, sir; I reckon they do. It is all Greek to me. 
I don't know anything about it. I will get to that directly, though. 

Now, as Mr. Oliver, representing the North Carolina and South Car- 
olina oil mills said, we have taught the people how to make one of the 
finest foods in the world, and if you cut it olf in its legitimate tax-pay- 
ing shape, why, every little farmer in the country will commence mak- 
ing it. And, as he said, you will have oleomargarine moonshiners 
galore. Y'"ou won't have courts enough to try them; you haven't got 



698 OLEOMARGARINE. 

jails onough to bold them. Tt will be like the Qualcer's prayer when 
the stars fell. He had not been verydevont, and lie fell on his knees 
and said: "O, Lord, this do be the judj»ineiit day, and Thou knowest 
that hell won't hold half of us." That is the way it would be. 
[Laughter.] 

Now, they say that this butterine is a fraud. Gentlemen, I want to 
draw a distinction between fraud and innocent deception. There can 
be no fraud without injury. If a man comes to me and says, "Let me 
have a $5 silver certificate," and instead of that I give him a $5 national- 
bank note, I have deceived him, but I have not defrauded him. Then, 
if butterine is as pure as butter (and the fact is, it is much purer) and 
a man's landlady fools him with it, all right; she has not hurt him. If 
a man's wife fools him, all right; she has not hurt him. And she would 
have to have as many lives as a cat in order to fool him in this innocent 
way as many times as he fools her in one other Avay. 

Now, who is making this cry of fraud? Who is making it? Why, 
when I was a boy I heard something to the eSect that a man living in 
a glass house should not hurl brickbats. For eight months in the year 
every butter factory in the United States puts this coloring matter in. 
Many of them put it in the whole year round. You can't have yellow 
butter uidess you have rich, green grasses. I know about that: I have 
churned it. that used to be my business, too, when I was a boy. I 
have churned it, I expect, nearly a thousand times. You can't have 
yellow butter unless you have rich grasses, clover and alfalfa for the 
cow to run on. Why, there are hundreds of dairies whose cows aie 
right in the cities, and never see a blade of grass. Those men, where 
they are making genuine butter, color it twelve months in the year. 
And any farmer colors it all during the eight months when the grass is 
not green. 

Now, their proposition is, "Let us fool the peo])le; let us fool them 
for eight months in the year; but, for the Lord's sake, don't let these 
other fellows fool them at all." That is the proposition. It is a pious 
fraud, if a fraud at all, all around; nobody gets hurt. 

Now, if the Government is going to stop deception, the (lovernnient 
is going to have its hands full. In the first place, if there is any mem- 
ber of Congress who dyes his whiskers or his hair, he is a fraud, and 
ought to be taken out and clipped. [Laughter.] Every time one of 
you gentlemen goes to a bar, they hand you out beautiful red whisky, 
and every bit of it came from the still as white as water. jNIaybe 
you don't know what I am talking about; but if you don't, you can 
send out and have the information gathered for your benefit. Why, 
we smoked Havana cigars here the whole time, for three years, while 
the Cuban insurrection and war was going on. Why, there was not a 
blade of tobacco raised over there, and yet it had no appreciable eflect 
upon the supply of Havana tobaccos and cigars in the United States. 

Nearly all of us carry alligator grips. Tliere they are; and if every 
alligator that was ever killed was a mile wide, he couldn't furnish the 
hide for those grips. 

All of yon wear kangaroo shoes. I have a pair at home myself; and 
there are i)robably a dozen poor little kangaroos about as big as a flee 
dog killed once a year, and yet they supply shoes for the whole world. 

These are innocent deceptions. 1 want to show what the Govern- 
ment will have on hand. 

We ^11 eat canned goods. Did you ever sit down at the table and 
have the good lady at the head tell you "These are canned pears," or 
"These are canned cherries"? Never once in the world. Why, if we 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 699 

believe that tlie cborries come right off of the tree onto the table, they 
taste better and they k)ok better to ns. We get our imagination mixed 
in with it. That is all right; it is an innocent deception. They never 
say anything about their coming out of a can; yet they are just about 
as good as when fresh. 1 liave eaten gallons of sorghum molasses, and 
they never told me that that was not made from river cane. 

We will have to regulate the ladies. Why, they use ])aint; they use 
powder. One of them steps out of her home onto the street, or to her 
jiarlor, and she has these yellow ribbons on. That is the thing that 
makes these dairy peoi)le so awful hot. And her shape is perfection. 
Visions of "the Greek Slave," and all the lovely statuary, rise before 
you as she ambles down the street. She is perfection. And yet they 
are not all built that way. Some of them arc fearfully and wonderfully 
made. [Laughter.] Now, the Government ought to take a hand in 
that, and stop that kind of deception which they practice on us men. 

Why, sir, the very wearing of clothes is a deception, and disguises a 
man's deformities. Congress must step in and make every fellow go 
naked, and grow hair like a hog. That's the way to be natural. 

Now, gentlemen, the fact is that if the Government is going to regu- 
late all the domestic affairs, and poke its nose into butter and everything 
else, then the Government has got to (juit everything else. She gives 
up the Philippines and the management of Cuba, and quits making- 
treaties with the powers, and stays at home and attends to the home 
duties. Why, sir, a lot of people would like to put this Government 
to grinding coffee and toting out slops. That is their idea of govern- 
ment. That is their idea of what government is for. What business 
has the Government fooling around here in butter? 

Now, 1 grant you that if it is a police regulation, and we were making 
vsoniething that hurt the people, the (Government ought to step forward. 
But here the truth is, disguise it as they may, that they do not claim 
our article is not just as pure as theirs. The question is. Shall the 
Government put its hand on one man's business and lift it up and sink 
the other down ? 

Gentlemen, the Constitution (I will not read the different sections; 
1 had intended to do it) does not anywhere say iu positive terms that 
commerce between the States shall be free; but, sir, there are a number 
of sections theie that go to show that that is the very spirit of the 
Constitution. And, gentlemen, if one State can lay an embargo against 
the products of aiu)ther State, why, tliat other State ought to be turned 
loose to retaliate. And what do we have? Instead of a great nation, 
cemented together by the band of commerce, interchanging its com- 
inodities freely one with another, we have a lot of little, jealous, petty 
republics, worse than South America. 

1 say that if Maine and Pennsylvania and Illinois and other States 
aie going to legislate against a perfectly pure, healthy Texas product, 
then, I say, turn Texas loose and let us retaliate. And whenever we do, 
I am going to the legislature. I would hate to be caught in that crowd, 
but I will go; and, let me tell you, I'll make it hot for every State that has 
legislated against our i)roducts. I'll make it a penitentiary oiVense to 
sell Maine's tish down there. I will make it a penitentiary offense to 
sell Illinois buggies and Ohio buggies and other manufacturing interests 
up there. If a man wants to ship a lot of corn down there to us cotton 
farmers, and a carload of bacon, why, I will nmke it a i)enitentiary offense 
to do such a thing, and we will be just like two cats strung on a wire; we 
will all be wool i)ulling. 

Now, that is the kind of a government they want. What right has 



700 OLEOMARGAKINE. 



I 



any State to ostracize and taboo our x)roclucts — if they are healthy, mark 
yoii, all the time, if they are good, if they are puref They talk about 
l)olice regulations. This Grout bill says that in the exercise of police 
powers each State shall be permitted to deal with this thiug as it pleases. 
Each State sliall be permitted to lay an embargo on our products when 
not a man in the State will stand uj) and tell yon that our products are 
not pure, healthy, and good for them. Is that the exercise of a police 
power? Gentlemen, it is a flaring falsehood on its face. 

Now, this [indicating map] represents all the States in black that 
have passed this law; and it is very appropriate. It is a shady, dark 
business. I am glad they put it that way. And I see here Alabama, 
Georgia, and South Carolina. God knows the idea of a Southern State 
in legislating against its chief product at the behest of a dairy trust a 
thousand miles away! They need the prayers of the church. The fool 
killer has not got around there yet, evidently. 

Now, gentlemen, I will not detain you much longer. I am about 
through. These men that are asking this legislation are but trying to 
impede the wheels of progress. That is all. The genius of this age is 
manifested in the cheai)ening of all articles worn or eaten or used by 
man. More has been accomplished in the last fifty years in that diiec- 
tion than has been accomplished since the time when Adam was a baby. 
It is the law of nature, gentlemen. What is it? The survival of the 
littest — development — evolution. There is a great law of commerce. 
What is it? The survival of the cheai)est and the best. And the man 
or set of men who gets in the way of that law is crushed, inevitably. He 
is bound to be. The whole is greater than any part of it. The welfare 
of a whole people — what is cheapest and best, for them — will prevail. 
You might as well attempt to roll the sun back as to deny the people 
that right. They will have it. 

Now, if the people prefer this article, which the dairy interest is fight- 
ing simply because their business is exploited by this manufactured 
article — because it is cheaper and just as good as theirs — who shall say 
them nay? 

Why, gentlemen, why did not the shoemakers, the men that sit cross- 
legged and sew, when tliese people up here in Boston and New York 
and all over the country began to make shoes by machinery, come here 
and ask you to stop it? You ought to have done it? The tailors ought 
never to have allowed the making of hand me down clothes. They have 
just as much argument in their behalf as the dairies. 

Now, the business of the man who makes tallow candles (and T used 
to mold tliein myself when J WdS a boy) was exploited by the discovery 
of petroleum. Then, petroleum was exi)loited by the discovery of gas; 
and, then, gas went to the wall when electric lights flashed out; and , 
yet, in each of these stages, the Government ought to have enjoined 
the i^roceediug and stopped it. We can't have that sort of develop- 
ment. And when the fellow that swung the cradle saw the McCor- 
mick harvester, that went across the field, and mowed down the grain, 
and tied it up, and then tlireshed it, and all that — did everything, except 
eating the biscuit — lie ouglit to have enjoined McOormick. 

Gentlemen, these men have gotten in the way of public progress. 
They say, " But the people eat it as butter, and, therefore, it is a fraud." 
"Well," I say, "the people eat your yellow winter stufi", as yellow as 
summer butter, and therefore you are a fraud." But he answers back, 
"Ours is butter, and that is just as good and just as rich as the yellow 
butter of summer." Well, I say the same. You can't use any argument 
that does not api^ly to us. I say that our stuff is just as good, just as 



OLEOMARGARIN^E. 701 

nutritious, just as health giving as yours; consequently we are in the 
same boat. 

Why, one man who addressed you said that the States ought to be 
allowed to prohibit this thing, just like they did whisky. Now, gentle- 
men, whisky demoralizes a man; it breaks up and ruins his family, 
degrades them, and impoverishes them. Whisky does that. But a man 
might gourmandize on oleomargarine for forty years, and he would be 
a better man and a vStronger man everj^ day The argument does not 
hold. I thank you for your attention. [A])plause.] 

The Acting Chairman. Mr. Dadie, of Chicago, will next address 
the committee. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN DADIE, ESQ., OF CHICAGO, ILL. 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: My ideas on 
the oleomargarine question I have gotten up in manuscrii)t form, and 
with your ])ermission 1 would like to read them to you, after which I 
will be glad to answer questions that you may care to ask, if I am able 
to do so. 

I have been actively engaged in the manufacture and sale of oleo- 
margarine for the past sixteen years, and this is the first time I have 
ever appeared before any legislative body in the interest of the business 
that I repre>sent, although during this period there has scarcely been 
a time that some restrictive or prohibitive legislation has not been 
pending of a State or national character. 

It is unnecessary to call the attention of the older members of this 
committee to the fact that the Grout bill has been introduced here 
many times before, and we find it presented again for your consideration, 
but dressed in somewhat of a new garb. The Grout bill of to-day differs 
from the Grout bill of the past. The present measure in its first sec- 
tion embraces everything the original bill contained, but a new section 
has been added thereto, which further provides for an additional tax, 
the object of which is to throttle and strike out the very life of the 
industry, so that the jobbers of butter may have no competition in their 
field of commerce. 

The history of oleomargarine, since its introduction, has been one of 
continual strife for its existence. In its earlier days it was the object 
of ridicule in comic papers, wherein was described in print and cari(;a- 
ture methods and formulas for its manufacture that originated in the 
lively imagination of the writer or the artist. They were all ridiculous 
exaggeiations, yet the dairy papers of the country would at once pos- 
sess themselves of the idea and publish the same in all seriousness, 
warning the public against the use of the article which they claimed 
could only result in harm to the consumer, even when used in the 
smallest quantities. These warnings, predictions, and misrepresenta- 
tions of the dairy people failed in their object, and they viewed with 
alarm the growing popularity and increasing demand for oleomargarine 
as an article of food and commerce. Belief was then sought from the 
different State legislatures, and by threatening the future political life 
of the legislator who failed to labor in the interest of their iniciuitous 
measures, several were enacted into laws. A number of them, however, 
have since been declared unconstitutional by State and Federal courts. 

In 1886 a bill was framed and ])resented to Congiess placing the man- 
ufacture and sale of oleomargarine absolutely under the control and 
supervision of the Government. This measure placed an internal-rev- 
enue tax of 10 ceuts per pound on goods when made. It further 



702 OLEOMARaARINE. 

provided for special taxes as follows: Six hundred dollars per annum 
for a manufacturer, $480 per annum for a wholesaler, $48 per annum for 
a retailer, and as a j^rotection to prevent fraud iu sales, the manufac- 
turer is required to keep a book, in which entries must be made iu trip- 
licate of daily sales, giving name and address in full of each purchaser 
and number of packages and pounds sold. The original and duplicate 
of this report is presented montlily to the collector of internal revenue in 
the district in which the factory is located, with an affidavit certifying 
that it is an accurate and complete record of all business done during the 
time spe<!ifted. The same method applies to sales made by wholesalers. 
Special tax stamps of required values are furnished to the manufacturer 
by the collector of internal revenue, which are affixed to the outside of 
each and every package, and thereon canceled as the law directs. There 
is also a caution notice attached to each package, warning the public 
against using the package again as a container for olconuirgarine. The 
law also provides for the manner in which a retailer shall make sales. 
That the goods shall be sold by him from the original package, in quan- 
tities not to exceed 10 pounds, and when so sold shall be packed by 
him in new wooden or paper packages, with his name and address, the 
number of pounds in the package, and the word oleomargarine in one- 
quarter inch letters, plainly stamped thereon, so that the purchaser 
may be advised of the contents of the package. Heavy penalties are 
fixed for failure to comj)ly with any of these provisions. 

The Government is also authorized to conliscate any oleomargarine 
that iu its judgment is impure, unwholesome, or in any way deleteri- 
ous to health, and it is further i)rovided that the Commissioner of 
Internal K'evenue is authorized, with the approval of the Secretary of 
the Treasury, to make all needful regulations for the carrying into 
eftect of this act. This bill was given careful consideration ; was tinally 
amended by striking out the 10 cent per pound tax and substituting in 
lieu thereof a tax of 2 cents per pound, alter which it became a law, 
and the lobby that was instrumental in securing its passage were cor- 
respondingly jubilant. The prediction was freely made that oleomar- 
garine bad received its quietus. But the manufacturers, recognizing 
the merit in their product, accepted the new condition of things and 
inaugurated a campaign of education. To educate the public as to the 
merits and use of an article is not an easy task. This is particularly 
true when the producers and agents of a rival product resort to ques- 
tionable and vicious means to prevent that end. To educate the public 
to the use of oleomargarine has required a vast amount of energy and 
the expenditure of large sums of money annually. In Chicago alone, 
the center of the manufacturing industry in this line, thousands of dollars 
is spent monthly in displaying large artistic sign posters Irom 20 to 00 
feet long and 10 to 20 feet high, extolling the merits of oleomargarine. 

Demonstrations of the product can be seen in the largest concerns in 
every market, and tons of it are given away yearly to bring about a 
true realization of its merits, and how well it has succeeded is demon- 
strated in the increase of sales since 1886. The first fiscal year of 
oi)eration under the then new Federal law, the total sales in the United 
States were about 21,000,000 pounds, while this year the aggregate 
output will be iu the neighborhood of 100,000,000 pounds. Could any 
better object lesson be used to convince you, gentlemen, of the merits 
of oleomargarine, when it is borne in mind that every new convert to 
the ranks as a dealer in it immediately becomes the target for persecu- 
tion at the hands of the butter trust and its agents! 

One of the old charges against oleomargarine, in days gone by, was 



olp:()Margarine. 703 

that it was uuwholesome, and consequently its niaiiufacture and sale 
should be prohibited. This ar<>ument, false in its in('ei)tion, is now 
considered crude, and is never used by intelligent defamers of the 
article. Unfortunately, however, a misguided and overzealous orator 
is occasionally found who, in his anxiety to make a damaging state- 
ment, will so far forget himself as to reflect upon its purity and whole- 
someness. People of this class are generally O])]iosed to adxanced ideas 
along any line, and continue their harangue against improvements of 
all kinds until they are caught and crushed beneath the wheels of 
progress, and their funeral is usually small. 

It is a well established fact that the methods employed in the manu- 
facture of oleomargarine are of a scientific nature; that the buildings 
and appurtenances are of modern kind and latest improvement, insur- 
ing perfect sanitation and ventilation, as well as absolute cleanliness 
in every department. Of the i)roduct itself, Jollies and Winckler, 
ofiicial chemists of the Austrian Government, after a searching investi- 
gation, report that the only germs ever present in oleomargarine are 
tljose common to air and water. Althongli carefully sought for, tuber- 
cular bacilli and other obnoxious bacilli Avere cons])icuously absent, 
and to-day there is no recognized scientific authority in this country 
or any other that does not indorse oleomargarine as a healthiul food 
product. 

We have heretofore refrained from attacking butter and the methods 
of its manufacture, but Mr. Edward Chadwick, manager of a large cream- 
ery at Osgood, Iowa, in a letter to his patrons, which was published in 
the columns of the Chicago Dairy Produce, the official organ of the 
dairy people, says: 

A good deal of milk is brought in dirty, because not strained at home, and no 
ett'ort made to keej) straws or tiltii out of it. Some of the cans are seldom or never 
properly washed, and a thick coatins; of sticky filth may be scraped off them, both 
inside and out. I Ciin strain the milU, run it through the sei)arator, and remove a 
large part of the dirt, but no butter maker on earth can remove the tainted and filthy 
smell that milk gets from staying in unclean cans in bad-smelling barns. Some of 
our patrons would be horrified if they saw the dirt and filth 1 remove from my 
strainer and sep:irator. Does anybody think that a bar of soap, a chunk of stable 
manure, potatoes, parsnips, dish lags, or hairpins soaking in your cans overnight 
or longer will improve the flavor ol the milk? I have found all of the above and 
more in the strainer of the weigh can. How can good butter be made from such 
milk? Wlien you send your iar to the creamery for butter for your own use, what 
would you say if 1 shoubl put some of the dirt I find in yonr milk on top of the 
butter in your jar? Yon would return that butter to the en amery, and be mad 
besides. If the butter maker would return your dirty milk to yonr home he would 
be doing his duty, although it would make you mad. 

In addition to the above, recent experiments in Chicago have dem- 
onstrated the fact that a large percentage of the dairy herds of the 
Northwest are infected with tuberculosis. The deadly character of 
these germs is only too well known, and the introduction of them into 
the human system through the use of contaminated milk or butter is 
conceded by every recognized authority. 

This, gentlemen, is a fair cotnparison of the advantages and disad- 
vantages under which the two products are manufactured. Now the 
contention is advanced by the parties interested in the |)assage of this 
bill that they do not want oleomargarine coloied in imitation of natural 
butter, and I want to say most emphatically to the members of this 
committee that oleomargarine is not colored to represent natural but- 
ter, and turther, that, practically speaking, no such thing as natural 
butter is ol'tered for sale in any market. It is all artificially colored, 
and further, that if not artificially coloicd six months out of the year 
it could not be sold other than at a sacrifice. Why are these people 



704 OLEOMAEGAKIlSrE. 

not honest in tlieir statements, and why is it that they attempt to con- 
ceal tbe fact tliat butter is artificially colored and is not natural, as they 
falsely represent it to be? Why should the producers of butter, who 
are the framers of this bill, attempt to secure to tliemselves the exclu- 
sive use of color when the nianutacturer of oleomargarine is responsible 
for its introduction as an article of commerce? Their answer is : To pre- 
vent oleomargarine being sold as butter. Well, then, I say : Let the ])ro- 
(lucers of butter discontinue the useof artificial color and sell their butter 
in its natural state and no one will be deceived in purchasing oleomar- 
garine. Is it not as fair a ]>roposition to say that butter should be sold 
free from color as to deny its use in a rival product? Is this question 
not pertinent when it is remembered that the article of color is the 
property of the oleomargarine manufacturer by right of priority and 
constant use? 

With the introduction of oleomargarine, the very nature of the article 
made it necessary to introduce a substance that would make it pleas- 
ing to the eye, and the result was the use of a color. The producers of 
butter were quick to see the advantages derived from the use of this 
color, and it is now used in common by oleomargarine and butter 
makers alike. , From this it would appear tliat if any rights are to be 
jnotected by legislative enactment, in so far as color is concerned, the 
makers of oleomargarine are entitled to such protection, and we 
emi)hatically protest against the passage of any law that gives to the 
dairy interest exclusive rights on color and denies that right to our- 
selves. 

It has been stated to your committee, by speakers on the other side 
of this question, that they represented the great dairy interests of the 
country as well as the consumers of butter, but, gentlemen, no evidence 
has been submitted here in support of this remarkable statement, and 
I doubt if the sj^eaker had as many jiroxies as he desired to lead you 
to believe he had. 

I also join issue with the statement that large quantities of oleomar- 
garine are sold as butter. The records of the Internal Kevenue Office 
show that out of the 80,000,000 pounds marketed in the United States 
last year only 1 per cent of it was sold in violation of law. 

A significant fact that speaks volumes for the makers of oleomar- 
garine, and the honest and conscientious manner in which it is sold, is 
evidenced by the fact that no consumer has ever prosecuted a dealer 
for violating a State or Federal law, or for selling him oleomargarine 
when butler was called for, notwithstanding the fact that last year the 
agents of the butter trust in Chicago offered through the daily press a 
tempting standing reward for any information against dealers who sold 
oleomargarine for butter. They also tendered the services of their 
chemists to anyone for the puri)ose of analyzing samples of any butter 
bought by them that was suspected of being oleomargarine, and in the 
event of the discovery that fraud or decei)tion was practiced by the 
dealer in making the sale they would assume the prosecution of the 
case and defray all expenses incident thereto. Even this method failed 
to ])rodnce the evidence they were so anxious to secure, and not a single 
violation was reported to them. As a matter of fact the comparative 
price at which oleomargarine and butter are sold by the retailer precludes 
the possibility of deceiving the customer as to the identity of oleomar- 
garine, the retail i)rice of which varies during the year from 12 cents to 
20 cents per pound. 

In rei)]y to the contention of Mr. Cliarles Y. Knight, who submits in 
his brief for your consideration a copy in part of some of the corre- 



OLEOMARGAKINE. 706 

sponrtence of the William J. Moxley Corporation, that was sent to its 
customers at various times, touching- on the color question and the 
liability of prosecutions that would naturally follow if the letters of the 
Illinois J^airy Union were to be taken seriously. 

Now, as to color; it is a well known fact that large dealers in butter 
or oleomargarine will display and sell goods of different colors, and 
they find it necessary to do so in order to suit the requirements of their 
different customers. Then, too, some particular district will use an 
article that could not be sold in another market by reason of its being 
too high or too light in color to properly appeal to the consumer's taste. 
For example, the markets of the South, notably in St. Louis and New 
Orleans, order what is known to the tiade as an orange or brick color, 
and it is popular with certain ])eople in those districts, while in other 
sections of the country it could not be sold at all, as a different shade 
of color is demanded and the concern who issued the color card referred 
to, recognizing- the importance of every detail of its business, did so 
for the purpose of avoiding confusion, by sui)plyiug its customers with 
goods that would suit in color the requirements of their trade. There 
is no deception practiced or intended, nor could there be, as the internal- 
revenue law and regulations apply to all our product, regardless of the 
amount of color used. 

In July, 1899, an attorney in Chicago, Hugh V. Murray, claiming to 
represent the Illinois Dairy Union, an organization that had no legal 
existence, as it had never applied for or been granted a charter to oper- 
ate under, but was composed of a few jobbers in butter in South Water 
street, issued a letter over this assumed title, in which he said that the 
Illinois Dairy Union had retained him to prosecute dealers who vio- 
lated the State laws in selling- oleomargarine, when he well knew that 
the State law had been declared unconstitutional in every court in 
which a case had been bronght in Illinois. It was in reply to this let- 
ter, and a similar one issued by Mr. Knight, who claimed to be the sec- 
retary of the same organization, that we agreed through our circular 
letter to defend our customers against prosecutions brought by these 
people under the name of this assumed organization, and in doing so 
it was not our purpose to defend violations of a law or to encourage any 
dealer to commit violations thereof, but we simply endeavored to pro- 
tect our business against a law that had already been declared uncon- 
stitutional, and none but legitimate methods were employed in defense 
of our customers; and 1 desire to be fully understood when I rejieat 
that it is our purpose to continue the defense of cases brought against 
our customers by irresponsible organizations and agents ot renovated 
butter manufacturers until tUe Supreme Court passes upon the consti- 
tutionality of the laws in question, and we will then abide by their 
decision. 

A vast amount of importance seems to attach itself to the correspond- 
ence received by members of Congress from country districts urging the 
passage of this bill as a protection to the dairy interests. It may be of 
interest to you gentlemen to know through what channels this corre- 
sjiondein-e i»asses before reaching meM)bers in Washington. These 
appeals ibr i)iotection are compiled and printed by one man in South 
Water street, in Chicago, and mailed by him broadcast to the rural 
districts throughout the country, with a ])ers()nal letter asking the party 
addressed to sign and direct the letter furnished him to his liepresenta- 
tivein Congress, and as a reward for his trouble extend to him the hope 
of a permanent increase in the price of his butter if they are successful 
in destroying the oleomargarine industry. Would it not be as well to 

S. Rep. 2043 45 



706 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

minimize the labor and expense, and at the same time insure the earlier 
receipt of these letters by tlie parties for wliom they are intended, if they 
were mailed direct from Chicago, and without any interference on the 
part of the fanner or dairyman who simply atlixes his signature! 

The people who are opposed to this measure include all classes of citi- 
zens, from the man who represents vast and diversified business inter- 
ests to the laborer, who is the consumer, and who deman<ls it as liis 
right that he be permitted to purchase his oleomargariue of a sightly 
color without additional <J(mgressional restrictions, and at miuinium 
cost. They have sent their solemn protest to you against this pernicious 
piece of class legislation. They are the ])archasers ami the consumers 
of this article, and their demands and their rights in this matter should 
certainly be respected. Thetoilerobjects to drawing the line of demarca- 
tion between brawn and wealth in a manner to give ocular demonstra- 
tion of his poverty by compelling him to purchase his substitute for 
butter white, or do without it. The great central body at Chi<;ago of 
the Federation of Labor have placed their stamp of disapproval on this 
bill, and other organizations throughout the country have iollowed their 
example, or are preparing to do so, and a statement to the contrary in 
a brief submitted for your perusal is probably as truthful as the other 
statements therein contained. The same i)arty makes a vicious, base- 
less, and unwarranted attack on the Government officials under whose 
jurisdiction these goods are made and sold. These gentlemen need no 
defense before this committee, but in all fairness 1 am im[)elled to say 
that I never met one who was not active and conscientious in the dis- 
charge of his duty, and the statement reflecting on the integrity of these 
officials is cowardly, false, and unjust. 

1 am fully convinced if this question was honestly explained to, and 
thoroughly understood by, the farmers of this country, that they would 
join with the others and ourselves in protesting against the passage ot 
this bill. There is not a single ingredient that enters into the compo- 
sition of oleomargarine that is not the product of the farm, and whose 
market value is not increased by its introduction as a commercial prod- 
uct through this channel. 

Gentlemen, as an American citizen, I can not allow myself to believe 
that Congress will permit itself to be used as a bumper between rival 
industries. Congress was never intended to exercise its legislative 
l)owers in such a manner as to confer rights upon one industry that 
would cause the total destruction of a rival business, and this is what 
the trainers of the Grout bill are asking you to do. 

Gentlemen, 1 solemnly j)rotest against unwise and vicious legislation 
of tliis kind, and 1 ai)[)eal to your business judgment when you deliber- 
ate on this question among yourselves. 1 protest against the passage 
of the Grout bill; it is an invasion of our rights; it is practically a con- 
fiscation of our property interests, an injustice to the producer aud 
consumer alike. 

Now, in addition to this, gentlemen, I have brought down some sam- 
ples of oleomargarine in original packages that are ]mt up as the jires- 
ent law directs, and with your permission, I would like to show you 
how it is done. 

liepresentative Neville. Will you answer a question or two before 
you do that? 

Mr. Dadie. Yes, sir. 

liepresentative Neville. When you state that only 1 per cent of the 
amount that is sold in the United States Was sold fraudulently or for 
butter instead of butterine, do you mean that that amount was sold by 



OLEOMARGAKINE. 7Q7 

the mamifacturers, or do you mean that thnt 1 per cent is the total 
amount which has ever been sold by the retailers? 

Mr. Dadie. That is the total amount. 

Kei)resentative Neville. All that has been sold by the retailers, 
with the manufacturers' sales, amounted to only 1 per cent of the 
total amount sold? 

Mr. Dadie. Yes, sir. 

Kepresentative Neville. Now, in Nebraska we have a law which 
absolutely prohibits the sale of oleomargarine in the color of butter, or 
colored as butter. While last year, with 1,058,910 population 

The Chairman. Mr. Neville, 1 would suggest that we have quite a 
number of witnesses here, and 1 think you ought to confine your 
thoughts to questions. 

Representative Neville. That is my intention. 

The Chairman. You can take up the balance of the time of the 
committee with two or three questions in that way. 

Kepresentative Neville. My intention is sim])ly to ask questions; 
that is all. Now, in Nebraska there was sold 1,024,985 pounds, by 73 
dealers, colored as butter; and I find that in all the States together 
which sold butter where there was an anticolor law, there was more 
butterine sold, or a total of 62,825,582 pounds, as against 16,860,142 
pounds in the States where there were no such laws. 

]\lr. Dadie. I have no doubt but what those things that you have 
nientiojied were sold as oleomargarine, and not as butter. 

Ue])resentative Neville. What do you say as to the people who 
enter the hotels and are getting butterine or oleomargarine every day? 
Do they believe that is butterine or do they think it is butter? 

j\lr, Dadie. My experience has been that in a hotel, now, people 
imagine they are getting oleomargarine all the time. 

Kei)resentative Neville. You think that is what they think they 
are getting. Now, I would like to ask you another question or two. 
You state that you are the originators of the ]>rocess of coloring matter 
in oleomargarine, and that you used it prior to any color having been 
used in butter. Do you mean to assert that as a fact? 

Mr. Dadie. I am talking about a commercial product. Everybody 
knows that on a farm, before oleomargarine was ever invented, the 
])eople used to grate carrots and use other things to color their butter. 
But it is a fact that butter has not been colored to any extent until 
after oleomargarine was manufactured and colored, and that the intro- 
duction of color is the result of the introduction of oleomargarine as an 
arti(;le of commerce. 

Representative Neville. Is it not true that oleomargarine was dis- 
covered as a product and first manufactured at the time of the Franco- 
Prussian war as a necessity in France? 

Mr. Dadie. I believe that is true. 

Representative Neville. Now, do you pretend to assert that butter 
was not colored in creameries in the United States prior to that time? 

Mr. Dadie. I have no recollection of any color being used j^rior to 
that time. As a matter of fact creameries are an invention of about 
the same date. 

Rei)resentative Neville. Well, I do not think so. I think I know 
creameries that existed before that time. You may assert that that is 
not true; but that is merely a diiference of memory, perhaps. 

Now, I want to ask you this qiu'stion. You state that butter is col- 
ored in the winter time in order to make it look like June butter, or 
butter that was made from cattle fed upon green grass. I want to ask 



708 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

you if the coloring that is added to the butter adds anything to its 
nutritious quality as a food product? 

Mr. Dadie. It simply adds to its appearance, I presume. 

Eepresentative Neville. It simply adds to its appearance. Now, I 
desire to ask you if that is true with reference to the color used in 
oleomargarine. Does that color add to its nutritious quality? 

Mr. Dadie. The same rule would apply there. It is simply 
added 

Representative Neville. It does not add anything, then, to its 
nutritious quality, but simply adds to its ap[>earance? 

Mr. Dadie. Exactly. 

Representative Neville. Now, you understand that if this bill 
becomes a law it will permit you to manufacture oleomargarine without 
coloring matter in it; and it would be just as nutritious without it, 
would it not? 

Mr. Dadie. Yes; I understand that; but I also undei stand 

Rei)resentative Neville. Now, would not that be manufactured and 
sold cheai)er to the laboring people than it is sold when it is colored so 
as to appear to be butter? 

The Chairman. Now, Mr. Neville, he undertook to answer one 
question, and I think it is only fair tbat one question be asked and 
answered at a time. 

Representative Neville. I did not intend to interrupt him. 

The Chairman. I suggest that the gentleman be i)ermitted to an- 
swer your first question before you ask him another. 

Representative Neville. Well, let the stenographer read that ques- 
tion to him. 

The stenographer thereupon read the following question and answer: 

Now, you understand that if this bill becomes a law it will permit you to manu- 
facture oleomargarine without coloring matter in it; and it would be just as nutri- 
tious without it, would itnotf 

Mr. Dadie: Yes; I understand that, but I also understand 

The Witness (continuing). But it is also a fact that uncolored but- 
terine could not be sold any more than uncolored butter could, and that 
butterine is colored for the same purpose that you peoi)le color butter — 
to make it more attractive to the eye, and consequently more palatable. 

Representative Neville. You say '*you people." I am not a dairy- 
man by any means. I am not engaged in the business. 

Mr. Dadie. I am talking about the dairy peojile. 

Representative Neville. Now as a matter of fact, then, the coloring 
simply adds to the appearance, you state; and you say you could not 
sell it if it was left uncolored? 

Mr. Dadie. It would be practically prohibition. 

Representative Neville. Now, let me call your attention to a letter 
written by your firm. You represent W. J. Moxley, do you not? 

Mr. Dadie. Yes, sir. 

Representative Neville. This is a notice to the trade, dated April 
5, 181)9, from your firm. In that letter you say: 

In nearly every section of the country there is a ditt'erence in the color of buiter, 
and even in certain seasons of the year there is a change, as you will have noticed. 
In winter butter is of a lighter color than in summer; in many sections this is the 
result of the dilFerence in feed or pasture. We can give you just what yon want at 
all seasons, if we know your reiiuirein.nts. 

Now, I ask if that was intended for the ])urpose of giving notice to 

your trade that they could sell your ai tide as butter or as butterine? 

Mr. Dadie. No, sir; it was intended for just exactly what it said. 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 709 

As I said in this tnamiscript, there are certain sections of the conntry 
that re(iuire certain shades of color. It was for the purpose of meeting' 
tlie wants of those people iu those parts of the country that we issued 
that circular. 

llepresentative ^STevillk. Now, you say as au example, in the notice, 
"No. 1 has no coloring matter." Do you sell any of that? 

Mr. Dadik. Occasionally. 

Eepresentative ]Seville. You could sell it, then, if, as a matter of 
fact, it is just as nutritious and just as wholesome, if the people really 
wanted butterine or oleomargarine, could you not? 

Mr. Dadie. Occasionally you will find in a German settlement a 
party who will order a oOpound case of it. 

Eepresentative Stokes. Let me ask a question there. 

Mr. Dadie. Certainly. 

Kepresentative Stokes. What proportion of your trade or of your 
orders would probably be for that kind of oleomargarine? 

Mr. Dadie. Wby, the percentage would be so small that it would 
be hard to compute it. 

Eepresentative Allen. I would like to ask if you know Mr. Cohen, 
the revenue man? 

Mr. Dadie. Yes, sir. 

Kepresentative Allen. What do you know of him personally, as to 
his character or standing as a man? 

Mr. Dadie. He is a uuin of high standing in Chicago. 

Eej)resentative Allen. Has there ever been any reflection there 
against his honesty and integrity, so far as you know? 

Mr. Dadie. Not so far as I know; no, sir. 1 never heard of any 
such thing. 

Eepresentative Allen. Is he a native resident of Chicago? 

Mr. Dadie. Yes, sir. 

Eepresentative Allen. Now, I would like to ask you further if 
you know of William Y. Broadwell? 

Mr. Dadie. Yes, sir; I do. 

Eepresentative Allen. There have been exhibited here some origi- 
nal packages of the wrappings of oleomargarine, and the stamp has 
been imi)ressed upon the corner of the wrapper, and turned down in 
that manner [indicating], so as not to be seen by the purchaser. What 
do you know about that? 

Mr. Dadie. I understand that charge has been made against him; 
but there are about 2,500 licensed dealers in the first district of Illi- 
nois, and it ai^pears that this man Broadwell is about the only one 
against whom tlicy have been able to get any cases of that kind. 

Eepresentative Allen. You say he is one out of about 2,500? 

Mr. Dadie. One out of about 2,'5()0. 

Eepresentative Alien. Of the retail dealers? 

Mr. Dadie. Eetail licensed dealers iu that district. 

Eepresentative Allen. Are you a manufacturer or retail dealer? 

Mr. Dadie. A mannfacturer. 

Eepresentative Allen. You are a manufacturer? 

Mr. Dadie. Yes, sir. 

Eepresentative Neville. Excuse me, Mr. Allen. Would you mind 
telling this committee the ingredients and quantity of each ingredient 
iu the manufacture of oleomai'garine? 

Mr. Dadie. That (juestion 1 would rather not answer in the way it is 
put. The quantities of tiie different ingredients are one of the secrets 
of the trade: but 1 will say that they vary with the grades made. 



710 OLEOMARGAEIlSrE. 

Kepresentative Seville. Then, as a matter of fact, you, as tlie 
dealer and the manufacturer and tlie seller of tin's ]»roduct for the con- 
sumption of the peoi)le of the United States, want them to take your 
word absolutely for it that no ingredient is put into the manulacture of 
the article which would injure their stomachs"? 

Mr. Dadie. No, sir; that is not right. The present law regulates 
that. The ingredients used in the manufacture of oleomargarine are 
reported to the Internal Ivevenue department, and when there is any- 
thing used that in their judgment is deleterious to the public health, 
they immediately can confiscate these goods. The chemist connected 
with the department is the party who is supposed to look after that 
matter, aiul his judgment in things of that kind is final. 

Kepresentative Neville. Now, do you mean to be understood that 
your firm, in the manufacture of oleomargarine, manufactures it differ- 
ently and from different ingredients from what other manufacturers in 
this country and in other countries do? 

Mr, Dadie. I presume that we use the same ingredients. We pos- 
sibly differ a little as to the amounts used, and we may differ somewhat 
in the way we handle them. 

The AcTiNa Chaieman. You do not object to telling what you do 
use, do you? 

Mr. Dadie. Oh, no, no. 

The Acting Chairman. Suppose you tell the committee what the 
ingredients are. 

Kepresentative Williams. It is just the proportions which you 
dechne to tell? 

Mr. Dadie. That is all. The ingredients used are oleo oil, what is 
known as neutral lard, cotton seed oil, milk and cream, color, and salt. 
Occasionally a little butter is used. 

The Chairman. Mr. Dadie has some samples which he wishes to 
show us. We have only five minutes left, and I suggest that he bring 
them over and show them to the committee. 

Kepresentative Williams. Mr. Chairman, before that is done per- 
mit me to make one suggestion. One of the objects ot the meeting has 
failed by lack of time. There are various gentlemen here from Arkan- 
sas, Tennessee, and Mississippi, and I ask that the committee have 
another meeting, and that the secretary be requested to give notice of 
it, say, to-morrow morning at half ])ast 10, to hear these other gentle- 
men. It will be impossible to do it to day. 

Kepresentative Allen. Why not meet to night? 

Representative Williams, Because the House takes up this Porto 
Rican question at 12 o'clock, and we have got to go there. 

Representative Allen. I mean to-night. 

Representative Williams. That would suit me if it would other 
members of the committee as well. 

Representative Allen. Well, suppose we make it to morrow morn- 
ing, then ? 

The Chairman. Then it will be understood that we will meet to- 
morrow morning at half past 10 o'clock, or 10 o'clock, if that would be 
more accei>table to the gentlemen. It would certainly give more time. 

Representative Wright. I would like to ask just one question. 
Referring to that letter from the head of an industry in Iowa, showing 
the impurities in the cream and milk, I want to ask you how you treat 
the part of the cream and milk you use iii nuiking your product so as 
to take out those impurities? 

Mr. Dadie. Well, we have a process of curing and ripening 



OLEOMARGARINE. 711 

Representative Wright. But it takes tliem all out? 

Mr. Dadie. We attempt to do so. 

Eepresentative Wright. It makes it absolutely pure? 

Mr. Dadik. That is one of the things that we attempt to do, and 
we think we are quite successful in it, as the chemists are unable to 
liiid any of those germs or bacteria that are found in butter. 

Now, here is the cover of what is called a solid packed tub, 0!i which 
you will see printed "Oleomargarine, factory No. 5, First district of 
Illinois." This is the gross, tarQ, and net weight of the package. 
Every cover on an original package of oleomargarine as put up by the 
manufacturer has that same brand on it. The tub itseW' then carries 
the internal-revenue stamp, which is nailed on with five tacks and 
canceled Avith wavy lines as you see here, in addition to which we i)ut 
on a caution notice, warning the public against the use of the package 
again as a container for oleo. 

A Member. Can the retail dealer take it out in pound packages'? 

Mr. Dadie. Yes, sir; he is obliged to take it out in any quantity 
that the buyer may wish. The retail dealer is not allowed to sell the 
original package. 

1 Representative Williams. But when he does take it out he is com- 
pelled by the law to put it either in a wooden or i)aper wrapper con- 
taining the words "oleomargarine" and the quantity. 

Kei)resentative Lamb. Yes, and then he sells it as butter and as 
oleomargarine, both, lie sells it as oleomargarine to one customer, 
and as butter to another. 

Representative Williams. There are men who violate all laws, and 
that is a violation of law, if it is done. 

Mr. Dadie, Here, gentlemen, is what is known as a case. You will 
find that is marked in the same way. Here is the manner in which the 
retailer is compelled to stamp every package that he sells. That is 
one of the regulations. That is the present law. You will notice that 
there is a blank space left, so that he can till in the number of pounds 
he sells. 

Now, there [producing another sami)le] is a print. You will notice 
the word " oleomargarine" stamped right in the wrapper. The present 
regulation compels every manufacturer who puts a printed wrapper on 
a print to add the word "oleomargarine" to the other matter that he 
may put on it. 

A Member. Is that your first quality of goods? 

Mr. Dadie: No, sir. 

Representative Neville. Now, Mr. Dadie, I saw a little pani]>hlet 
the other day — 1 have it at my office — with regard to a package some- 
thing similar to this, with a brand on toj) of it, "Best Jersey oleomar- 
garine." 

Mr. Dadie. Yes, sir. 

K'epresentative Neville. I think that was the exacfc wording. 
Now, does that indicate that the oleo in that brand of oleomargarine 
comes from Jersey cattle? Is that the idea? 

Mr, Dadie: Oh, I could not say as to that. We do not manufacture 
that brand. 

Now, here is a sample that is uncolored. 

liepresentative Williams. That is not colored at all? 

]\lr, Dadie, No, sir. There [producing sample] is a sample of pure 
butter, gentlemen. That is absolutely pure, and without color. 

Representative Williams. Who made this? 

Mr. Dadie. 1 made that at the factory iu Chicago. Here is a sam- 



712 OLEOMARGARIlSrE. 

pie of nnrolorerl oleomargarine, wliat tliey want ns to put up. ISTow, 
in addition to tiiat, I have different sliades of color. I want to call 
your attention to tliese different shades of color that are required by 
different dealers. And 1 want to call your attention ])articularly to 
the manner in which the manufacturer is obliged to put his oleo up. 

(After informal discussion among members of the committee:) 

The Chairman. Will you state, for the benetit of the committee, 
where these differ! 

Mr. Dadie. As I said in the paper that I read, there are certain 
customers throughout the country who require different colors of butter. 
You will notice that these different shades here vary from absolutely 
no color to one that is very high. 

Ilepresentative Neville. JNIr. Dadie, T would like to ask you another 
question. If, as a matter of fact, you think a majority of the people 
are looking for butterine wlien they go into the hotels and restaurants, 
and ex])ect to be served with butterine, and that as a matter of fact it 
is an article that does sell on its own merits, and not by reason of its 
imitation of another product, to wit, butter, why in your letter did you 
use the word "butter" instead of "butterine" or "oleomargarine" 
when asking with reference to tlieir trade and their demands'? 

Mr. Dadie. Well, I presume the word "oleomargarine" could have 
been used to just as good advantage. 

Thereupon the committee adjourned until Thursday, Ax)ril 12, 1900, 
at 10 o'clock a. m. 



April 12, 1900. 

The subcommittee on the Bureau of Animal Industry of the Com- 
mittee on Agriculture met at 10.30 o'clock a. m., Hon. William Lorimer 
in the chair. 

The Chairman. Mr. Hobbs, the committee can hear you now, if you 
are ready. 

STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN S. HOBBS, EDITOR OF THE NATIONAL 
PROVISIONER, OF NEW YORK AND CHICAGO. 

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I will read the papei 
which I have prepared. 

BUTTER AND BUTTERINE AS FOODS. 

A great deal has been said lately about the public health and about 
pure and impure foods. Most of this has been said by laymen and 
those who ring their statements upon their pocket interests; mostly 
by the butter sellers and not by the milk farmers. Scientists have no 
pocket interest at stake. According to Koenig, the noted European 
expert, normal salted butter contains: 

Per cent. 

Fat - 87.00 

Caseiu 05 

Milk sugar 05 

Miueral matter 03 

Water 11.7 

Total 100.00 



OLEOMARGARINE. 



Market butter contains; 



Minimum. 



Maximum. 



Fat 

Caseiu 

Milk sugar ... 
Mineral water 
Water 



Per cent. 

76.37 

.19 

.85 

.06 

5.50 

100. 00 



Per cent. 

83.27 

.71 

.58 

.95 

14.49 



100. 00 



Wing, the American authority, gives the following av^erages of an 
equal number of samples of salted butter and oleomargarine, the 
samples in each case being taken for the consumptive stock in the 
ordinary way of trade: 



Normal 
salted 
butter. 



Oleomar- 
garine. 



Fat 

Ca.sein 

Salt 

Water 

Total 



Per cent. 

85. 00 
1.00 
3.00 

11.00 



Per cent. 
87.16 
.43 

2.08 
10.33 



100. 00 



100. 00 



Casein is principally nitrogen. Its office in the human system is to 
form muscle, tendons, tissues, blood, etc. 

Fat in nutrition is tlie heat producer. It supplies warmth to the 
body and prevents the body from eating up the nitrogenous foods for 
the production of the needed warmth. 

The glycerides, or fugitive volatile acids of what is called creamery 
butter, are merely tiavors without any food value whatever. In their 
rancid state they are, on the contrary, harmful to the system. They 
are in no sense a nutrient. 



DIGESTIBILITY OF THE BUTTERS. 

Professor Atwater, of Wesleyan University, after exhaustive experi- 
ments finds that the digestibility of butter fat is 96 per cent and 
butterine about the same. There was no practical difference in the 
digehtibility of the fats of butter and of butterine. 

11. Luehrig, the eminent German scientist, found, as a result of his 
recent investigations of commercial oleomargarine, which he bought in 
the open market, that its digestibility was 90.7 to 9.).93 per cent, while 
Holstein dairy butter, purchased in tiie same manner and experimented 
with in the same way, digested 95.90 per cent, a practical verification 
of Atwater. The experiments with these butter substances were, the 
scientist tells us, "carried out on a strong, healthy man, 29 years old 
and possessed of v^onnd normal digestion." 

J. C. Dufit", S, B., the chief chemist of the National Provisioner Labo- 
ratory, official chemist of the Isew York Produce Exchange, after a 
long series of careful tests with butter and butterine reached the 
following conclusions: 

Tbe nutritive value of botli Initter and hntterine consists almost entirely of fats. 
The quantities of fats are tlie same in both; the fats of butterine contain nothinj? 



714 OLEOlVfAEGAElNE. 

that the fats of butter do not eontain, hence there can be no difference in the food 
values of them, except that the thermal or heat-producing properties of the butter- 
ine fats are superior to those of butter, and consequently more valuable to the 
human system as a food. 

The digestibility of the respective fats are alike. Repeated experiments have 
shown this to be true. Numberless analyses of butterine have shown it to be abso- 
lutely free from any and all deleterious substances. 

The melting points of all samples of butterine which I have examined have, with 
no single exception, been as high as the temperature of the human stomach, thus 
showing its free capability of thorough assimilation and of free digestion. 

I desire to digress here to say that this cliemist has experimented 
with samples from oii^iiial packages which the laboratory had 
received or had taken by its own agents from the commercial stocks 
in every CTOvernmeut-inspected butterine factory in the United States, 
with the exception of the factory in Washington — The National Dairy 
Company, I believe it is called — and with the exception of the Clover- 
dale Factory, at Camden, N. J. 

Mr. Duff continues: 

I unhesitatingly pronounce butterine, as manufactured today in Government — 
insjiejted factories, to be equal in every respect— healthfulness, assimilability, 
purity, digestibility, and hygienic value — to creamery butter. 

Butter itself has about 8 per cent of volatile acids. This constitutes the differ- 
ence between the two substances. It is flavor. When these volatile acids are 
imparted to butterine the difference between the two products both jihysically and 
chemitalUy disappear. 

HEAT-PRODUCING FATS. 

The heat-producing value of different fats is as follows: 

Calories 

oriiiiils. 

Fat of sheep 9,406 

Fat of swine 9. S80 

Fat of oxen 9,357 

Butter fat U, 192 

THE BIRTH OF BUTTERINE. 

Mege-Mouries, a French chemist of note, in response to the wish of 
Napoleon III for a cheaper butter for tlie sailors and the poor, devised 
and patented the process for making oleomargarine. This cheaper 
nutritious butter was thus discovered and first made in 1869. It has 
been made and eaten ever since then. Americans and Europeans 
simply perfected the modern product and processes for cleaning and 
purifying its ingredients to a greater degree. 

The French colored oleoniargarine, too, before the American dairy- 
men found that this coloring evened up his rich and his poor butter to 
one selling standard. Then, finding the deception a good one, the 
dairyman desires the sole right, after stealing the hue of Napoleon's 
poor man butter, to use coloring in butter. 

Good butter fat, according to Dr. H. W. Wiley, chief of the division 
of chemistry of the United States Department of Agriculture, contains: 

Per cent. 
Olein 37.70 

l^^*''!!^ '- 153.00 

Palmitm I 

Total 90.10 

Now, beef fat consists mainly of stearin, palmitin, and olein, just 
like butter does. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 715 

Cotton-seed oil contains 25 to 30 per cent of stearin, some palmitin, 
and much olein. 

Tlie essential difference between these fats and butter fat is butyric 
flavor. But this flavor has no food value whatever. A bacteria or 
microscopic jdant is now planted and developed in cream to enhance this 
butyric flavor or smell in butter. In doing so not a particle of nutri- 
tive value is added to the finished product. 

Tiiese innumerable bacteria plant^^ are called cultures — buttercultures. 
The dairymen of Europe, Denmark especially, ])lant these bacteria in 
cieam and develop them there to raise the smell. Now, if the butter- 
ine maker begins to plant these cream stinks, which have no food value, 
in liis product he will probably be jailed for fraudulent imitation of an 
artiticial component of butter on the idea that butter used them first. 

A PAINTED VIRGIN. 

The fact of the matter is that butter is a painted virgin of ill repute. 
Butter is far from being a faultlessly clean and harmless pioduct of 
irreproachable ancestry and character. Cold water will di aw off" but- 
ter's fugitive volatile oil and heat will cause it to escape. Then the 
two products of butter and butterine are physical and chemical equals, 
barring the matter of disease germs, which more often than not infest 
butter to the injury of the human species. 

Our dairies will not, as a rule, pasteurize or sterilize their cream, 
because it kills that sacred flavor. Without being so treated cream is 
a lurking evil. It is i)Ositively dangerous in its original raw and tuber- 
culous state, coming, as it does, from uninspected cows that giaze any- 
where, drink any sort of water, sleep in filth and foul influences, and 
exist in unsanitary surroundings and uncouth barns. 

As to the problematical healtlifulness of butter, an answer might 
well be drawn fiom the condition of the milk which yields the cream 
from which it is made. 

Ask the medical ])rofession — the practicing physicians — of this coun- 
try if they will recommend the use of cow's milk in hosi>itals and among 
children and weak i)eoi>Ie without its being first sterilized or pasteur- 
ized. Yet the dairies do not so treat the milk or the cream from 
which is made the butter about which we hear so much virtuous talk. 
Physicians will not prescribe raw milk in their practice. JNIind you. the 
cream of such milk is not more healthful than the original substances 
from which it was extracted. Call more witnesses. Ask the dairy 
inspectors, daiiy commissioners, and the boards of health of the vari- 
ous cities and States of this country about impure nnlk. The answer 
is always the same. Call even some more testimony. Ask the veteri- 
nary surgeons what have they found as to the invasion of the adder 
and to what extent this invasion is a fact in the dairy herd. The same 
lurid answer as to deadly germs and disease is given. Ask the agri- 
cultural exi)eriment stations of thiscountry, when they have examined 
milk and the cattle that give it, to what extent are the milch cows 
infected with dangers to our system. Ask the (luestion not only in our 
own land, but in all other countries. The answer, as I have heard it, 
is simply appalling. Yet the butter jjcojde stand up before Congress 
with their invalided product, produced from the milk of uninspected 
cows, and ask that the i)roduct made from sterilized cream and the 
imritied oils of Government-inspected stock be driven from the market 
for the unclean thing which we eat, and whose assassination of us we, 
excube simply because it smells nice. 



716 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Some years a^o I had the honor, in part, of representing a govern- 
ment whose liealth officers made an extensive inspection of the dairy- 
herds of a famous butter and cheese district. As a result of this 
inspection this competent officer found that more than half of the cows 
tlien in service were infected with tuberculosis in one stage or anotlier 
of that dread disease. No government in the world exercises greater 
precautions tlian did that one against cattle disease or paid greater 
attention to the condition of its dairy herds. I refer to an Australian 
government. Our own milch cows have not shown a better character 
tban the above. 

Mr. Allen. Do I understand you to use " oleomargarine " and 
" butterine" as synonymous'? 

Mr. HoBBS. Yes, sir; they are the same. It is simply a variety of 
expiession. 

So well establislied is this fact of the existence of the disease in milk 
and in the cows which furuish it in Europe that the pasteurizing of 
cream intended for human consumption, whether in butter or other- 
wise, is insisted upon and, in most quarters, enforced. 

I feel that most well informed men must admit the above as facts. 
If so, then, logically, butter needs more getting after and legislating 
against than (loes oleomargarine. That sort of legislation is needed in 
the interest of the public health. Butterine is harmless. Tliere is not 
an unhealthy thing in oleonmrgarine, while butter from unpasteurized 
milk is a hygienic problem, infested with tubercules and other fatal 
germs. 

THE BUTTER TRUST. 

Does Congress desire to form and weld together a butter trust? 
What are the market conditions? Creameries now get higher prices 
for commercial butter than ever before in the history of tbe industry; 
this, too, in the face of the fact that methods are cheaper to work out, 
machinery is cheaper, milk is no dearer — butter however is dearei. 
The milk farmer gets about $1.10 per 100 pounds of 5 x>er cent cream 
milk. About 15 cents worth of milk makes 1 pound of butter, for 
■which the grocers have i>aid as high as 30 cents per pound wholesale 
this year. It is lower now. The grocer sold it for 32 cents per pound, 
paying rent, hire, and other trade burdens to do so. The creamery 
folks made 15 cents per pound, and the grocer only got 2 cents per 
])oui;(l even after a lot of the water, for which he paid 30 cents per 
pound also, had evaporated after the butter reached his store. No 
wonder the butter factory doesn't wish to let the grocer sell butterine! 
This retailer is what is vulgarly called a " cinch " for him. Will C(m- 
gress step in on top of all this, put the requested 10 cents per pound 
additiouMtax on butterine, wipe the product from the market, and 
thus cement the strncture of the butter combine? The good sense of 
Congress is not yet ready, I feel, to mark up prices to the consumer, to 
mark up still higher the steep profit of the butter factory and in doing 
so imperil millions upon millions in legitimate fields affected by oleo- 
margarine and the manufacture of it. 

A FORTY PER CENT FRAUD. 

A butter legislator has been pleased to talk about circulating comiter- 
feit money. How about poor winter butter as a counterfeit and a fraud 
u})on theconsnmerin the guise of rich summer butter and at the price of 
it ? The winter butter of any cow is 30 to 40 per cent poorer in butter fats 



OLEOMARGARINE. 717 

tlian is the product from her rich summer cream. Butter color is used 
iiKstead of prass to cover up the diflereuce in rich quality. By this sim- 
])le dyeiu^' process the low grade, whitish, winter- waxy stuff is made to 
look like the superior summer substance and to sell for tlic same price. 
Cold storage is utilized to distribute the product evenly in the produce 
market. So this 40 per cent counterfeit is painted uj) and shoved out 
into the current of trade as the Simon pure virgin article. It is a fraud. 
It is poorer than even "blind tiger "butterine, and no better than much 
of the Western "real butter," which comes East from the dairies stutied 
with common hog lard — not leaf lard — even in its untreated state. 

UNDER COLOR COVER. 

Ilousewives know that oleomargarine is colored. They do not know 
that butter is artificially colored. On the contrary, they believe that 
real rich creamery butter is sold in its natural color and that the com- 
plexion of it as seen in the tub is that given to it by the cream of the 
cow. I ascertained the truth of this for myself in New York City. I 
interviewed more than 300 housewives in that city on their reasons for 
purchasing butter of such and such color. All but 8 of them purchased 
butter of certain colors because they thought that hue was given the 
substance by the natural richness of the cream; these generally pur- 
chased butter of lighter color because they feared that the others were 
artificially colored. Thus, in no instance, did a grocery shopper buy a 
butter which she thought was artificially colored. Yet all of these 
butters were artificial in color. Was the woman in each case deceived? 
Butterine is the same quality, whether colored or not. Tbat is not true 
of butter — when a 60 per cent tallowy white stuff goes mas(]uerading 
under the color of a 100 per cent pure article selling at the same price. 
If the light buff summer product — its natural color — were placed along 
side of the white winter wax on the same counter the housewife would 
severely let the poor white stuff alone. Yet some people ask Congress 
to tax a pure and a wholesome product that the dairies might get 
higher prices for their deceptions. 

The few noisy dairymen, and others that are not really dairymen, 
who go to form what is swung in under the high-sounding name of 
" The National Dairy Union," are a curious lot. They come together as 
a combine in convention and protest as a crowd ; they go home and pro- 
test again as separate concerns; then they stand out by themselves and 
protest as businesses; finally, they write individual protests to Con- 
gressmen. If you add them up, it is a big noise, but it is all done by 
the same 3,000 who claim to represent the 50,000 dairymen in this coun- 
try. The absence of the other 47,000 looks bad for the cause of these 
agitators. It may have been noticed in all of this noise that the public 
have not yet asked to be protected against oleomargarine. The chem- 
ists refuse to condemn it, and the grocers desire to sell it. 

You can not make oleomargarine very inferior. The low-grade ingre- 
dients will not mix. Paraffin is unnecessary in it. It would be foolish 
to use this substance when stearin, the natural component of butter 
and butterine, is much cheaper than paraffin. 

I will close with a statement of Chief Chemist Duff: 

The constituents of which hutterine is made are each niannl'actnred with the pur- 
pose of obtaining pure and cleanly products. As the animal products are olitaiued 
from Government-inspected cattle and hogs, there is, first, no question as to the 
healthfuluess of the lard, and oleo oil or neutral lard suitable for this purpose can 
be made successfully without scrupulous cleanliness in the entire course of its man- 
ufacture. 

The cleanliness and healthfulness of cotton-seed oil is beyond question. 



718 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

Mr. Duff ought to know, as he is considered one of the most compe- 
tent and best informed oil and hud expeits in this country, having 
given years of labor and work to those products in the great packing 
houses of this country. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, I have a short statement of the working of a 
butterine factory. If the committee lias time I will read it. 

The Chairman. We have (juite a number of gentlemen to be heard 
this morning, and I would suggest that you leave it with the committee 
to be included with your statement. 

j\Ir. HoBBS. Very well, then, I will just file it. 

(The additional statement of Mr. Uobbs referred to will be found at 
the end of his statement.) 

1 will siinjdy state that the oleomargarine is made up — I have gotten 
this from all the factories in this country — that the oleomargarine is 
made up of 15 to 20 per cent of cotton-seed oil, 25 to 35 per cent of 
neutral lard — the neutral lard is made from the leaf fat of the hog, the 
richest and cleanest fat in the animal — 20 to 35 per cent of oleo oil, 
which is made of the caul fat of tine beeves, and from 20 to 35 per cent 
of bntter. 

Mr. Allen. Will you explain what is meant by the "caul" fat? 

Mr. HoBBS. The fat around the caul or intestines. Then, last, is 20 
to 35 per cent of butter oil, which is made from cotton seed of a certain 
grade at a certain season of the year, aiul it can not be made from any 
other kind. It is the prime oil, atid I will state, also, that this extra 
prime oleo oil is about nine grades above coniinon tallow. 

Mr. Bailey. You make the statement that butter is higher this year. 
Is it higher this year than for some time? 

Mr. HoEBS. This season it has brought a uniform i^rice of 30 cents, 
and it has never been 

Mr. Bailey. Are you familiar with the ])vices for the last two years'? 

Mr. HoBBS. I went over a scale compiled by the Produce Exchange 
giving the prices for a number of years past. 

Mr. Bailey. Can you furnish the conunittee that! 

Mr. HoBBS. I can get it in New York. 

Mr. Bailey. I wisli you would submit a statement, with data on that 
subject, showing the i)rices of butter in the open market. 

Mr. HoBBS. I will do so. This is the general jtrice we are speaking 
of, because butterine sells for 15 cents a pound to 18 cents a pound in 
other i)laces. But 1 am speaking of New York, Boston, Washington, 
and Philadelphia. 

(The statement of prices referred to will be found at the conclusion of 
the present statement of Mr. Hobbs.) 

Mr. Allen. What has been your observation of the manner in which 
retail dealers conduct the sale of the oleomargarine producf? 

Mr. HoBBS. I went into, I sup])Ose, forty i)laces in New Y'ork that 
are selling or are supi)ose<l to sell butterine. 1 wanted to get some 
myself. I will say to you, gentlemen, that after analyzing butteiine so 
thoroughly in our laboratory, I use it on my table. I ])ay my grocer 
20 cents a pound for it. The man does not know what my business is. 
He simply knows me as one of his customers. 

Mr. Allkn. Have you seen any disposition on the part of any of 
these retail dealers to (conceal the stamp placed on the wrap]K^.rs? 

Mr. HoBBS. Iwill^mswerthatby telling you of a discovery that I have 
made in New York of what is known as a "blind tiger." The ])roduce 
dealer, I will not give the name of either; it is a professional secret. 
The New York Department of Agriculture of New York City may hunt 



OLEOMARGARINE. 719 

it up. It is a factory where butterine was made out of crude products, 
where butter was reworked, and other ingredients put into it, and 
where the produce dealer had some duplicate tubs, I gave that state- 
ment to Senator Mason's committee. But that is a piece of villainy for 
which oleomargarine is not responsible, any more than butterine is 
responsible for the renovated butter, or the lard that is dumped 
into it. 

Mr. Allen. Now, as to the retail merchants'? 

Mr. HoBBS. That was a retail merchant. I have found no disposi- 
tion on the i^art of the retailers to do that. There are very few in New 
York that sell it, but in New Jersey — I went over there, and there may 
be more there. There is very little disposition to deceive the public. 
There seems to be more of a disposition to educate the public into the 
idea of the value and qualities of butterine as a just as good product, 
and to sell it as such. I made the discovery of this fraudulent fellow 
by finding him selling Elgin creamery butter at 21 cents a pound, when 
1 knew that it cost -57 cents, and I tracked him. I made him give me, 
under the ])romise of secrecy, the name of his produce dealer. The 
retailer, I believe now, was perfectly innocent. 

.Mr. Allen. Do you know anything about what has been said with 
regard to the Elgin butter i)eoi)le! Do you know whether they are 
making any objection to the selling of oleomargarine, or making any 
particuhir fight against it ? 

Mr. HoBBS. We only examined butterine to see how it is sold. The 
produce papers would have more interest in the produce of the Elgin, 
butter people. 

Mr. Allen. Do I understand you that there is no complaint from 
the consumers of butterine? 

Mr. HoBBS. 1 find none where we have made investigation. 

Mr. Allen. To what extent have you made that investigation? 

Mr. HoBBS. I told you that I interviewed three hundred women in 
New York City. I sui)pose they are about the same as anywhere else, 
as most j)eople are made up mostly of human nature and dirt. 

Mr. Allen. Have you any interest in oleomargarine? 

]\lr. IIoBBS. No, sir; not a dollar — I must qualify that, too. Ibelieve 
1 have inherited an old plantati n in South Carolina, which I pay out 
money for every year. It has cost me ten thousand dollars, and I 
haven't gotten anything out of it. Jt was all ruu down by the war. 

The Chairman. Do you know anything about this renovated butter 
business? 

Mr. HoBBS. Do you mean the prices, or the business itself? 

The Chairman. Prices first, and the business secondly. I wish you 
would give us a short statement about it. 

Mr. HoBBS. I will hand you in a statement which I have written, 
and which appears in my paper. The butter is melted and the acids 
are freed, and it is worked over and packed, and it lasts about five 
days and then goes bad. 

The Chairman. I have introduced a bill for making the provisions 
of the oleomargarine legislation apply to renovated butter. There is 
some complaint on the part of the dairies about making that legislation 
apply to it, and about its being a good thing. 

Mr. HoBBS. I will send you down a statement giving laboratory 
analyses of renovated butter. 

The Chairman. Yes, we would be glad to have it. Just send it to 
the committee. 

Mr. HoBBS. Very well. 



720 OLEOMARGARINE. 

THE WORKING OF A BUTTERINE FACTORY. 

After a thorough personal inspection of the Government-licensed and 
Government-inspected butterine factories, some of these insi)eetions 
made in company with our chief food chemist and expert, and all of 
them made without any knowledge of the oleomargarine people that I 
was coming, I find the following a summary of them all. 

Of course, the formulas change, but only as to proportions of the same 
ingredients, and the temperatures vary a few degrees, according to the 
experience of the particular factory making the variation. There is no 
material difference. I quote from my memoranda: 

The oleomargarine is made up of a mixture of — 

Per cent. 

Cottou-seed oil 15 to 25 

Neutral lard 20 to 35 

Oleooil 20 to 35 

Butter 20 to 35 

This formula changes in the same factory slightly with the varying 
temperatures of the seasons. 

THE ORIGIN OF THE INGREDIENTS. 

The healthfulness of the ingredients which go into butterine and the 
product itself is better understood when it is known whence and how 
these parts of the product come. 

Neutral lard is a swine oil made from the leaf fat of Government- 
insi)ected animals. It is the richest, cleanest, and finest fat ot the hog. 
I'eing a hog product, it might from religious scruples be objected to 
by the orthodox Jew, just as he would from scruples of conscience object 
to the whole hog and all his connections. 

Oleo oil is made from the caul fat of prime hand fed Government- 
inspected beeves. It is the best oil which comes from the bovine 
species. 

Butter oil, or that grade of cotton- seed oil which is so known because 
of its extra prime quality, is made from a certain grade of cotton seed, 
gathered and selected at a certain stage of the cotton crop. They must 
be well matured or butter oil will not result. It is the finest and dear- 
est of the grades of cotton oil. The butterine maker might desire to 
use a cheaper oil, but no other quality can be used. To attempt it 
would be to ruin his product. The above grades of the above ingre- 
dients must be employed; no other \\ill mix perfectly. These ingredi- 
ents are perfectly healthful and veiy nutritious. Neutral lard has 
neither taste nor smell. The same may be said of butter and oleo oils; 
such is virtually true. 

Butter, of course, comes from dairy cream. It is the other ingredient, 
and is pasteurized because not from Government inspected stock, and 
to kill the germs, which are well known to generally exist in milk from 
the dairy. 

The neutral lard is melted at about 160° F.; the oleo oil 100°; the 
cream is sterilized at about 170°. 

Most factories buy their neutral lard ready for mixing. When it is 
not so bought it is made as follows: 

1. The fresh leaf fat is hashed; that is, cut up for cooking the oil out. 

2. The pieces go into a rendering kettle, where the oil is cooked out 
at a temperature of about 170°. This temperature destroys all germs, 
if any remain in a Government-inspected hog. 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 721 

3. Tlie oil is tlipii drawn off througli fine hair-mesh sieves into receiv- 
injj tanks, whore it is cooled down to abont 110'^ F. for churning. 

4. From the tanks this neutral is taken in its proportion to the but- 
terine churn, where it becomes one of the ingredients of the oleomarga- 
rine. 

Most factories buy their oleo oil ready for mixing in the churn. Where 
this is not done, the oil is made as follows: 

1. 'I'he caul fat of prime hand-fed beef purchased. No other grade of 
fat will do for this extra prime oleo oil. 

2. The fat is then liashed for cooking. The oil is cooked out at a 
temperature of about 170° F. 

3. The oil is next drawn off through a thin, hair-mesh wire screen 
into tanks, where it is cooled down to a lower temperature. 

4. Thence it goes into a room which is kept above 90° F., where it 
remains about twenty-four hours. 

5. The oil is then pressed to separate the stearine from it. 

6. The oleo oil then goes into the churn as the oleo ingredient of 
oleomargarine. 

The butter oil joins these as the cotton-seed oil ingredient of the 
forming product. 

The cream is obtained, of course, from milk bought of the dairy 
farmers. Very few butterine factories use less than 3,500 quarts per 
day, and some as high as 14,000 quarts daily. When tbe milk reaches 
the factory, it takes the following course to the margarine churn: 

1. The milk is dumped from the dairy can into a factory receiving 
can, where it is tested for conditions of sweetness, etc. 

2. It is then pumped into an open, zinc lined vat. 

3. From this vat it runs into a zinc-lined, copper cooling trough, 
where it is brought to a temperature of about 80° F. 

4. It then goes into a sejjarator, which revolves at about 4,000, and 
throws out the milk from it. The bulk of the cream filth is dropped 
into a trough. 

5. The cream then goes to the pasteurizer to be sterilizeo. The skim 
milk runs through chilling coils which cool it down to about 40° F. by 
the time it reaches the cans that receive and hold it for disposal to 
farmers and others. The cream is pasteurized at about 170° F. 

6. From the pasteurizer the cream goes to a can which is placed in 
ice water to keep it at a temperature of 34° to 35° F. 

7. From this ice-water tank it is taken to the churn room on an 
upper floor, 

8. Where it is ripened at a temperature slightly above 70° F. for the 
churn. This ripening process takes about 30 hours, more or less, 
according to the season. 

9. When properly ripened, the cream also goes into the butterine 
churn as an ingredient of oleomargarine. 

This completes the parts which go to make the product called oleo- 
margarine or butterine. The "butter color" is also added now, and the 
whole is churned into one homogeneous mass. This is com^deted in 
about eight minutes. 

THE FINISHED PRODUCT. 

After leaving the churn, the mass is run into vats of water at the 
bottom of which are anchored cakes of ice to keep the temperature 
down to about 35° F. The butterine is left in this ice bath about ten 
Uiinutes to set it. 

The butter is then thrown on incline tables with wooden shovels. 
S. Rep. 2043 46 



722 



OLEOMAEGAKINE. 



There it drains. The temperature of this room is about 70c> F. The 
butter mass drains on these slantinc^ tables about ten hours, one day's 
churning being worked oflt' the next day. The salt is put on the mass 
while it is on these draining tables. The butter is turned three or four 
times while lying there. From the draining tables the butter goes to 
the butter workers, wliere it is packed for the trade. 

The factory and all of the vessels and tools used in it are washed, 
steamed, and scoured daily. Live steam is generally used in cleaning 
churns, vessels, etc. Not a smell nor an odor can be detected anywhere. 
The ventilation is perfect, and the surroundings are sweet every where. 

Butter j)riccs for sixteen years. 
[In cents per pound.] 



Month. 


1885. 


1886. 


1887. 


1888. 


1889. 


1890. 


January 


20* to27,^B 


161 to 26 


20 to 27i| 


19 to 27J 


21i to 26 


17 


Jf'ebruary ... 


VJk to26f> 


m to 2711 


17,\to24i'5 


20 to 26J 


21 to 2615 


ll/a 


March 


2()/b to 285 


22f to291-§ 


2MBto29i\ 


23 T»,. to 28| 


22| to25g 


aof'B 


A pril 


m to 23}-^ 


22| to 271-5 


20 ^% to 25| 


m to 26/, 


22il; to 245 


16| 


Mi.y 


17J to21| 


U\i to 19i 


18J to21| 


23 r>. to24i-] 


161^0 iS,% 


14} 


June 


llii^tolOi 


13 to 16i 


lie tolSr's 


18 1^^ to \9j% 


16 to 17,"g 


12} 


July 


U to 17 


13 to 16^ 


16i to ]9i 


18/g to 18| 


15i to 16^ 


13x1 


August 


14J tolSfV 


15J tolOi^g 


17| U>22i 


17i to 18J 


15g to 16J 


15| 


September. . 


16 to 20 J 


17i to22J«s 


niS-to2-2i 


18i2 to21|g 


18 to 19} 


18| 


October 


16 J, to 21,^ 


21 to25i 


18 to 24 


20 to 2311 


19} to23i». 


191 


November . . 


lej to 23 


201^ to 26J 


19§ to25fs 


22J to26i\ 


19ig to 23| 


24 


December . . 


16 A to25ie 


20 to 28 


19 to 2652 


24 J to28r«g 


19} to 23} 


2011 


Average.. 


17J to22i% 


n\i to 2m 


18J to 2311 


20i^ to 24i»g 


ISH to 21| 


m 



Month. 


1891. 


1892. 


1893. 


1894. 


1895. 

ln,9- 

16/; 

15i 
ISf's 
IS, '5 
165 

l8!, 
20 


1896. 


1897. 


1898. 


1899. 


1900. 


January 

February 

M arch 

April 


23 

23| 
29 
25 
18} 

171 
16i 
17} 
201 
21§ 
231 
22^ 

~~2i^ 


22J 

23| 
205 
ISi'b 

18} 

2()g 

20* 

2ll^ 

23t'b 

23J 


24J 

25}i 
25v'b 
271 
23^ 
181g 

20i>„ 

22,^0 

24| 

211 

24 


2U 

21?B 

m 

19i 

15} 

16 

161 

19} 

20=, 

20r"B 

20| 

17}i 


17i| 

16a 

17J 

l-l/s 

13/s 

131 

13 

13/s 
141 

155 


135 

14/8 

if 

165 
l'T«e 

17|,\ 


18,. 

18J 
18, ^« 

1? 

17} 
1811 
ISfs 


17/b 

20 

20 

18r=„ 

1711 

Hi 

17/b 

m 

2»li 

21 IS 

25 

25r=s 


25{'g to 32 
231^ to 28 
245 to 28 










July 








September 

October 






November 












Average . . 


21i% 


23J 


18iS 


1611 


14ii 


145 


16/= 1 181 






" 





PROCESS BUTTE1{ — HOW MADE. 



Process, or what is usually known as renovated, butter is old, rancid 
butter reworked, freshened u]), Jind sold for the real article. The work- 
ings of this ])hase of the butter business, not being subject to munici- 
pal, State, or Government supervision, are invohed more or less in 
secrecy. The process by which renovated butter is produced is as 
follows: 

The rancid, old, unsalable butter is first melted and heated at a high 
temperature to drain off as much of the accumulated gases as ])ossible, 
after which cold water is passed into the oil. The oil rises to tlie toj) 
on settling. It is then removed, 'i his oil constitutes the base of the 
process butter. The water in which the oil has been waslied eliminates 
the solid impurities, etc. After being removed, the oil is allowed to 
set in a cold temi)erature and then, when sufiQciently cooled, is churned 
with fresh milk, sometimes with cream. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 



723 



Fresh milk has the property of absorbing very freely butyric acid, 
the rancid properties of butter. The butter is then worked in the usual 
way with fresh cold water, salt, etc., tlius reproducing fresh butter of 
degenerate merit and short life. After a few days its old character 
begins to reappear. There are no records as to the effect of such 
butter upon the human health. A vile-smelling flavoring matter is 
used to give process butter the desired creamery odor. Coloring mat- 
ter is also used to give it the trade color of butter substances. It is 
then marketed in tons as fresh creamery butter. 

STATEMENT OF MR. GEORGE B. ALEXANDER. 

Mr. Alexander. I will state that I am engaged in the manufacture 
of cotton -seed oil. I am the manager of the mill at Greenville, Mo. I 
represent the Cotton Seed Crushers' Association, and am here to protest 
against this bill, because they believe it is injurious to their interests. 
This organization that I have mentioned extends not only to all of 
the States which raise cotton, but also to many other States where 
machinery is made which is used in oil mills and to States where cotton- 
seed products are handled. The object of this association is to improve 
and promote the general welfare of the cotton-seed industry by seeking 
new channels for its consumption and by finding imi)roved methods of 
manufacture. We meet always once a year — a social meeting — and dis- 
cuss these matters. There is invested in the oil-mill business of the 
South about $100,000,000. It is comparatively a new industry, having 
been built up in the last few years, and has converted what was for- 
merly worthless stuff into a valuable product and added to the wealth 
of the country and to its export trade, and helped to make the balance 
of trade in our favor. Our product enters largely into butterine 

Mr. Williams. Before you go into that, about what proportion of 
the value of a bale of cotton is in the seed itself? 

Mr. Alexander. Take a 500-pound bale of cotton and it yields on 
the average 1,000 pounds of seed. 

Mr. Williams. At present prices that would be what percentage of 
the total! 

Mr. Alexander. The average price would be 8 cents; that would be 
$40 for a bale of cotton. The last seed I purchased cost me $20 a ton 
delivered at my mill. 

Mr. Williams. Twenty dollars? 

Mr. Alexander. Yes; $10 for what comes out of a 500-pound bale 
of cotton. 

Mr. Williams. That would make the seed worth about one-quarter 
of the cotton, at present prices'? 

Mr. Alexander. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Williams. That is what I wanted to get before the committee. 

Mr. Alexander. Gentlemen, I am not a speaker, and have ])repared 
no speech. I say that this is a new industry, and that if any protection 
is to be given anyone we think we are entitled to protection, but we 
do not ask it. All we ask is a fair field and a free tight, and we will 
take care of ourselves. We have a product which has merits and 
needs no protection, and we object being taxed for the benefit of another 
industry, and we do not think it would be fair to tax one agricultural 
product for the benefit of another. There are other gentlemen who 
will follow me and who will have something to say on the subject, and 



724 OLEOMAEGAEINE. 

I thank you, gentlemen, for the privilege of allowing me to come before 
you. 

Mr. Allen. Just one question. What proportion of the oil produced 
from the cotton seed is used in the manufacture of oleomargarine'? 

Mr. Alexander. I am not prepared to answer that question fully, 
because I know nothing at all of the butterine industry. I only know 
that they use our oil in the manufacture of it. I understand it has 130 
per cent, but there are gentlemen here who can answer those questions. 

Mr. Allen. To whom do you sell or ship the most part of your prod- 
uct; to whom does it go? 

Mr. Alexander. To Chicago, Louisville, New Orleans, Cincinnati, 
and other places. 

Mr. Allen. Do you export it? 

Mr. Alexander. We sell to exporters, and we sell to Kansas 
City 

Mr. Allen. That is all. 

Mr. Alexander. I manufacture only the crude oil, and do not know 
anything about the butterine industry at all. 

Mr. Allen. You do not manufacture the refined oil! 

Mr. Alexander. No, sir. 

I would state that in giving the price of cotton seed I said that I 
had paid $20 a ton for the last seed 1 bought. I want to say that is 
not the average. That is the last that 1 bought, and is the highest 
price I paid during the season. I do not want to convey a false impres- 
sion. 1 will also state that that has not been the price of cotton all 
through the year. 

STATEMENT OF MR. J. W. ALLISON, PRESIDENT OF THE ENNIS 
COTTON OIL AND GINNING COMPANY, AT ENNIS, TEX., AND 
PRESIDENT OF THE TEXAS COTTON SEED CRUSHERS' ASSOCI- 
ATION. 

Mr. Allison. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, after 
the addresses which you have lieard from the members of this delega- 
tion, there really remains but little to be .said on this side of this case. 
Appreciating that you have the facts, and all the facts in this case, we 
are here, with no i)retense at speechmaking, to take up and discuss 
this business with you as a business proposition. Nearly every single, 
or every, member of the delegation here present is either directly or 
indirectly, either as a producer of cotton seed or a mill owner or a 
dealer in the products of cotton seed, directly interested in the question 
which is before you to-day, and it is our object to give you our side of 
the case as it appears to us from our several individual jxjints of view. 
For, after all, it is a selfish motive that brings us here, 1 am here as a 
mill owner and as a representative of the Cotton ISeed Crushers' Asso- 
ciation of Texas. The State contains about 132 cottonseed oil mills, 
one-third of the yearly product of cotton, and has nearly one-third of 
the cotton-seed product that is made in the United States. We are not 
butterine people any further than that one comi»onent i)ortioii of but- 
terine is our product — cottonseed oil. The butterine case has been 
very ably taken care of by the gentlemen we had the pleasure of hear- 
ing yesterday, and we propose to defend only our portion of it. 

I do not know that it is charged at all here, and certainly it is not 
proven, that butterine is an unhealthtul product. We who are engaged 
in the manufacture of cotton-seed oil know that it is not uuhealthful. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 725 

On the other hand, it is one of the purest and most delightful of the 
vegetable fats. The seed comes to our mills fresh from the cotton fields, 
and is never touched by hand from that time until it is delivered to the 
refiners or the ultimate buyers. It is handled exclusively by machinery. 
The oil — that part of it which is now under discussion here to-day — is 
hermetically sealed by nature in an air-tight case, which is the seed. 
It is carried to the expressing macliinery by machinery itself, and it is 
not touched by human hand, but is expressed by machinery. There is 
no jjossible opportunity for contamination. The process of expressing 
is extremely sim])le. oSTothing is left after it but the pure oil itself. 
There could not possibly be any purer fat. There could not come to 
any table anything cleaner. I am not a technical man, and do not 
propose to enter into any discussion upon butter or any of the dairy 
products, but we all know that they have a thousand processes of being 
handled in a small way, and that they are all subject to a great deal of 
contamination. None of these tilings apply to cotton seed. 

We have in the United States virtually three buyers of cotton-seed oil. 
The oleomargarine people take our best product and pay us a little more 
money for it than anybody else. They demand an exceptionally good 
oil, made by special processes from selected seeds. Those mills which 
have the facilities for furnishing this oil enjoy that trade to the exclu- 
sion of the mills who through any cause furnish an inferior article. 
Next comes the lard i)eople, who are nearly as critical in their demands. 
Next the soa])miikers, who will take anything we give thein. It is 
because we do not want to lose a customer who buys from us $0,000,000 
worth of cotton-seed oil every year that we are op])Osing this bill. It 
is because we do not want to lose a custom.er of that kind, and it is 
because they tell us that the imposition of a tax like this will put them 
out of business that we are here protesting against it. As I said, two 
of the gentlemen here are directly interested in this business. Some of 
them have been interested in it from its infancy. I believe there are 
five gentlemen in the room who have been interested in the business 
since possibly the mills in the United States could have been counted 
on the fingers of your hands. To day I think there are about three 
hundred and twenty-five of these mills. I believe there is present 
ill the room the oldest man in the business — I mean in a business 
way, for he is yet a boy in some respects. I myself have been con- 
nected with the business during the whole of my business life. Unfor- 
tunately in this great develojiment of the business, the demands for 
the product have not quite kept pace with the improved facilities. 
Unfortunately, too, the exact statistics in regard to our business are 
absolutely unattainable. 

The mills are widely scattered. The large majority of them are small 
enterprises, and the owners are men who are not accustomed to give 
out the details of their business, and absolutely refuse to do so. 
Secondly, exact statistics in regard to the busiuess are unattainable, 
and any figures given with regard to the business must be taken as 
very wide approximations. But it is now estimated that there is 
crushed in the United States about two million tons of seed annually. 
In round figures, a bale of cotton means half a ton of cotton seed. 
Giving a crop of ten millions of bales, that would mean five million 
tons of seed. Not over one and one half million tons of seed are reipiired 
for the repletion of the crop each year. That would leave, on the face 
of the figures, a very large portion of the seed to be crushed. It must 
be remembered that a large portion of that seed is produced in out-of- 
the-way places, away from large centers, and away from freight facili- 



726 OLEOMAKGAEINE. 

ties. It is a cheap product, and can not stand very heavy freight 
charges; hence, 1 think the estimate of two million tons is a large one. 
I believe one-third of that is crushed in my own State. 

The use of cotton-seed oil as a food is as old as history itself. Long 
before the oil was made in the United States by modern methods it was 
made in all oriental countries and is to day a staple article of food in all 
the oriental countries. Even in Bible countries it is spoken of. It is 
sjioken of to day as one of the adulterants of olive oil in every single 
one of the olive-producing countries, and the statement has been made, 
I do not know how truly, that an absolutely pure olive oil was unat- 
tainable from the fact that the olive growers in the olive-producing 
countries are in the habit of starting their oil with cotton seed oil. Even 
the farmer who makes only a small quantity of cotton oil in the hills of 
Si)ain starts his olive oil by pouring cotton seed oil over it. How much 
of that comes back to us as olive oil I have no means of knowing. 
The butterine people are amply able to take care of their side of the 
business of their products. We know that the introduction of cotton 
oil itself as a cooking fat is one of the possibilities of the future. It is 
being done, and has been done, in a small way, by nearly all mills, and 
is used by nearly all the people in their immediate localities. 

The families of nearly all the mill operatives use cotton-seed oil at 
home. It certainly can not change its nature if put into butterine. 
Upon the estimate of the crop as just made the sale of cotton seed in 
tlie South must add on the average two to three dollars to every bale 
of cotton marketed in the South. There is a little more than that. It 
adds the two or three dollars not to the large planter, not to the 
dealer, but to the small producer. Those of us who are older in the 
business recollect the time when we were compelled to buy our seed 
from the small farmers and the negroes, and the large i)lanter consid- 
ered it as much beneath his dignity to worry about the sale of the cot- 
ton seed from his cotton as it was to trouble himself about the selling 
of the eggs and chickens on his place. 

Mr. Williams. And is not it a rule now with the larger planters 
that the cotton seed is left to the negroes to sell? 

Mr. Allison. It is, to a great extent. 

Mr. Williams. In the mortgage regulations in the South cotton-seed 
oil was especially exempted from the mortgages in order that the ten- 
ant farmer might have the cotton seed with which to pay for his neces- 
sities. In many cases it was his profit out of the crop. 

Mr. Allison. Yes; it is a cash product, for no such thing as a pur- 
chase of cotton seed on time is known. We do business almost always 
on credit in the South and cotton seed is the exception to that rule. It 
is worth so much in cash, that is, between sunup and sundown; 
because after sundown it is against the law to sell it. It used to be 
left to the negroes and the smaller farmers, but now it is used a s a 
iiiedium for small purchases; a load of cotton seed is used as a cash 
payment for small purchases. They do that because there is no dan- 
ger of interfering with crop mortgages. We, of course, are not going 
to pay the price for this cotton seed if we are deprived of those pur- 
chasers whom this bill would deprive us of. We will take it out of the 
price of the things we sell. It is the man with the hoe that pays for it, 
and the manufacturer, of course, would pay that much less for his raw 
material. While it may be true that we would replace the buyer of this 
$3,000,000 worth of cotton-seed oil if the butter maker went out of 
existence, it has a wider significance. We have struggled for years to 
introduce our product into the European countries, and the largest 



OLEOMARGARINE. 727 

consumers tliere are the olive-oil producers. Those countries are talk- 
ing of discriiniiiating against cotton-seed oil, beginning a few years 
;igo with a proposed tax in Italy, and followed up by a proposition 
made in France and one also in Germany, and an effort lias been made 
to crowd our product out of those countries, because of its competition 
with the other edible oils, oiive oil and, in Russia, linseed and other 
oils. Kussia does crowd it out, because she admits of no comi)etition 
with linseed oil. Russia has in prospect the production of cotton-seed 
oil, and she produces now a small quantity of it. 

Our fear is that if our friends, the pure butter people, are successful 
in driving out the butter industry, or at any rate in i)utting upon it an 
additional tax, whether it kills the industry or not, that puts such a 
stigma upon our product, which foreign countries are buying, that they 
will not continue to buy of us. The proposition has been made to 
exclude American oil out of France in order that the Egyptian seed 
shall be crushed in France and cotton oil made in France. If it should 
be stated that the American oil was rtgaided as such a harmful ])rod- 
uct in America as to be taxed at home, the French deputies would not 
be slow to take it as a chance and crowd us out of France. 

We are, then, confined to the home market, which consists of lard com- 
l)etition. It is not a violent supposition, that if the butter producers 
have been able to legislate us out of France, that the hog people would 
be, if those things could come to pass, able to legislate us out of com- 
j)etition with them in this country, and the cotton-seed industry would 
be dead. It is hardly to be anticipated, but it is possible. 

Mr. Allen. What effect do you think the prohibition of the manufac- 
ture of oleomargarine would have upon the price of your oil, per gallon 
or p( and, in a general way? 

Mr. Allison. I hardly know how to answer that question, sir, 
excei)t to say that it deprives us of a market that is consuming between 
5 and 10 per cent of our production — of our best production — and pays 
us more money for it than any other channel into which our product 
goes. We would then sell what we call butter oil at the same price 
that we sell some other oil, the yellow oil being butter oil. 

Mr. Allen. What is the price of your butter oil; what do you sell 
it at to day in New York? 

Mr. Allison. Forty to 45 cents, depending entirely upon the qual- 
ity and the production of the plant. 

Mr. Allen. Forty to 45 cents a gallon? 

Mr. Allison. Yes, sir; as against 37 cents for the other oil. 

Mr. Williams. And the 7 to 8 cents additional makes three to four 
dollars a barrel? 

Mr. Allison. One of the gentlemen here has a sample of white oil. 
I am sorry that we have not any sample of the butter oil, but we did 
not have any idea that you would want it, and did not bring it. But 
1 have a sample of the white oil here. (The witness here produced a 
bottle of the white oil spoken of and exhibited it to the committee.) 

Mr. CooNEY. What do you mean by butter oil; is that the oil that 
goes into the butterine? 

Mr. Allison. That is the name for the highest grade of butter oil. 
It is a special oil and is a kiud made from selected seed, and is the kind 
of oil that goes into the butterine. 

Mr. Neville. How do you figure that this bill would drive the oleo- 
margarine out of the maiket? 

Mr. Allison. 1 do not figure that at all. I did not state that as a 
fact of my own knowledge. 1 asserted what the butterine people have 



728 OLEOMAEGAKIISrB 

told us, which is that the 10 cents a pound in addition to the cost of 
its mannfacture woukl prohibit its manufacture in competition. 

Mr. Neville. You do not contend that this woukl place 10 cents a 
pound on all butterine? 

Mr. Allison. Colored? 

Mr. Neville. Colored as butter. 

Mr. Allison. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Neville. But when it is not colored you do not understand it 
as imposing any tax? 

Mr. Allison. No; I understand it. 

The Chairman. There are two questions in one there. You say 
colored as butter. The contention is that it is not colored as butter 
but that they simx)ly use a color. Did you intend to answer the ques- 
tion in that way — colored as butter, or colored? 

Mr. Allison. I do not understand the question. 

Mr. Neville. The question I asked was 

Mr. Allison. I understand his (juestion to be, if my understanding 
is correct, 1 understand this bill to imx)ose a tax on oleomargarine 
colored as butter. 

Mr. Neville. That is right. 

Mr. Allison. That is all; colored like the butter we know; whether 
that is the natural color of the butter or not, I am not a butter maker, 
and I do not know. I do know this, tluit the producers of natural but- 
ter in all of the butter producing countries are themselves the largest 
l)roducers of cotton oil butter. They are themselves the i)rodncers of 
the butter containing very largely the very element that we furnish to 
the butterine manufacturer to put in his butterine, and in this way — of 
the li,000,000 tons of cotton seed annually crushed in the South, there 
is made three-quarters of a million pounds of cotton seed meal, which 
is recognized as the most nutritive and highly concentrated cattle 
food known. The butter producers are buyers of the cotton seed meal. 

Mr. Neville. To feed to their cows? 

Mr. Allison. Yes, sir; the German and Holland people, who are 
the largest butter producers, buy it simi)ly because the cattle fed upon 
it produce better butter and more butter. It produces it because of its 
nutritive qualities, and because of that certain small i>ercentiige of the 
cotton seed oil left in the meal, which is of so nearly the same constit- 
uents of the material required to make the butter that it passes through 
the cow's stomach almost unchanged into the milk ducts. 

Mr. Neville. Does it bring about as uiucli when sold to the dairy 
people as food for their cows as when it is sold to the butterine people? 

Mr. Allison. 1 think j'ou misapprehend me. 

Mr. Neville. You mean cotton -seed oil? 

Mr. Allison. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Neville. Will the cotton seed produce as much when sold to 
the dairy people as feed for cows as when sold to the butterine people? 

Mr. Allison. I do not understand. 

Mr. Neville. Is the oil used in the production of oleomargarine 
higher priced, and does it bring more value to the ])roducer of cotton 
seed than the cotton-seed meal when sold to the dairy poople? 

Mr. Allison. Why, they are two entirely diflerent products. They 
are entirely different products. They are not to be coni])ared at all 

Mr. Williams. What you want is to know which is the by-product 
and which is the main product? 

Mr. Bailey. What do you sell the cake at? 

Mr. Allison. Twenty-one dollars a ton, about. 

Mr. Bailey. Twenty-one dollars a ton? 



OLEOMAEGAELNE. 729 

Mr. Allison. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Bailey. That is wliat it will cost the dairyman. Now, you say 
your oil is woitli liow luiu h a jiallon ? 

Mr. Allison. Forty cents; that is, the butter oil. 

Mr. Bailv.y. And 8 iioniids to the gallon? 

JMr. Allison. ISeven and a half; yes, sir. 

]Mr. Bailed'. Five cents a pound f 

Mr. Allison. It would bring $100 a ton in oil, and $20 a ton in these 
by-products. 

Mr. Bailey. Of course there is oil in this [indicating piece of oil 
cake in the hands of Mr. Neville]. 

j\Ir. Allison. It is impossible to extract it, even if we thought it 
advisable. By solvents it would be jwssible to take all the oil out. 

Mr. Neville. You simply leave some ot the oil in there? 

Mr. Allison. Yes, about 10 per cent, and for the very reason that 
it makes it more valuable as a feed for cattle. 

Mr. Williams. That oil, you say, comes to $100 a ton? 

Mr. Bailey. Yes; and this cake to $20? 

Mr. Allison. Yes, about $20 a ton. 

Mr. Bailey. I have bought carloads of it. 

Mr. Neville. The point I desired to make was that even though the 
oil was not used in oleomargarine a large portion of it still remained in 
the cake, and would be sold to the cattle feeders. 

Mr. Allison. It is left intentionally in the cake, in order to improve 
the quality of the cake as a feed for the cattle. 

Mr. Williams. I am suie that ^Ir. Neville does not understand. 
This is after the oil is pressed out [indicating piece of cake in his hand]. 

Mr. Neville. I understand that that is oil cake 

jNIr. Williams. The main prodnct is the oil, and the by-product is 
the cake. Then, iu addition to that, there is the hull, which is used for 
cattle feed. 

Mr. Bailey. Eoughers. 

Mr. Neville. But the principal feed with us is oil cake, in Western 
Nebraska, and it has oil in it. I do not know what the quantity it has 
in it is. 

Mr. Allison. It is a butter producer. If it is possible to kill the oil 
mills of the t50uth the butter feeder would suffer. It would deprive 
him not only of the best feed, but of the feed that enables him to use 
his home-grown feeds — cotton seed meal being a highly concentrated 
food which enables him to use roughers. 

Mr. Williams. Supi)ose you were deprived of the sales for your oil, 
would it pay you to run your cotton-seed mills just for the cake? 

Mr. Allison. No, sir. 

Mr. WiLLiA:\rs. That is the point. 

Mr. Allison. Mr. Alexander has said that he was buying cotton- 
seed cake at $20 a ton. It is worth a little over that. It takes three 
tons of cotton seed to make one ton of cake. 

STATEMENT OF MR. W. R. CANTRELL, SECRETARY OF THE WILLIAMS 
& FLASH COMPANY, OF NEW YORK CITY, EXPORTERS AND COM- 
MISSION MERCHANTS OF COTTON-OIL PRODUCTS. 

Mr. Canteell. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, this 
subject has been so thoroughly gone over that there is very little I can 
add to it, but I do desire to call your attention for a moment to a few 
figures going to show the extent to which the manufacture of cotton- 



730 OLEOMARGARINE. 

seed oil and its by-products has grown, and the position it occupies in 
the foreijin commerce of this country. 

Your attention has been called to the injury the passage of the Grout 
bill would inflict on the southern farmers and laborers by depriving the 
manufacturers of cotton oil of one of their most important home outlets. 

Not only, however, would the home consumption of cotton oil be cur- 
tailed, if this proposed bill should become a law, but we should also 
sutier in our export demand, and, as evidenced by the following figures, 
the cotton-oil exports in the last three years have assumed a position 
of considerable importance in this country's foreign commerce. 

In 1897 the exports were 27,198,883 gallons, or 543,970 barrels. 

In 1898 they were 40,230,784 gallons, or 804,615 barrels. In 1899 they 
were 50,027,219 gallons, or 1,021,514 barrels, which latter amonnt, taken 
at the average price of that year, represents a value in dollars and 
cents of $13,103,070.94. This sum simply represents the exports of oil 
alone, and does not include the exports of meal and cake, which would 
amount to as much more. 

This foreign demand has been created after years of effort and at the 
expenditure of thousands of dollars, but at this juncture it is aienaced 
by country after country endeavoring to stop its import by the in)posi 
tion of prohibitive duties. France, to whom was shipped last year 
339,187 barrels, and Germany, 70,428 barrels, are both laboring to enact 
legislation that would close their ports to this great American staple. 

Now, if our own legislature should stigmatize this article, and by a 
prohibitive tax prevent its sale in this country in the form of oleomar- 
garine, it would be putting a weapon in the hands of our foreign com- 
petitors that they would not fail to use to enact legislation that would 
prohibit its sale, thus entailing a loss of millions of dollars to our for- 
eign commerce and the efi'ects of which would be felt by every railroad 
in this country and by every ocean steamer leaving our ports. 

The growth of the cotton oil industry has been rapid, and the demand, 
especially in this country, has failed to keep pace with the increasing 
production, therefore, if the article were deprived of any portion of its 
alieady inadequate home demand it would mean that the surplus thus 
created would have to force an outlet in Europe, and this could only be 
accomplished at the expense of values. 

If the outlet we now possess in oleomargarine is destroyed and a 
surplus thus created it would cause a decline in values of at least $2 
per barrel, which, taken on last year's production of 2,000,000 barrels, 
means a loss to the farming interests of the South and Southwest of 
$4,000,000. 

Mr. Neville. Is it not true that the proposed legislation in France 
is against oleomargarine and not against cotton-seed oil? 

Mr. Uantrell. No, sir; that is not true. France, a few years ago, 
and up to within the last four or five, took about ten or tweuty thous- 
and barrels of cotton-seed oil. They used the arrish-seed oil, which is 
a wild peanut, as well as several other things of that sort, but the cot- 
ton-seed oil was so much cheaper and i^urer that the manufacturers of 
those countries were forced to use it, and they were forced to go to the 
cottonseed peo])le. And they found themselves compelled in France 
to put a j)rohibitive duty upon it. 

Mr. Neville. Is it not a fact that only a few weeks ago they did 
pass legislation against oleomargarine? 

Mr. Cantrell. Not that I am aware of. 

Mr. Neville. The reason I asked you is because I read it only day 
before yesterday. 



OLEOM AEG ARINE. 731 

Mr. Williams. Do you know any tbiDg about the comparative purity 
of fine cottonseed oil anrl olive oil and vegetable products? 

Mr. Cantrell. Yes, sir; but I would very much prefer the cotton- 
seed oil. In fact, salad oil which is made from cotton seed oil is not 
only purer, but more cleanly, and it is sold in all the large cities of the 
North now as cottonseed oil. In fact, the bulk of the olive oil coming 
to this country is mostly the poorer grade, and it is prepared and made 
in rather an uncleanly manner. The olives are put in the press and 
the first pressure taken from them is a very fine grade of oil, and that 
retails in a city like New York in this country for four or five dollars a 
gallon. Then, having extracted the better parts of the oil, the olives 
are put in a bath of hot water, and sometimes salt, and are pressed 
again, and that is a very inferior product, and is the olive oil that is 
sold to the average person iu the larger cities, and is absolutely unfit 
for consumption. 

STATEMENT OF MR. EDWARD S. READY, SECRETARY, TREASURER, 
AND MANAGER NEW SOUTH OIL COMPANY, OF HELENA, ARK. 

Mr. Ready. I have never made a speech in ray life, Mr. Chairman, 
nor am I used to talking publicly. You gentlenu'n have listened very 
patiently to the other gentlemen, and consequently I will say nothing 
of the general conditions, and will speak only of local conditions, and 
that very briefly. We have in Helena four oil mills. The town is 
located on the Mississipi)i Kiver. We have there four oil mills and the 
cost of the equipment of these four mills is about $350,000. In addi- 
tion to that we have capital invested to the extent of another $350,000, 
making $700,000 invested. We employ 200 people, all adults with a 
few exceptions; there may be eight or ten boys in the whole business. 
Sixty-six to 70 per-cent of those men are heads of families and I think 
I am safe in saying that out of the population of 8,000 inhabitants 
those four mills support 750 to 800 people. 

Thus, you see, it is a matter of very considerable moment to us. Of 
those employees about 85 per cent are colored and the remaining 15 
per cent are whites. We handled last season, I presume, as near as I 
can get at it — I can safely say that we expended $000,000 for the jiur- 
chase of cotton seed. We ran about six months in the year and fur- 
nished employment, as I say, immediately in the mill, for 200 men. 
The surrounding country depends very largely in addition to the 
town — 700 or 800 of the population depend very largely upon our 
mills. The farmers come there, as has been stated to you, the negro 
small cropper, and the small white farmer, and we buy all of our sup- 
plies of seed from them. If this butterine or oleomargarine law is 
enacted it would affect our markets very considerably. It would 
result in the reduction of the price of seed, how much I can not say, 
but it would be largely felt, and I felt that I should coine here and 
enter our protest against it, and request the committee not to deal too 
harshly with the butterine industry, as it largely affects ourselves. 

The Chairman. Are there any other questions'? 

Mr. CooNEY. You have four mills? 

Mr. Keady. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Cooney. You are secretary and treasurer of the society there? 
Of what is that society composed? 

Mr. Ueady. No, sir; I did not say that. I am secretary and 
treasurer of one of the four mills. 



732 OLEOMARGARINE. > 

Mr. CooNEY. All tliose mills are acting independeutly? 

Mr. Ready. Entirely so. ♦ 

Mr. CooNEY. Absolutely? 

Mr. Heady. Yes, sir. i 

Mr. OooNEY. ^o connection? \ 

Mr. Ready. No, sir; none wbatever. 

Mr. Allen, No trust in tbemi 

Mr. Ready. No, sir. There is one of the mills that is under tbe so- ^ 
called American Cotton Oil Trust. 

Mr. Williams. Is not it a fact tbat tbe cotton-seed crusbing trust 
business is one of tbe few instances of a trust wbicb is not a success? * 

Mr. Ready. Yes, sir; I would say tbat I was connected witb tbe * 
American Cotton Seed Oil Trust and left it in 18!)7 and went into busi- * 
ness on my own account, and I did not fear it, and I tbiuk tbe tbree ' 
independent mills tbere in my town are bitting it pretty bard. ' 

Mr. Williams. Indei)endent mills are springing up everywhere? 

Mr. Ready. Yes, sir; everywhere. Two were built right close there * 
last year. 

Mr. Williams. Yes, one was built right in my own town. 

STATEMENT OF MR. W. H. WRIGHT, PRESIDENT OF THE PINE ] 
BELT COTTON OIL COMPANY, OF LITTLE ROCK, ARK. ] 

Mr. Wright. I think, Mr. Chairman, tbat about everything has been j 
said that ought to be said from tbe crushers' standpoint. Tbere are I 
otiier gentlemen here in different lines of the business who have not J 
been heard, and I had rather give up my time to them. i 

STATEMENT OF MR. MARION SANSOM. 

Mr. Sansom. Mr. Chairman, I have to go away to-morrow and I am 
here representing tbe cattle interests of Texas, and I will only detain , 
you for a minute — just long enough to cast my vote — and if you will ' 
allow me I would just like to do tbe voting act for you, as they sent me 
up here. As I come up here representing these people I would like ^ 
to get beforti tbe committee, and I am obliged to leave to-morrow. I 
have here a letter from tbe live stock association and they just simply 
wanted me to appear here in opposition to this bill as representing 
them, and also I speak in the interest of the cotton-seed oil industry. 

The Chairman. We have made this arrangement for this day's ' 
meeting for a cotton-seed oil meeting. ' 

Mr. Sansom. I will just read this letter so you will understand what ' 
my credentials are. 

(Mr. Sansom here read the letter referred to.) 

We come here to show you tbe interest we feel in this matter and we 
put forward our best people here yesterday to take this matter up. We 
wish to show to you, however, tbat Texas is interested in every single 
article that enters into the manufacture of oleomargarine except the 
coloring, so-called, and I do not know but we may manufacture that; ' 
but I do not know what it is. But we do raise about one million head 
of cattle which are slaughtered annually and which you understand, 
as has been gone over to you a number of times, enter very largely 
into tbe product. We raise about one-third of the cotton raised in the 
United States, We are third on tbe list of hog raisers of the United 
States. So, you see we are very materially affected by this legislation. 



OLEOMARGARINE 733 

Now, it occurs to me tbis way, that this thing has simmered down very 
largely to the matter of color. We are not a manufacturing people 
there in Texas. We hope some day to get in line and are getting along 
a little. This is really the only manufacturing industry we have worth 
speaking of in the State, in which we have about 130 mills. 

We are perhaps the largest buyers of imported goods in this Union. 
When I say imported, I mean from other States. We send our cotton 
n\) here to our Eastern neighbors and they make it into goods so beau- 
tiful and so tine we do not know whether it is silk or cotton; but we 
have never said that they have no right to do that, but we have gone 
on and bought the cotton. They have put a coloring in it which makes 
it very beautiful and fine, and it suits us, and then we want to buy it. 
And we can see no reason why things should not be colored. They put 
a color on all kinds of machinery we buy. I do not know whether col- 
oring makes machinery any better; perhaps it does. Whether it makes 
butter any better 1 do not know, but I suppose the people like it better 
for that reason. But we simply enter our protest, insomuch as we 
understand it, from the cattle raisers' standpoint, regarding this as a 
question of class legislation, one class against the other, and it appears 
to us we are not considered as we should be in this matter. All we 
ask is to be let alone. Of course if we are doing anything that is going 
to really injure anybody, then we are willing to be called down ; but we 
do not think it is proper and just to people that have been struggling 
as we have, sending away all of our raw material to be manufactured 
elsewhere, and this is the only manufacturing industry that we have. 
I will say that all of our cotton has been sent away to be manufactured 
to the Eastern cities and it has been manufactured and we have sent 
all our hides and cattle. We are now engaged in the manufacture of 
this product, in the manufacture of cotton seed oil, and it is a big 
thing to our people, and Texas, and from this we expect to get into 
other lines, and if we get stricken down and knocked out in this matter 
right on the start we do not think it is really fair. 

Mr. Neville. If you were to send your cotton up to the manufactur- 
ing concerns up here and they should manufacture it into imitation 
silks and send it down to you and sell it to you for silk, would you care 
or not? 

Mr. Sansom. If they sold it to me at a proper price, I probably would 
not. If they sold it to me for a price that was unjust, 1 probably would 
not like it. 

Mr. Neville. The difference is that you manufacture this oleomar- 
garine in such a shape that I can not tell it from butter, and they put 
cotton-seed oil and other kinds of oil into it and deceive me, and yet 
you think it does not hurt me and you insist that you have a right to 
do that. 

Mr. Sansom. I would like to answer that question this way : If the 
silk producer and the wool producer, if you please, had as mucli right 
to come to Congress and ask for legislation against wool entering into 
the manufacture of cotton goods, or cotton into wool goods, wliich is 
usually the cheaper of the two, as you all know very well — as you 
know woolen goods has always a percentage of cotton goods mixed 
in with it — now, the wool man would have just as much right to come 
to us, he manufacturing the most valuable part of it. We object to 
this. You and all of the balance of us have worn and are weaiing 
every day what is supposed to be all wool and a yard wide, and yet we 
all know that there is a large percentage of cotton in all this goods. 
You are not particularly damaged and you have got your goods worth 



734 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

the money, and you have the same ricfht the wool man does to come to 
Congress and ask to have these people stopped from mixing this goods 
and forced to make it all cotton or all wool. 

Mr. Neville. Don't you believe that we would have the right to 
come to Congress and ask tliem to prohibit the manufacturing of cot- 
ton goods and the selling it as silk goods'? 

Mr. Sansom. We believe in letting people who are enterprising and 
trying to pioduce something for themselves go on and try to produce 
the best results. We do not think the position taken by the people 
who are urging this bill here, asking the Congress of the United States 
to come to their relief — we do not think the ground is well taken, and 
we think for you to lend the assistance of this Government to the manu- 
facturer of one article, for tlie product of one article, above and to the 
discrimination of anotlier which is equally pure, as we claim, from the 
standpoint of our country that furnishes the lard and tallow and the 
oil that goes into this product, is wrong and unjust. I do not under- 
stand that the purity of this food has really been questioned at all, and 
if we have done this we can not see why we should be discriminated 
against. 

Mr. CooNEY. What is your connection with the cattle business? 

Mr. Sansom. I raise cattle and feed cattle pretty extensively. I am 
what we call a pretty large feeder in Texas. 

Mr. CuoNEY. Is your business more largely involved with the cattle 
feeding and raising than with the oil production. 

Mr. Sansom. Yes, sir; my interest is much larger in that business. 
I am engaged in the oil mill business, but my business is much greater 
and I devote much more time to raising and feeding cattle than to the 
oil business. 

Mr. CooNEY. Eaising them on the ranch or buying and selling 
them? 

Mr. Sansom. Yes, sir; I own a ranch, and I buy a great many cattle 
which I mature at these oil mills — feed the product of two or three oil 
mills. 

In this connection I would like to show further that there has been 
a disposition from the time we began to manufacture tbe cottonseed 
products on the part of people we came in contact with — and that 
means the dairy people and the Western ])eople who produce beef — to 
discriminate and to knock us out. They had even gone so far as to pro- 
pose at one time that they would condemn the beef fed on cotton-seed 
meal. If the beef business had not been handled by such strong hands 
there is no doubt there would have been soms such action taken. But 
when it came to condemning all the beef fed on cotton -seed meal, the 
dairy people found that was too strong for them. 

Further, I would like to refer to the value of cotton- seed meal as a 
food stuff. I myself, as you will see by referring to the Breeders 
Gazette, furnished beef fed on cotton- seed meal to parties in Chicago, 
in March, 1899, and 1 have sold cattle in Chicago at 25 cents a hundred 
above any native steer on the market, for more than forty days after 
the sale was made, and ten or fifteen days before. In November, 189!>, 
I sold cattle there as high as $6.75 a hundred, which is much higher 
than the highest price paid for natives at that time, and they were not 
quite so well finished as those I had sold before. I mention this to show 
you the interest we have in this legislation; and whenever any legisla- 
tion comes up our interest is identical, except that our interest in the 
cattle is large. Every time y^ou take off' 10 cents from cotton seed in 



OLEOMARGARINE. 735 

the State of Texas you reach and touch the very poorest people we 
have iu the State — the very poorest people who have couteuded hardest 
for a living. 

Now, with reference to the price of the seed. When cotton was 4J 
cents a pound, and they were sellin.y it for tliat, we were at that time 
paying as much for seed as now. AVe were heli)ing tliese poor people 
very greatly. If it liad not been for tlie price be Avas getting for his 
seed, it would have absolutely b;inkrupted tlie tenant. 

Mr. Williams. At that time the value of the cotton seed was a little 
over a third of the value of the cotton itsel/. 

Mr. Sansom. Yes, as high as twelve and fourteen dollars a ton. It 
helped tliem out a gieat deal. Of course, when you s])eak of Texas, 
it is quite an extent of country. The part of Texas I represent has 
no negroes. We never see a negro there, except if we have got any 
he is in town shaving somebody or waiting on the table. They are 
white people there, and an industrious, haid-working i)eople, made up 
from every section of the country represented there, and they work and 
till their land. The section I am interested in is made up of small 
farmers owning from 200 acres of land and over. Whenever you touch 
the cotton crop you hurt them and hurt them bad. They will find 
another outlet for this oil, if this business is closed to their product. 
The whole world is using it, not the United States alone, but I do not 
believe that even Congress can tax it out of existence. You may hurt 
it for a time, but you can not down it. 

They first educated us abroad to use this oil. Our product was used 
before we knew the value of it at all abroad — both the meal i)roduct and 
the oil as well — when our own farmers at home, many of them, did not 
know the value of a sack of cotton se<'<l meal. And they do not know 
it to-day, many of them. They do not know the value of it as compared 
with the German farmer who never saw a stalk of cotton in his life. 
Thatbeing the case — ihese]ieoi>le raising it and displaying it as a cheap 
food — we are naturally jealous of any attemi)t to cut off our market for 
it. There is a princii)le of ownership involved there — one section 
against another, if cotton seed were raised all over this country, don't 
you think it would be a iiretty hard matter to come in here with a bill 
like this? Theie are some people in this country who are opposed to 
cotton seed, and when you find a man like that he is a dairyman every 
time. And these people come here and call upon you to help them 
down the other fellow, and then they will be able to make all the money 
they want. They say "Hel]i me down him, and then I will make all 
the money I want alter I get shut of him." It is a class legislation that 
we do not think is right. 

]\Ir. Neville. You understand that this bill does not seek to do away 
with oleomargarine altojiether, but simply to prevent its being made 
as a counterpart and in imitation of butter? 

Mr. Sansom. I stated in my talk a while ago that I understood the 
proposition came down to a question of coloring. I believe I answered 
that by saying this: Suppose you go to work and say that we could not 
color our cotton goods wlien they are manufactured, if people like color 
and it does not make it harmful? 

Mr. Neville. I wonhl cei-tainly say you would not have a right to 
color it in imitation (-i' anything else and sell it iu imitation and for 
that other goods. 

Mr. Sansom. We understand the law protects you fully; that is, 
the license has to be j)aid on it to be sold; but the law is violated 



736 OLEOMARGARIN^E. 

occasionally. It is against the law clown in our country to steal a 
liorse, but they do steal one occasionally. Still, I would take it that 
in tlie main the law was enforced. 

.Mr. Neville. If, as a matter of fact, all the ingredients in oleomar- 
garine are healthy and wholesome and it is cleanly made, is it not true 
that it would recommend itself without being in imitation of anything 
elsei 

Mr. Sansom. That is probably true, and you might educate the peo- 
ple to eat white butteriue. The same thing applies to other arti(;les, 
and it might apply if you took the color out of your dairy butter. It is 
a matter of custoni, largely. 

Mr. Neville. You would not maintain for a moment that you would 
have the right to build up a traffic in any kind of product and palm it 
oft" on the people as something it was not? 

Mr. Sansom. JSTo, sir; we do not wish to do that, and are not here 
in the interest of any concern that we understand is doing that. We 
are here simply for the purpose of keeping the color on butter the same 
as we color other kinds of goods. People do not like white or uucolored 
butter. You would not want to come in here with red clothes on, 
because it would be very unusual. We do not want to foice peojile to 
use things that are not fashionable. We do not want to do that. 

STATEMENT OF MR. A. D. ALLEN, REPRESENTING THE CONSUMERS 
COTTON OIL COMPANY, OF LITTLE ROCK, ARK. 

Mr. Allen. After so much has been said here, I think it would be 
merely thrashing over old straw to add to the discussion. In fact, I 
have nothing to add. In our town of Little Kock we have four oil 
mills, representing a plant investment of three quarters of a million ( f 
dollars, and we pay to the farmers perhaps as much more for seed dur- 
ing the season. We employ between four and five hundred men in the 
mills, and those men are mostly — well, you might say 80 per cent of 
them — unskilled laborers, negroes, that we employ in the mills, ranging 
from $1.15 to $2 a day. Those people are dei)endent upon our manu- 
factories there for a living, and we get our seed from the farmers around 
us. It is quite an industry. It is, I expect, the largest covered indus- 
try we have in the State of Arkansas, and we feel that we ought not to 
be oppressed. I do not know that I can add anything to what has been 
said before, and I thank you, gentlemen. 

STATEMENT OF MR. F. W. BRADY, OF MEMPHIS, TENN. 

Mr. Brady. I can scarcely add anything to the remarks given here. 
I have come here in the interest of the committee. The ground luis 
been gone over very fully here, and very ably by Mr. Aldrich and Mi-. 
Allison; I merely wish to call your attention to one fact which may 
have been lost sight of, the general industry of the cotton seed product 
in the mills, the cotton seed of the whole South. I understand the 
dairy interest is only in five States and I also wish to say here that the 
South, I do not believe, ever has come to Congress and the Government 
for any legislation in any shape, manner, or form. I do not think they 
ever have asked protection for anything. This is the only industry 
they can really call their own. I do not believe there is anything else 
of such magnitude, and therefore I want to call attention to it. 

In the fourteen States in the South, representing the whole South 



OLEOMARGARINE. 737 

and one or two others, which represent the cotton-seed industry — four- 
teen States have 387 mills. There are 14 mills in Tennessee, 31 in 
Alabama, 22 in Arkansas, Florida has 2, Georgia 50, Louisiana 2, Mis- 
souri 2, Illinois 2, Mississippi 5, North Carolina 22, South Carolina 48, 
Oklahoma Territory 6 and the Indian Territory 5, and the Great State 
of Texas 117. That certainly represents a large territory and also a 
great deal of money involved, as has already been stated here. They 
employ, I presume, I should say, about twenty to twenty-five thousand 
men. Of course, if that industry was interfered with the loss would 
not fall on the rich mill owner but on the farmer, and some of the small 
farmers are negroes who receive a portion of this for their seed. As 
has been already stated here the butter oil which is used in the manu- 
facture of butterine is a small portion of the general production. Still, 
that help5 the general industry, and another point that is to be consid- 
ered is that the foreign countries will take advantage of anything that 
is passed to condemn the oil. In fact, it is a fact that the foreign 
countries first taught us what it was. We did not know. 

Germany was a pioneer in this, and France followed, and then the New 
England States took it up and from them the South learned the value 
of the cotton-seed oil and cotton-seed meal, and then the value was 
enhanced by foreign countries. New England and the foreign countries 
taught us what was the value of all these products of ours. Now, why 
should it be that these are the very people that are coming in and try- 
ing to take away from us that value? That is a question I have 
revolved in my mind from day to day. Why should these very States 
be against it? It seems absurd to me. It is a wholesome article of 
food, and if it is, and furthermore it is a cheap one, it is not alone the 
producers who are interested in this; far from it. The consumer is also 
interested. By the manufacture of this cotton-seed industry we get 
cheaper lard, cheaper butter and better butter, and also cheaper and 
better olive oil — an article used in food from time immemorial — and it 
is carried to every industry and I do not see why there should be any 
objection to it. 

You have here the statement made by Mr. Aldrich as to the other 
articles used in the manufiicture of this product, and as to their purity 
and cleanliness, and Mr. Allison made a statement as to the purity and 
cleanliness of the olive oil. Those are facts and there is no question 
about them at all. I passed one establishment in Chicago, a slaughter- 
ing establishment, where they used the cleanest water and the cleanest 
handling of this oleo fat. They put it in clean water, and I made 
inquiries and found it was the purest water they could obtain for that 
purpose; and then they put it in cold storage. The butter men will 
make the same statement. I am satisfied that you must be satisfied of 
that, and another point is made. We do not say the other article is 
not good, but we say ours is good. The whole matter has been over- 
hauled so much, and we speak for the Southern industry, and I do not 
think it is right and I do not think it will pass and I think people in 
general are against it. 

Fourteen States are producing this, and there are only four or five 
States that are interested in the dairy interests at home. Here is a 
statement I have made up, showing the location of each individual mill 
of the cotton seed industry. However, it is not complete. I merely 
saw it lying on my desk when I came out of my office and took it up 
without any idea of turning it in to the committee, and I would like to 
have the privilege of revising it and completing it before I do so. 

S. Rep. 2043 47 



738 OLEOMATIOATIINE. 

Mr. Batley. We would like to get it into the report of the cominittee 
and if you will send it to us afterwards we will be much obliged. 

Mr. Brady. I will be pleased to do so. There might be some mills 
left off" here. 

STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY MR. ROBERT GIBSON, OF DALLAS, TEX 

I have been associated in and with the cotton-seed oil industry for 
the past twenty- three years, moving from Tennessee to Texas in 1877 to 
build and operate cotton-seed oil mills, and was actively employed in 
the management of oil mills for some fifteen years. Since that time 
I have been more or less interested in the industry. For the past five 
years I have been filling the position of secretary of the Interstate and 
Texas Cotton Seed Crushers' Associations. 

My association with the mills and the two associations has given me 
a thorough insight into and knowledge of the cotton seed crushing 
industry, which has increased from some 5 or 6 mills in 1865 to over 
300 mills in 1899. In the mills of recent years over 90 per cent of the 
labor used in these mills are negroes who are paid from $1 per day to 
as high as $3.50 per day for their services. These mills, with the excep- 
tion of some 4 or 5, are located in the cotton growing States of theSimth 
and the Indian Territory; in my State, Texas, and the Indian Terri- 
tory there are some 135 mills, and more being built every year as the 
cotton growing is being developed. Five years ago there was not a 
cotton-seed oil mill in the Indian Territory ; to day there are 10 or 1-!, and 
every year as the cotton average is increased, more mills are built. The 
same condition, too, exists as to the increase in mills in the old cotton- 
growing States. These facts I give yon to show the great injury you 
would inflict on this growing industry by the passage of laws taxing 
one of our principal products — the oil, which is largely used in the 
manufacture of butterine, a pure and wholesome food — whicli tax, if 
placed as contemplated in pending bills, will cut off the use of this oil 
to a great extent, and, in consequence, unless other uses can be found 
for it, must materially affect its price, as well as the profits of the farmer 
who raises the cotton and seed used in its manufacture, particularly the 
latter, which now pays the farmer from $4 to $5 per bale for all seed 
sold. I beg further to show you that the injury to this industry not 
only affects the cotton growing States of the South and Indian Terri- 
tory, but as well a great many of the Middle and Eastern States that 
manufacture the machinery used in these oil mills, as well as the manu- 
facture of the supplies used in their manipulation. 

The three largest companies building oil machinery, and furnishing 
over 75 per cent of it, are located in Dayton, Ohio, though there are 
some three others located in Thompsonville, Conn., Richmond, Va., and 
Chattanooga, Tenn. The largest and principal companies furnishing 
camel's-hair press cloth are located in New York and Massachusetts; 
besides, there are others located in Chicago and St. Louis. The manu- 
facturers of other parts of machinery used largely in the construction 
of oil mills — in fact, almost all of the machinery and supplies come from 
the Middle and Eastern States, and I am satisfied that each and every 
concern engaged in said manufacture would join us in our protest 
against the infliction of this unjust tax. 

In conclusion, I beg to say that the members of our two cottonseed 
crushing associations are not confined alone to the States operating oil 
mills, but are composed as well of members from Missouri, Kentucky, 
Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Nebraska, Iowa, 



OLEOMARGARINE. 739 

and Kansas, all of whom are represented here to day by tbe committee 
composed of E. H. Ferguson, of Louisville, Ky.; W. R. Cantrell, New 
York; George B. Alexander, Greenville, Miss.; E. M. Durliam, Vicks- 
burg. Miss.; E. Steinbart, New Orleans, La.; E. S. Ready, Helena, Ark.; 
W. H. Wrigbt, Pine Bluff', Ark. ; A. D. Allen, Little Rock, Ark. ; F. W. 
Brode, Mempbis, Tenn. ; L. W. Haskell, Savannab, Ga. ; Jo. W. Allison, 
Ennis, Tex.; George M. Aldridge, Dallas, Tex.; Marion Sansom, Alva- 
rado, Tex. ; A. P. McCord, Cameron, Tex., and Robert Gibson, Dallas, 
Tex., wbo respectfully petition tbat your honorable body do not pass 
tbis, to us, unjnst measure. 

Thereupon the subcommittee adjourned. 



House of Representatives, April 17, 1900. 

The subcommittee on the Bureau of Animal Industry of the Com- 
mittee on Agriculture met at 11.15 a. m., Hon. Henry D. Allen in the 
chair. 

The Chairman. Mr. Hake, I understand that you gentlemen desire 
to be heard this morning, and I would like to have you indicate which 
one of you would like to be heard first. 

Mr. Hake. I will make a short statement, Mr. Chairman, 

STATEMENT OF MR. J. A. HAKE. 

Mr. Hake. I am in the live-stock commission business at South 
Omaha, Nebr. 

The Chairman. Have you any official position in any organization ? 

Mr. Hake. I am president of that association that we have there 
called the Live Stock Exchange. 

Doubtless this committee has been regaled with all the arguments 
that acute and quick minds could conceive of in the direction of argu- 
ment on the question that we think interests us. We do not desire to 
be understood as being so conceited as to believe tliat we could change 
the minds of people who had already made their minds up, or convince 
a man against his will; but we in the West are engaged in stock grow- 
ing and beef making, and we feel that these measures in relation to 
oleomargarine would affect the value of our products; and we have a 
little information in relation to our markets and our city which we 
would like to present for the consideration of the committee. 

There being several bills now pending before the different committees 
in Congress seeking to impose a tax on oleomargarine, or manufactured 
butter, to such an extent as to absolutely x)rohibit its manufacture and 
sale, we wish to say that the result of the passage of such measures 
would appear to be in the interest of the dairy-producing and detri- 
mental to the meat-producing sections of this country. 

Coming as we do from Nebraska, one of the largest meat-producing 
States among the sisterhood of States, and representing a commer- 
cial body — the South Omaha Live Stock Exchange — whose members 
transact a daily business the aggregate of which is greater than any 
corporation, company, association, or individual in the State, and pos- 
sibly greater than all these combined, we have asked this hearing for 
the purpose of offering some information as to the extent of the live- 
stock industry in our State and the damages that would result thereto 
should these measures become a law. 



740 OLEOMARGARINE. 

South Omaha is the third largest live stock market in the world. 

For the year ending December 31, 1899, there were 5-10,502 cattle 
slaughtered and, for the same period, there were slaughtered 2,188,779 
hogs. The makers of oleomargarine create a demand for oleo oil which 
is made from the choice fats of the beef and which is worth, for butter 
purposes, 10 cents per pound. If these choice fats were not utilized in 
the manufacture of butter, they would have to be sold as tallow, which 
is worth about 5 cents per pound. A steer will yield forty to tifty 
pounds of oleo oil ; therefore, should the butterine industry be destroyed, 
each steer would depreciate in value at least $2. Now, the same is 
true of hogs. Leaf lard, or neutral, being used in the manufacture of 
butterine, is worth 8 to 9 cents per pound; lard is worth about 6 cents; 
a hog will yield about 8 pounds of neutral, and if there was no 
demand for neutral as a butterine ingredient, it would have no greater 
value than ordinary lard; hence each hog would be worth about 20 
cents per head less than present price. LTpon this basis the loss to 
the producers of cattle and hogs during 1899 in South Omaha alone 
would be — 

Ou 540,502 cattle, at $2 $1,081,004.00 

Ou 2,188,779 hogs at, 20 cents 437,755.80 

Total 1,518,759.80 

The total number of beef cattle and hogs in the United States is a 
matter of statistics, which has doubtless been presented for your con- 
sideration, or, if not, can be easily obtained. 

The probable loss to the beef producers of this country, should this 
measure become a law, has been estimated by different persons to 
be about $100,000,000, to say nathing of the confiscation of about 
$15,000,000 invested in the manufacture of oleomargarine and butter- 
ine and the loss of employment to about 25,000 men. 

The butterine business of 1890 was 2.0 i)er cent of the total amount 
of butter made in the United States. These figures are taken from the 
records of the Bureau of Internal Kevenue and tlie Agi icultural Uei)art- 
meut. For the year ending June 30, 1899, there were 83,000,000 pounds 
of butterine manufactured in the United States, and, according to the 
estimate of Mr. Wilson, editor of the Elgin Dairy Eeport, Elgin, 111., 
there were something over 3,000,000,000 pounds of butter made in the 
United States for that year. Figuring on this basis, the amount of 
butterine manufactured as compared with the amount of butter made 
is 2^ per cent, showing that the make of butterine has decreased, in 
comparison to the make of butter, in the past ten years to the extent of 
one-tenth of 1 per cent. The Government received, for the year ending 
June 30, 1899, about $2,000,000 from tax and license on butterine. 

From experience it has been proven that uncolored butterine is unsala- 
ble; therefore, if the proposed legislation in Washington should become 
a law, it would practically kill the butterine business. 

There are in the United States about 44,000,000 cattle, one-third of 
which are milch cows, the other two thirds being meat products. In 
legislating for the cattle industry, it would hardly be fair to protect 
and foster the small minority of one third against the large majority of 
two thirds. 

That is, being two-thirds of the whole number of cattle or beef 
X)roduct8, while one-third are dairy-producing products. 

While Nebraska is chiefly a meat-producing State, we also have more 
or less, dairy interests and we know of no conflict between the two 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 741 

industries, the dairymen finding a market for all the produce they can 
make without unfavorable legislation to the meat industry. 

Oleomargarine, or butterine, is a wholesome and absolutely pure 
article of diet, manufactured and sold at about one-half the price of 
creamery or dairy butter, and is very desirable for and largely used 
by laboring classes and, in fact, all of frugal habits and moderate 
means. 

I desire to read in this connection, as a part of my remarks, the 
memorial to Congress that was passed by our exchange last winter. 
Possibly it is on file here with the committee already, but I would like 
to read it. 

The Chaikman. If you would like to read it, do so. 

Mr. Hake (reading) : 

We beg to represent that our organization has a membersMp of over 200 men, all 
of whom are engaged in handling live stock in some form, and are well acquainted 
with the subject and do enter a most earnest and emphatic protest against said leg- 
islation of this character because: 

First. " The consumers at the table," in whose interest the enactment is proposed, 
are in no need of such protection. It is probable that many legislatures favor these 
bills under the belief that butterine, etc., are composed of impure materials, com- 
pounded in filthy establishments, and foisted upon an innocent and unsuspecting 
public through deceptive and fraudulent methods. A brief investigation will con- 
vince them of their mistake. The most eminent chemists of the world pronounce 
butterine and oleomargarine substantially the same as natural butter, differing from 
it only in the lack of butyric acid, which produces rancidity in the natural article. 
England, the foremost among nations in the passing of stringent laws for the pro- 
tection of her citizens against impure food products, indorsed butterine and oleo- 
margarine, and encourages their production and sale because of their wholesomeness 
and cheapness. Our own Government, likewise, sanctions their production and use, 
and protects the consumer by having every pound made and sold under the strictest 
supervision of the department of internal revenue. The materials and processes 
are as well known as those which produce flour, lard, sugar, or any other necessary 
stajile of life. Butterine factories are noted for the scrupulous care and cleanliness 
shown in every detail, and are always open for the inspection of visitors, thus effec- 
tually disiiroving the malicious falsehoods uttered regarding secret methods, impure 
ingredients, harmful chemicals, etc. They court the closest and most thorough 
investigation, and challenge any advocate of these bills to prove that such laws are 
needed for or will benefit the health of a single citizen of the United States. 

Second. Since the introduction of butterine and oleomargarine the prices of the leaf 
fats, from which they are chiefly made, have relatively increased 2^ to 3 cents per 
pound, thus adding millions of dollars annually to the value of the cattle and hog 
products of the United States. If this prohibition scheme is carried out, stock 
raisers of the United States will lose each year this vast sum of money. 

Third. If such legislation is enacted, it will decrease the worth of the live stock 
of the country by many millions of dollars. It will also deprive the National Gov- 
ernment of a revenue now reaching $2,000,000 annually aud steadily increasing. 
This loss would have to be replaced by taxation elsewhere, a portion of which would 
fall upon our own people. 

Fourth. It is clear from the foregoing facts (everyone of which can be substan- 
tiated by undoubted testimony) that the proposed laws are not in the interests of 
the people generally, nor of the State, nor of the nation. They must therefore be 
intended to benefit certain selfish and designing individuals who hope, by creating 
popular prejudices against butterine, to stop its manufacture and again open the 
way for those vile butter-mixing establishments which formerly abounded in every 
city and town, whose concoctions and compounds are as far inferior to butterine in 
purity, healthfulness, and cleanliness as a bucking broncho to a Nebraska thorough- 
bred. Butterine, with its uniformly good qualities, drove these mixtures from the 
field, and they have ever since been moving heaven and earth to regain their lost 
position and once more enjoy the enormous profits arising from their nefarious work. 
They have craftily enlisted on their side honest dairy farmers and creameries whom 
they have temporarily won by false statements and fallacious arguments. To these 
latter we beg to say there is no real conflict between the honest butter producers 
and the makers of butterine. A large portion of the people will buy natural at 
almost any price, if they can always procure it of first-class quality. By making 
nothing but the best grades, the dairies will always have a ready market at full 
prices, thereby leaving butterine to supply those content with a wholesome, health- 
ful, and cheap substitute. 



742 OLEOMARGAKINE. 

We hope these brief statements will convince you that the bill in question is 
purely "class legislation," which is always vicious in tendency and contrary to tlie 
principles of a republican form of government, which seeks "the greatest good to 
the greatest number." 

I have here a few letters which I have obtained very easily, and very 
quickly. I would like to read them. They come from the farmers and 
producers of stock throughout the State. Here is a letter signed by 
S. S. Hadley, of Cedar Eapids, Nebr. : 

To Nebraska Delegation in Congress: 

Congress is now considering a measure contemplating the taxing of oleo oils — 
oleomargarine and butterine — 10 cents per pound. 

As these products are manufactured from the oils extracted from the fats of cattle, 
hogs, and sheep, the animal of right should be and is worth from $1 to $3 per head 
more, where the product can be manufactured into a valuable article, than when 
used as ordinary tallow and lard. 

I believe the jiassage of such a measure wonld be legislating in the interest of a 
very small minority and not in the interes* of the masses. 

Oleomargarine or butterine, being absolutely pure and wholesome and furnished 
the consumer at about half price of creamery butter, is a very desirable commodity 
for the laboring classes, and iu fact all people of frugal habits and moderate means; 
and the tax practically prohibits its manufacture. 

I am engaged in producing, shipping, buying, and selling meat and fat producing 
animals and am interested as much and more than the dairyman can possibly be in 
the product of the dairy. 

I therefore desire to enter my earnest protest against the passage of any such 
measure, and ask your earnest cooperation in defeating House bill No. 6. 

S. S. Hadley, 

Cedar Eapids, Nebr. 

Here is one signed by B. J, Tierney, of Ansley, Nebr., which reads 
as follows: 

Ansley, Nebk., Ajpril 13, 1900. 
J, A. Hake, Esq., 

South Omaha, Nehr. 

Dear Sir: I understand that a committee from the South Omaha Exchange will 
visit Washington, D. C, in the near future for the purpose of discouraging the 
passage of House bill No. 6, regarding the manufacturing of butterine and oleomar- 
garines, and I trust you may be successful, for in my opinion the passage of such a 
bill would be against the interests and highly detrimental to farmers and all grow- 
ers of stock, inasmuch as the effect would be to limit the use of all animal fats and 
oils. 

This section is practically an agricultural and farming region, but I am shipping 
from Ansley annually about 1,000 head of cattle and from nine to ten thousand 
head of hogs, and I estimate that if the proposed bill should become a law it would 
diminish the aggregate value of the stock shipped from this place alone from $4,000 
to $6,000, all ot which must of necessity fall on the grower. 

Sincerely believing that the best interests of the small farmer and stock growers 
will be promoted by the defeat of the proposed measure, I am, 
Yours, truly, 

B. J. Tierney. 

Here is one, dated Lewellen, Nebr., April 10. That is in your dis- 
trict, Mr. Neville? 
Mr. Neville. Yes, sir. That is from Mr. Delatour, isn't it? 
Mr. Hake. Yes, sir. Mr. Delatour's letter reads as follows: 

Lewellen, Nebr., April 10, 1900. 
J. A. Hake, Esq., 

President South Omaha Live Stock Exchange. 
Dear Sir: I trust the South Omaha Livestock Exchange will take an active part 
in trying to defeat House bill No. 6, which contemplates a tax of 10 cents a pound on 
manufactured butter, butterine, or oleomargarine. The increase of the tax will pro- 
hibit the manufacturing and sale of said articles. The enactment of this law will 
reduce the value of our stock from $1 to $2 per head. The law as itnow stands seems 
to be liberal to the dairy interest and it should not clamour for any more legislation, 
and especially for legislation that will result in great damage and loss to another 
legitimate industry. 

Very respectfully, yours, S. P. Delatour. 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 



743 



The Chairman. Who is Mr. S. P. Delatour? What is his occupation? 

Mr. Hake. He is a grower of stock and is outside of the agricultural 
districts. They raise very little crops in his district — raise some corn and 
some alfalfa, but he is practically a range man. 

Mr. Neville. He is one of the brand commissioners of the State of 
Nebraska. 

Mr. Hake. This letter of Mr. Tierney and those of the others go to 
show who they are. Here is a letter from Mr. T. B. Hord : 

Central City, Nebr., April 7, 1900. 
The Representatives of the State of Nebraska, 

The Senate and the House of Congress, Washington, D. C. 

Gentlemen: Being largely interested iu the production and maturing of cattle, 
hogs, and sheep in the State of Nebraska, I feel it to he a great injustice to not only 
myself but to producers at large to have the present oleomargarine bill now pend- 
ing iu Congress; if passed, would positively prohibit the manufacture of oleomarga- 
rine or butterine, for which the butter fats of the cattle, hogs, and sheep is used. 

Last year I matured and disposed of 17,000 cattle, 12,000 hogs, and 12,000 sheep. 
It means $2 a head on each head of cattle matured, 50 cents on each hog, and 25 cents 
on each sheep, amounting to $43,000. We are practically feeding the same numbers 
this year. 

Such a reduction last year would have shown a loss iu our business and this year 
a much greater one, and we sincerely hope that you will use your best endeavors to 
defeat said bill. 

Very respectfully, yours, T. B. HoRD. 

T. B. Hord is a grower of cattle on the ranges and a feeder in the 
agricultural districts. He moves them down from the ranges and feeds 
them on corn and prepares them for the market. 

JVlr. Dahle. Kegarding the way he expresses it there, do you regard 
it as a fair statement as to the amount of difference it would make on 
the value of hogs, cattle, and sheep ? That does not agree with your 
claim, as I understand it. 

Mr. Hake. Practically it does on cattle. 

Mr. Dahle. It does on cattle? 

Mr. Hake. That question 

Mr. Dahle. How about hogs? 

Mr. Hake. Twenty cents; of course 

Mr. Dahle. You figure about 20 cents'? 

Mr. Hake. Yes, sir. He has estimated 50 cents. 

Mr. Dahle. How about sheep? 

Mr. Hake. Sheep hardly enter into the business that he does. Of 
course he does not understand much about that. 

Mr. Dahle. He does not understand it? 

Mr. Hake. This letter is gotten up and written by himself, you 
understand. 

Mr. Dahle. Does it appear that he does understand it from that? 

Mr. Hake. He understands that the fat out of a certain animal, and 
to a certain amount, and of a certain variety goes into these oleo oils, 
and he takes it that the sheep, knowing them to be tallow producers 
the same as the cattle, that the tallow of these sheep would enter into 
it the same. 

Mr. Dahle. But it does show that he does not know anything about it? 

Mr. Hake. I do not think that he fully understands that. 

Mr. Dahle. He does not understand that fully? 

Mr. Hake. I think it shows a larger estimate than the absolute facts 
would warrant. 

The Chairman. I would suggest that there are two or three of these 
gentlemen, and we had better let them be heard and then ask them 
questions. 



744 OLEOMAEGAEINE. 

Mr. Dahle. Very well. 

Mr. Hake. Here is a letter from the feeding station of the Standard 
Cattle Company. It is as follows: 

Standakd Cattle Company, 
Office of the General Manager, 

Ames, Ntbr., April 11, 1900. 
Mr. J. A. Hake, 

Union Stock Tarda, South Omaha, Nehr. 
Dear Sir: Answering yours of the 17th instant, we have fed ahout 65,000 cattle 
here the last fourteen years and are largely Interested in the cattle business, as you 
know. We do not attempt a very large business in hogs. We generally have about 
2,500 on hand; less than this now because of cholera last year. 

1 certainly do not approve of the bill to tax oleomargarine products 10 cents per 
pound and think it to be an unjustifiable thing to do. I think they should be sold 
as oleomargarine products and a heavy penalty exacted for noncompliance of the 
law, and the only doubt I have in the matter is whether it is practicable or not to 
detect their being placed on sale as butter. 

Yours, truly, R. M. Allen, General Manager. 

Mr. Allen is the manager of the Standard Cattle Company, and he 
has four or Ave thousand cattle a year. They used to feed 3,000, but 
have increased their feeding very much lately. 

Here is another letter : 

Grand Island, Nebr., April 10, 1900, 
J. A. Hake, Esq., 

President South Omaha Live Stock Exchange, South Omaha, Nebr. 

Dear Sir : In answer to your letter regarding the House roll No. 6 my views agree 
■with those of the Live Stock Exchange. 

As long as the manufactured butter is a healthy product, and not being prohibited 
by our Government to be put in the market, it surely is a wrongful move of Congress 
to the stock men of United States to put a tax on this product, decreasing the value 
of their stock. 

It looks to me that if Congress passed such a law they would be making a class 
legislation of it, favoring their citizens engaged in the creamery business aud dam- 
aging their citizens engaged in the stock business. As we are all citizens of United 
States, it surely is wrong to tax one to protect the other. 

I therefore herewith express my sincere hope that your committee will be suc- 
cessful in defeating such law. 

Very respectfully, John Reimeks. 

Here is a letter from Mr. N. L. Anderson, of Sacramento : 

Sacramento, Nebr., April 7, 1900. 
Dear Sir: I desire to enter an earnest protest against the passage of a bill now 
pending in Congress which seeks to tax the manufacture of oleomargarine so high 
as to prohibit its manufacture. As you know, I am a large feeder of cattle in 
Nebraska (running from 500 to 1,000 head every year). My beef cattle bring $2 
more per head than they would if the oleomargarine product in them could not be 
used for butter. 

I am reliably informed that butter so manufactured is equal in every respect to 
dairy butter and sells for considerably less money in the market. I also think that 
the passage of such a law would be class legislation and against the best interests 
of the producers of beef cattle aud the consumers of butter. 
Yours, truly, 

N. L. Anderson. 
The Nebraska Representatives in Congress. 

Mr. Anderson owns about a section and a half of land, on which he 
raises corn largely and feeds the products to cattle. 

The letter I am about to read here — I presume you have something 
of this kind, but this is a little extravagant, gentlemen, I will admit, 
but I read it: 

Sidney, Nebr., April 9, 1900. 
The Nebraska Delegation in Congress. 

Gentlemen : A resident of Nebraska for nearly thirty years, I have noted, as you 
have, its rapid development in wealth. My observation and experience has con- 
vinced me the greatest factor in creating its wealth has been its live-stock industry. 



OLEOM AEG ARINE. 



745 



Cattle raising was its first attempt; then came feeding and fattening for market. 
Hog raising became a great factor at once, and sheep raising and sheep feeding rap- 
idly followed. So that Nebraska is preeminently a stock State. I am amazed that 
there should be anyone who may be interested in House roll No. 6 indulging the 
hope that a single member of the Nebraska delegation will support it. The loss to 
the Nebraska live-stock interest would be severe by its pas8a<j;e. 

We had in 1898 in the State 716,017 cattle, 2,339,086 hogs, 1,193,250 head of sheep. 
The loss on sheep and swine if this bill becomes a law will be $1 per head, or a total 
loss in these two classes of stock of $3,532,336. The loss on cattle will be from $3 to 
$5 per head ; at a minimum of $3 per head the loss to cattle in this State would ecpial 
$2,148,051, or a total loss on cattle, hogs, and sheep, in Nebraska of $5,680,387. Tlie 
loss on this same basis in the nation holds a ratio even greater than in Nebraska. 
In 1897 there were in the United States 15,941,727 head of milch cows, of other cattle 
there were 30.508,408, of sbee]) there were 36,818,643, of swine there were 40,600,276, 
which by the passage of this bill would represent a lost value of the enormous sum 
of $168,944,141 on these three classes of live stock. This great loss to be consum- 
mated by the passage of this bill for what purpose? Simply to enhance the price of 
butter, the product of 15,941,727 milch cows. 

We understand, of course, the plea for the bill is pure butter. A certain per cent 
of pure butter will be made, but a large per cent, as is the custom now with cream- 
eries, will be old refuse gathered up in the stores, reeking with tilth, waslied in tlie 
fresh buttermilk of the creamery, worked over and labeled second creamery, aud of 
course will be sold as pure and at a price beyond the reach of thousands of poor 
people in our large cities who are glad to get pure, wholesome butterine at a price 
within their means. The passage of this bill means the poor eating no butter. 

Gentlemen, for these reasons I urge you all as Nebraskans to oppose this bill. 
Very truly, yours. 

Matt. Daugherty. 

Here is another one, signed by Col. F. M. Woods, and another by 
George Harvey, and another by A. M. Treat, of Chappell, Nebr. Some 
of these letters, the last two, for instance, are from Mr. Neville's district. 

Mr. Neville. Matt. Daugherty is from my district. 

Mr. Hake. Yes; Chappell is in your district. 

Mr. Neville. Yes; Delatour is from my district, aud Tierney. He 
is at Ansley. 

Mr. Hake. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Are there any gentlemen of tlie committee wlio 
desire to ask Mr. Hake any questions? 

Mr. Dahle. When you were saying or figuring that oleomargarine 
costs about half what butter costs — you advanced that idea? 

Mr. Hake. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Dahle. At what prices do you figure the two, respectively? 

Mr. Hake. Fifteen to thirty cents. Fifteen to thirty cents for cream- 
ery. It costs 25 to 30 cents with us, but that is in our country, you 
understand. 1 presume it might not cost as much in other places. It 
costs from 15 to li5 cents, and we rarely buy it for less than 25 cents, 
and sometimes x^ay 30. 

Mr. Cheek. Creamery has been as high as 32 cents. 

Mr. Dahle. You figure creamery from 22 to 35 cents? 

Mr. Hake. Twenty-two to thirty cents. 

Mr. Dahle. And oleomargarine? 

Mr. Hake. It has been 13 to 15 cents. 

Mr. Dahle. 1 can only say that that is away too high. 

Mr. Hake. How? 

Mr. Dahle. Butter in the summer is worth with us IG cents, that is 
creamery butter. 

Mr. Hake. I have never bought it that way. 

Mr. Dahle. Well, I have sold lots of it that way. 

The Chairman. That would be argument, Mr. Dahle. 

Mr. Dahle. Yes, I know; but I am sorry that we get into our records 
things that look away off. I would like to correct them. 



746 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. Bailey. These figures, yoa do not intend to say that they are 
technically true. The general impression and belief of the cattlemen 
ill your country is that the killing of this industry must materially 
aifect the cattle and stock interests of the Northwest, and the whole 
country. 

Mr. Hake. Yes, that is it. 

Mr. Bailey. As regards technical knowledge, you do not pretend to 
have absolute technical knowledge? 

Mr. Hake. No, sir, and it varies; it varies with the seasons — the 
price of the product of cattle and the price of hogs. Again, with hogs 
or sheep the product is not as high, and we could not make an arbitrary 
figure that would cover all this. 

Mr. Neville. There was about 4,000,000 pounds sold in Nebraska 
last year. 

Mr. Hake. Yes; sir. 

Mr. Neville. As I understand the statistics, between three and four 
millions. And it was sold at as low as 15 cents a pound — oleomar- 
garine. 

Mr. Hake. I think so. I never bought any of it. 

Mr. Neville. Was it colored? 

Mr. Hake. I think it was, yes. I never saw any of it. 

Mr. Neville. In imitation of butter? 

Mr. Hake. I think it was colored. I know it is colored. 

Mr. Neville. Now, is it not true that there is a law in Nebraska 
■which prohibits this coloring of butter? 

Mr. Hake. There is a law which prohibits its sale, and permitting it 
to be manufactured and shij^ped to other States. Under the interstate- 
commerce regulations other States enjoy the same privileges and we 
simply deprive our citizens of the privilege of manufacturing it. J>ut 
the other States manufacture it and ship it to us. That is the result. 

Mr. Dahle. Any State may send out what it manufactures 

Mr. Neville. Yes; sir. 

Mr. Dahle (continuing). But under the law of Nebraska it is pro- 
hibited? 

The Chairman. I would suggest that that matter of the law will 
speak for itself. 

Mr. Neville. My question was intended to bring out a fact with 
reference to it. He was simply quoting the prices and the difference 
in prices between butter and oleomargarine. I simply wanted to show 
that all of it sold there is in violation of the law, and the plea is that 
it must be continued to be sold in violation of law. 

The Chairman. We will go over that matter in the committee. 

Mr. Neville. These people who have written letters here, how were 
they notified as to the contents of this bill? 

Mr. Hake. It has been a matter of consideration with our people, 
and has been agitated. 

Mr. Neville. You sent some communications? 

Mr. Hake. Yes; we have gotten the business up. 

Mr. Neville. I notice that in each one of these letters — I have 
received letters from one of these gentlemen you refer to, and also from 
John Bradt. You know him? 

Mr. Hake. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Neville (continuing). And 1 notice that in these letters I have 
received, and also those you have read here, they simply speak of this 
as a tax upon oleomargarine of 10 cents. 

Mr. Hake. Ten cents a pound ? 



OLEOMARGARINE. 



747 



Mr. Neville. Yes, 10 cents a pound I mean. As a matter of fact, 
your organization simj)ly knew that it was proposed to tax it when in 
imitation of butter? 

Mr. Hake. Yes, the franier of that bill knew that it was absolutely 
impossible to make lard and sell it for butter. 

Mr. Neville. Did Mr. Delatour and Mr. Tierney know this? 

Mr. Hake, Yes, they knew it, and we have known that the committee 
only meant to tax oleomargarine the 10 cents a pound when it was 
colored in imitation of butter. 

Mr. Neville. They knew that? 

Mr. Hake. I should say they did. They are intelligent people, all of 
them, and no doubt knew it. 

The letters of Mr. Woods, Mr. Harvey, and Mr. Treat, submitted by 
Mr. Hake, are as follows : 

South Omaha Live Stock Exchange, 

South Omaha, A^ehr., April 7, 1900. 
The Nebraska Delegation in Congress: 

Our National Legislature is now considering a measure contemplating the taxing 
of oleo oils, oleomargarine, or butterine to the amount of 10 cents per pound. As 
these products are manufactured from the oils extracted from the fats of cattle, 
hogs, and sheep, the animal of right should be, and is, worth from $1 to $3 per head 
more where the product can be manufactured into a valuable article than when 
used as ordinary tallow and lard. 1 believe the passage of such a measure would 
be legislating in the interest of a very small minority and not in the interest of 
the masses. 

Oleomaigariue or butterine, being absolutely pure and wholesome, and furnished 
the consumer at about half the price of creamery butter, is a very desirable com- 
modity for the laboring masses, and, in fact, all people of moderate means. As this 
tax practically prohibits its manufacture, I desire to enter my earnest protest 
against the passage of any such measure. Having been engaged in the live stock 
industry all of my life, selling somewhere near 10,000 head annually, I ask your 
cooperation in defeating House bill No. 6. 

F. M. Woods, Auctioneer. 



To Nebraska Delegation in Congress: 

Congress is now considering a measure contemplating the taxing of oleo oils, oleo- 
margarine, and butterine 10 cents per pound. 

As these products are manufactured from the oils extracted from the fats of cattle, 
hogs, and sheep, the animal of right should be, and is, worth from $1 to $3 per head 
more where the product can be manufactured into a valuable article than when 
used as ordinary tallow and lard. 

I believe the passage of si;ch a measure would be legislating in the interest of a 
very small minority aud not in the interest of the masses. 

Oleomargarine or butterine, being absolutely pure and wholesome, and furnished 
the consumer at about half price of creamery Imtter, is a very desirable commodity 
for the laboring classes, and, in fact, all people of frugal habits and moderate means, 
and the tax practically prohibits its manufacture. 

I am engaged in producing, shipping, buying, and selling meat and fat-producing 
animals, and am interested as much and more in their value than the dairyman can 
possibly be in the product of the dairy. 

I therefore desire to enter my earnest protest against the passage of any such 
measure, and ask your earnest cooperation in deleating House bill No. 6. 

Geo. Harvey, 
Kearney, Buffalo County, Nebr, 

April 11, 1900. 



Chappell, Nebr., April 10, 1900. 
To Nebraska Delegation in Congress: 

Our National Legislature is now cousidcring a measure contemplating the taxing 
of oleo oils, oleomargarine, or butterine to the amount of 10 cents per pound. As 
these products are manufactured from the oils extracted from the fats of cattle, hogs, 
and sheep, the animal of right should be, and is, worth from $1 to $3 per head more 
where the product can be manufactured into a valuable article than when used as 



748 OLEOMARGAKINE. 

ordinary tallow and lard. I believe the passage of such a measure would be legis- 
lating in the interest of a small minority and not in the interest of the masses. 
Oleomargarine or butterine, being absolutely pure and wholesome, and furnished the 
consumer at about half the price of creamery butter, is a very desirable commodity 
for the laboring masses, and in fact all people of moderate means. 

As I have been and am still engaged in raising, buying, and shipping live stock on 
foot, and as this measure would practically prohibit the manufacturing of a part of 
the animal into a most valuable product, thereby reducing the price of killing stock, 
I desire to enter my earnest protest against its passage, and would respectfully ask 
your cooperation in endeavoring to defeat this measure. 

A. M. Treat, 

STATEMENT OF MR. W. B. CHEEK, OF SOUTH OMAHA, NEBR. 

The Chairman. What is you occupation? 

Mr. Cheek. I am vice-president of the Live Stock Exchange at 
South Omaha, Nebr. 

The Chairman. Do you desire to make any statement to the com- 
mittee? 

Mr. Cheek. No; I have no argument on the subject aside from that 
which has been made by Mr. Hake. 

The Chairman. Do you know anything about the retail sale of oleo- 
margarine in your city? 

Mr. Cheek. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Will you tell us how it is sold? Is it sold openly as 
oleomargarine, or secretly? 

Mr. Cheek. It is sold openly in the grocery stores and butcher 
shops as oleomargarine. For instance, in my shop, where I buy my 
meat, is a table, and on that table is butterine in boxes and tubs, and 
stacked up outside of the boxes, and marked at all the way from 12^ 
cents to 18i cents. I believe what they call prime butterine sells for 
from 18^ cents to 19 cents. 

The Chairman. What does the creamery butter sell for? 

Mr. Cheek. I have never been able to buy it for less than 18 cents. 

The Chairman. Do you know of any complaint from the consumers 
of the oleomargarine in your district? 

Mr. Cheek. No, sir ; I never heard of any. 

The Chairman. What class of people is it that consumes that oleo- 
margarine? 

Mr. Cheek. The laboring class — principally men working in the stock 
yards and packing houses, and general laborers. 

The Chairman. Have there been any claims of illegal sales? 

Mr. Cheek. No, sir; no complaint at all. 

The Chairman. I will ask you this question: Has there been any 
decrease in the price of dairy cattle in your country? 

Mr. Cheek. No, sir. 

The Chairman. Has there been any decrease in the j)rice of the dairy 
product of butter? 

Mr. Cheek. No, sir. 

The Chairman. Has there been any decrease in the value of your 
dairy farm land ? 

Mr. Cheek. I should say not. It has been on the increase. 

The Chairman. It has increased? 

Mr. Cheek. Yes. 

The Chairman. Then do you know of any reason why, in that 
country, there should be any protection given to the dairy interests over 
the oleomargine interests? 

Mr. Cheek. I see no reason at all. There has always been an excess- 
ive demand for dairy products. 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 749 

The Chairman. The demand for dairy products has been greater 
than the supply? 

Mr. Cheek. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. How large a place is South Omaha f 

Mr. Cheek. Twenty-five thousand. 

Tlie Chairman. What character of industries have you there? 

Mr. Cheek. Packing houses, stock yards, and miscellaneous manu- 
facturing — a few foundries, and things like that — but the principal 
industries there are the stock yards and packing houses. 

The Chairman. How many people are employed there? 

Mr. Cheek. Eleven thousand men, I think. 

The Chairman. Can you tell this committee which there is the most 
consumption of there, dairy butter or oleomargarine? 

Mr. Cheek. I should say the principal consumption was dairy but- 
ter. A large amount of oleomargarine is consumed, but the principal 
consumption is dairy butter. 

Mr. Dahle. Do you have a dairy commissioner f 

Mr. Cheek. I never heard of any. 

Mr. Dahle. You do not have one in your State! 

Mr. Cheek. No, sir. 

Mr. Dahle. Do you have any State official to see that the law is 
enforced as refers to butterine? 

Mr. Cheek. Our city has a health inspector, who looks after every- 
thing of that kind. He looks after the purity of the meat in the meat 
shops and the jiurity of the groceries. He is a health commissioner. 

Mr. Hake. I want to make an exiilanation. Mr. Cheek said that the 
butterine was a little higher than the butter. I presume that the com- 
mittee understands that while oleomargarine is made out of the fat of 
the animal altogether, butterine is supposed to be one- third pure butter. 

The Chairman. We draw no distinctions between them. 

Mr. Hake. It is a mixture; it is part butter and part oleo oil. 

Mr. DahLe. Is it butterine that is sold with you, or oleomargarine? 

Mr. Hake. It is both. 

Mr. Dahle. Both? Then, when you spoke of it being half the price 
of butter is that for butterine or for oleomargarine? 

Mr. Hake. It is for oleomargarine. Butterine comes a little higher. 

Thereupon, at 12 o'clock m., the subcommittee adjourned. 



Committee on Agriculture, 
House of Eepresentatives, 
Washington, D. G., Wednesday, May 16, 1900, 

The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m., Hon. Herman B. Dahle in the 
chair. 

Present : Eepresentatives Wadsworth, Henry, White, Bailey, Wright, 
Haugen, Dahle, Williams, Stokes, Lamb, Cooney, Allen, NevillC; and 
Wilson. 

STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE W. WILSON, COMMISSIONER OF 
INTERNAL REVENUE. 

Eepresentative Bailey. Mr. Wilson, the committee has asked you 
to come before it for the purpose of giving it such information as you 
have in your possession in regard to the internal revenue, and the 
enforcement of the laws in regard to the manufacture and sale of oleo- 



750 OLEOMAHGARINE. 

margarine. You understand tbat there is a bill pending before Con- 
gress to raise the tax on colored oleomargarine to 10 cents a pound, do 
you not? 

Commissioner Wilson. Yes, sir. 

Eepresentative Bailey. What would be the effect of that bill, in 
your opinion, Mr. Wilson, in regard to the collection of revenue? 

Commissioner Wilson. It is pretty hard for me to foreshadow what 
would be the result of forcing the sale of white or uncolored oleomar- 
garine. I should regard the tax of 10 cents a pound on colored oleo- 
margarine as prohibitive. I do not think the manufacturers can do 
much with it with a tax of that amount. I think the bill would defeat 
the end of deriving any revenue from the sale of colored oleomargarine. 
I think that would be largely the result of its passage. 

llepresentative Bailey. Do you consider the present laws regard- 
ing the manufacture of oleomargarine suflicient to prevent its fraudu- 
lent use? 

Commissioner Wilson. With a very slight change in the law, yes, 
sir — almost absolutely so. 

Eepresentative Williams. What change would you recommend? 

Commissioner Wilson. I would recommend a change which would 
requirethe manufacturer to put up statutory packages in subpackages, 
to meet the lowest demand of the retail trade and the highest demand 
of the wholesale trade, upon each of which subpackages should be 
impressed, in such a way that it could not be obscured or obliterated 
without manifest effort and intention, the word ''oleomargarine." 

Eepresentative Allen. I would like to ask you, Mr. Wilson, what is 
your knowledge of the efficiency of the service in executing the law 
with reference to dealers in colored oleomargarine, especially retail 
dealers? I have been told that your representative in the city of 
Chicago iseither indifferent, negligent, or possibly particeps criminis to 
the evasion of the law. 

Commissioner Wilson. I think that is an unjust charge. I would 
prefer that Collector Cohen should come before the committee and 
defend himself. He is a good collector. There is this to be said gen- 
erally upon the whole subject, gentlemen: The manufacture of oleo- 
margarine in this country reaches 80,000,000 of pounds annually, and 
the i)roduct is distributed to possibly half of the people of this country; 
and when you come down to handing itout to those people in quantities 
of from half a pound to 5 j)ounds at a time, you necessarily have, in a 
year, a great many transactions; and it is utterly impossible, with the 
means placed in the hands of the Internal Eevenue Bureau, to place 
such a close espionage upon these little transactions as to prevent any 
misrepresentations with reference to the sale of oleomargarine as butter. 
We give more attention and spend more money on that subject than we 
do upon anything else, although the ad valorem tax upon the product, 
as comi)ared to other things, is very low. 

The incentive which brings about this violation of the law is not lim- 
ited, in my judgment, simply to the desire for gain upon the part of the 
retail dealer who is selling oleomargarine. There are other sides to the 
question. The private family, the boarding-house proprietor, the hotel 
proprietor, do not want to carry home oleomargarine marked as such. 
We encounter a great deal of that feeling. The dealer has paid his 
special tax; he has no object in evading tlie law, but he sells oleomar- 
garine without any mark on it. Although the person who buys it 
understands that it is oleomargarine, the dealer has violated section 6 
of the law by not putting any mark on it, or else by putting it on in such 



OLEOMARGARINE. 751 

an obscure manner that it can not be seen. In some general stores we 
liave peculiar complications arising from this condition of things. For 
instance, I recall a case which came into the office the other day where 
the goods of a particular store, including coffee and a pair of small 
pants for a boy, were all marked "Oleomargarine," because the man 
said, "Now, I want this to be marked oleomargarine, and in order that 
there may be no mistake about it, just take down that lot of brown 
paper and mark every sheet of it 'Oleomargarine."' That is simply an 
illustration of the condition of things that prevails. 

My judgment is that the amount of this material that is known as 
butter is not nearly so large as some people believe; and my judgment 
is that there is not nearly so much viciousness as is commonly supposed 
in the sale of that which is not marked. I make a distinction, in other 
words, between that which is sold as butter and that which is handed 
out in a passive way, without its being indicated whether it is butter 
or oleomargarine. I do not think there is as much of that which is 
actuated by gain as has been represented. 

A large portion of this product is sold by various small dealers, 
impecunious, poor people. In handling that sort of cases we follow 
the same rule that we follow with reference to any other tax law. The 
Supreme Court has said to the Internal-Eevenue Bureau, " This is a 
tax law, and you must enforce it as such." The judge in Philadelphia 
the other day, in passing sentence on a man over there who has been 
rather notorious in some of his transactions, quoted from the Supreme 
Court upon that question, and said that the law which provides inci- 
dentally for marking packages of oleomargarine must be treated as a 
tax law. 

We have had considerable complaint from some of the dairy associa- 
tions about the failure to enforce this law. In all cases where such 
complaints have come to the office, instructions have been given to the 
collectors that where dairy associations or other interests outside of the 
internal-revenue force bring complaints to the collectors that the law 
has been violated with respect to evading the tax, or selling the product 
for what it is not, those cases ought to be accepted with the same 
solemnity and confidence that any other cases are accepted, and treated 
in the same way. The statute provides that all such cases shall be 
repoited by the collector to the district attorney, with his recommenda- 
tion that they be prosecuted or not prosecuted, giving his reasons 
therefor, I have said to collectors that in all such cases they should 
follow the same rule with respect to information received from the dairy 
associations as if their own deputies, or the internal-revenue agents, 
discovered the case; and I think that rule has been observed. VVhen 
that is done, the matter is in the hands of the district attorney; and 
I have said also to the collectors that where the district attorney 
recommends a prosecution no proposition for compromise can be enter- 
tained. 

Now, some of these cases have been compromised, and some complaint 
has been made of the Internal- Revenue Bureau with reference to that 
policy. We are not as liberal with respect to compromising oleomar- 
garine cases, considering the amount of tax evaded, as we are with some 
other lines of internal revenue violations. Under no circumstances is 
an oleomargarine case ever compromised unless it involves the favorable 
recommendation of the deputy or agent who discovered it, the collector 
of the district, and the district attorney. Unless all of those recom- 
mendations are made we do not do it. But when the local force which 
has made the discovery and investigated it, backed up by the district 



752 OLEOMARGARINE. 

attorney, comes forward and says that a particular case ought not to be 
prosecuted for such and such reasons, then the Internal Eevenue Bureau, 
as a rule, accepts the advice. 

Representative Allen. You stated a while ago that you thought the 
imposition of this tax would defeat the manufacture of oleomargarine. 
I understand you to mean its legitimate manufacture. 

Commissioner Wilson. Yes. 

Eepresentative Allen. "What do you say with regard to its illicit, 
"moonshine" manufacture'? 

Commissioner Wilson. We have not any. 

Representative Allen. What would happen if this prohibitive tax 
is placed upon the product, in your opinion 1 

Commissioner Wilson. If it operated in the same way that a high 
ad valorem tax does upon distilled spirits, it would result in the manu- 
facture of "moonshine oleo." But I think it would drive it out. 

Eepresentative Allen. You think it would abolish the industry 
entirely? 

Commissioner Wilson. Yes, sir; I do not think we can have "moon- 
shine" oleo. There has never been any evasion of the law with respect 
to paying the tax on oleomargarine, except in a very incidental and 
limited way. "Neither the special tax (although it is high) nor the 
2-cent pound tax have ever been evaded. We have no trouble in col- 
lecting them. 

Eepresentative Allen. Under the present law you have the right 
to inspect and investigate and have an analysis made of this product, 
I believe. 

Commissioner Wilson. Yes, sir. 

Eepresentative Allen. What has been your experience, and what 
has been the result of any work you have done along that line? 

Commissioner Wilson. There has been a very limited amount ot 
what might be called a general investigation made. In a very brief 
way I will recite the history of that investigation; it will not take more 
than a minute or two. You will find it all recorded in Senate Document 
No. 2340. There is one very short paragraph which I want to read 
from the testimony of Professor Morton. 1 was here when this legisla- 
tion was passed, and was present at a good many of these hearings. 
Congress never made such a research, so far as I have any knowledge, 
with respect to the propriety of passing a law, as it did before the pass- 
age, in 1886, of this internal-revenue law. It was a most protracted 
and searching hearing, as will be found by any of you who examine this 
document, which Congress had in order to find a foundation upon which 
to place their feet if they did pass the law; and they found it. It is 
contained here in a dozen-line paragraph — the whole foundation on 
which the Internal-Eeveuue Bureau stands with respect to these inves- 
tigations. 

Eepresentative Allen. What is the page of that document? 

Commissioner Wilson. This is page 47 of this hearing. I read from 
the testimony of Professor Morton : 

In the. first place, I have found, as a matter of observation, that fat which is to 
be used in the manufacture of oleomargarine, if it is in the slightest degree tainted 
before the manufacture begins, if it is not strictly fresh, if it is not talien almost 
directly from the slaughtered animal, if it is allowed to stand in a barrel for a i'ew 
hours in ordinary weather or in cold weather, if put in a barrel with any animal 
heat, in a few hours, then an incipient change begins, which in the succeeding 
processes is exaggerated, so that an utterly oftensive material is produced which 
could not be used for any such purpose. 

That doctrine is sustained by all the scientists who testified during 
the course of that hearing. Following right after the enactment of the 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 753 

law, in 1887 or 1888, a general examiuation was made over the whole 
country with respect to that condition of things; and the report was 
universal that the statement which I have just read was found to be 
true for the whole sixty-three collection districts of the country. From 
that time until to-day no further general examination has been made. 
Desultory investigations have been made of certain oil that has been 
brought in. Some manufacturer would wander off the track, and use a 
name which was a little strange; and that would excite some curiosity 
to know what it was; but it would turn out to be the same flower with 
a different name. But in order to be reasonably certain about that 
matter, Congress has provided the Internal Kevenue Bureau with a 
laboratory and a competent chemist, and with money with which to 
purchase the current literature of the day upon these questions. And 
I have asked our chemist if in this hiatus of time from 1887 or 1888, 
when this last general investigation was made, up to date science 
has made any advance which would change the condition of things 
described by Professor Morton; and my advice is that if it has our 
scientist does not know it, and it has not been written in the books. 

Representative Allen. Now, sir, have any complaints been made to 
your department of any deleterious or injurious effect caused by the 
consumption of this article? 

Commissioner Wilson. No, sir; no, sir. The only complaint that 
has ever reached the office was a letter which Mr. Tawney published 
here, in the Star, 1 think — at least, it was the same letter that he read 
to me. I took a copy of it and sent it to the agent in charge of the terri- 
tory where most of these oils are produced, and had a very complete and 
thorough investigation made, and have here a copy of his report. 

Representative Allen. That is a copy of the report? 

Commissioner Wilson. A copy of the report of the agent — yes, sir. 
He does not find any ground whatever for the charge made in that letter. 
He says it is false and utterly unworthy of belief; and he shows pretty 
conclusively, I think, that his statements are true. And without his 
knowing anything about the doctrine laid down here, in this investi- 
gation to which I have referred, he brings out in this same report the 
fact that the same condition of things exists. 

Representative Allen. Will you file that report with your evidence, 
as an exhibit? 

Commissioner Wilson. Yes. 

(The report referred to above is as follows :) 

Internal-Revenue Service, Office of Agent, 

Chicago, III., May 2, 1900. 
Hon. G. "W. Wilson, 

Commissioner Internal Revenue, Washington, D. C. 

SiK : In accordance with instructions contained in your letter of the 24th ultimo, 
in which you inclose copy of a puhiished letter describing the character of material 
used by some of the oleomargarine manufacturers in Chicago, directing me to make 
a most thorough search and investigation of the charges contained in the published 
letter, being careful to eliminate every doubt that might be involved in the matter 
before making my report, I now have the honor to report as ioUows: 

On the 30th ultimo I, in company with Kevenue Agent H. B. Burgh and Special 
Employees O. S. Martin and J. O. Anderson, proceeded to the Chicago Union Stock 
Yards, where we visited the following establishments, which are either engaged in 
the business of manufacturing oleomargarine or are producers of either oleo oil or 
neutral oil. Revenue Agent Burgh visited the place of business of Armour & Co., 
Thomas J. Lipton Company, and Boyd, Lunham & Co. ; Special Pi^mployces Martin and 
Anderson visited the place of business of Swift & Co. and Nelson Morris & Co., 
while 1 visited the place of business of Friedman & Co., Anglo-American Provision 
Company, and the International Packing Company. 

It was understood by all of the visiting revenue oflBcers that in pursuing their inves- 
tigatious at the several establishments particular attention should be given to the 

S. Rep. 2043 48 



754 OLEOMAEGABINE. 

Bo-called rendering tanks that are complained of in the published letter, and that 
they should follow the different materials that go into the production of oleomar- 
garine from the point where the animals are slaughtered, or where the fats are taken 
from the animals after being slaughtered, through all of their different processes and 
manipulations, to the finished oils. 

Revenue Agent Burgh reports the following as being the result of his investigation 
at the establishment of Armour & Co. He tooli up his investigation of the mate- 
rials that enter into the production of oleomargarine at the point where the fats are 
taken from the carcasses; that he followed the fat products of the hog and of the 
beef from that point through their various channels until the process of the produc- 
tion of neutral oil and oleo oil was fully completed. In pursuing his investigations 
with reference to neutral oil, he found that the leaf of the hog, commonly known as 
the leaf lard, and back fat— that is to say, that portion of the fat of the hog that is 
taken from tlae back — are the only portions of the hog product that goes into the pro- 
duction of neutral oil. These fats, after being fallen from the hog, are placed for a 
time in a refrigerating room for the purpose of extracting all animal heat, and are 
allowed to remain there until such time as they may be needed for the production of 
neutral oil, when they are taken from the refrigerating room to a cutting machine, 
where they are reduced to smaller particles. From the cutting machines all parti- 
cles are removed to a grinding machine, where the mass is reduced to a pulp about 
the consistency of ice cream. The ground mass or pulp is put into open heating 
tanks, where it is allowed to heat to about 160° temperature, where the neutral oil 
is separated from the fiber or tissue. 

Eevenue Agent Burgh further reports that his investigation at Armour & Co.'s 
establishment, like that at other packing establishments visited by him, disclosed 
the fact that these establishments do employ in their business rendering tanks, but 
these rendering tanks are in no wise employed in the production of neutral oils, and 
can not be so employed. (This will be commented upon later and the reasons fully 
set forth.) 

The question of the production of oleo oil was next taken up by Revenue Agent 
Burgh, and made the subject of his investigation at the Armour plant. It was found, 
by followiug the fat from the point at which it was taken from the beef, that oleo 
oil is obtained in a similar manner to that by which neutral oil is obtained. The 
beef fats that go into the production of oleo oils are known as caul fat, ruffle fat, and 
kidney fat, the caul fat and ruffle fat being used in the production of the higher 
grades of oleo oil and the kidney fat being used in the lower grades of oleo oil. 

Revenue Agent Burgh further reports that in his investigation at Armour & Co.'s 
he did not find any process employed by that company for processing and deodoriz- 
ing unwholesome fats, such as is mentioned in the published letter, and upon this 
point he obtained a statement from G. J. Brine, of Armour & Co., which statement 
is herewith submitted, and is made a jiart of this report, and marked Exhibit A. 

Revenue Agent Burgh next visited the establishment of Thomas J. Lipton Com- 
pany, packers of meats and producers of both neutral and oleo oils, where the same 
conditions were found as were found at Armour & Co.'s. These gentlemen informed 
Revenue Agent Burgh that, so far as they were concerned, they had received no 
demands from oleomargarine manufacturers for either neutral oil or oleo oil that is 
produced from any of the lower grades of fats. At this establishment there was an 
absence of the so-called rendering tanks for rendering the poorer grades of fat men- 
tioned in the published letter. 

Revenue Agent Burgh next visited the packing establishment of Boyd, Lunham 
& Co., packers of meats and producers of oleo and neutral oils. The same method 
of investigation was pursued at this establishment as that employed at the Armour & 
Co. and Thomas J. Lipton Company plants. Boyd, Lunham & Co., in a letter to 
Revenue Agent Burgh, which I inclose with this report, say, in answer to his inquiry 
relative to the nature of the materials that are used by them in the production of 
neutral and oleo oils: "VVe supply to the manufacturers of oleomargarine and but- 
terine, and in no case have we delivered to them other than the straight goods, viz, 
leaf lard and back fat, nor has there been any solicitation on the part of such 
manufacturers to furnish any other than the two above-named products." (See 
Exhibit B.) 

Special employees 0. S. Martin and J. O. Anderson, having visited Swift & Co. and 
Nelson Morris & Co., report the result of their investigations with reference to the 
materials used in the manufacture of neutral oil and oleo oils by these establish- 
ments in the following manner. I quote from their report: 

"On the 30th ultimo we visited the packing house of Swift & Co. at the Union 
Stock Yards and began our investigations at the slaughtering pens at the hog 
department, and found that upon the opening of the slaughtered hog the leaf fat is 
taken therefrom and removed to the cooling room, where the animal heat is allowed 
to escape. This leaf fat we then followed to the top of the neutral department, 
where we spent some time in watching the product enter what is known as the 



OLEOMARGARINE. 755 

chopping machines, itito which nothiug was put but the finest leaf fats. We then 
followed this product next to the grinding machines, which pulverize or grind the 
leaf fat to a pulp closely resembling ice cream. The pulp is then conducted to open 
kettles, which are heated to a certain low temperature by means of hot water cir- 
culating around the open kettle. The product from these kettles is then drawn oif 
and is allowed to percolate through several thicknesses of straining cloth, and the 
residue, after the neutral lard is strained off, is pumped across to the lard department, 
where it is subjected to a high heat under pressure for the production of steam lard. 
We then followed the neutral oil through the numerous straining processes to the 
cooling room, where it is drawn off into new barrels and prepared for sale orpumped 
to the tanks in their oleomargarine department. 

"Our attention was then directed to the possibility of fats from diseased and dead 
hogs bein^ used in the production of neutral oil, and we find two very substantial 
reasims why it would be impossible for anything of that kind to enter into its pro- 
duction : 

" First. Because in the case of a hog that dies of disease, or is killed without imme- 
diately losing its blood, each part of the body becomes at once permeated with the 
hog or lardy taste, which prevents the making of an odorless or tasteless product, 
Buch as is required in the production of neutral oil. 

"Second. Because the rules of the Stock Yards Company require the disposal of 
and immediate removal of dead and diseased hogs from the yards, and the Stock 
Yards Company are now under contract with John Brannock, of Globe, Ind., for 
the immediate removal of all such hogs to his rendering plant at that point, where, 
we were informed, the extracted greases are disposed of to lubricating comi^anies 
and cheap soap comi)anie8. 

" We then took up the subject of oleo oil, following this product from the slaugh- 
tering rooms, where the caul fat and the ruffle fat of the beeves are taken after the 
animal has passed the inspection of the Government in8]>ectors of the Department 
of Agriculture. The above-described fats, after being removed from the animal, are 
immediately subjected to ice-water baths, and pass from one tank of ice water to 
another until they reach the cutting room in the oleo-oil department. The fats then 
pass through grinding machines, and from the grinding machines into huge open 
kettles, where they are subjected to a low heat, after which they are drawn off into vats 
to cool. After cooling the fats are placed in small cotton sacks and put under pres- 
sure, thus extracting the oleo oil, similar to methods employed at a cider mill for 
extracting the cider from the apple. The residue, or tallowy substance remaining, 
commonly known as 'stearin,' being a commercial article, is nmch sought after by 
soap manufacturers. We then followed the oleo oil to the cooling room, from which 
point it is either pumped to the vats in the oleomargarine departmeut, to be used in 
the production of oleomargarine, or is drawn off' into new barrels for local shipment 
or for export." 

With reference to the examination of the methods and materials employed by Nel- 
son Morris & Co. for the production of neutral and oleo oils Special Employees Mar- 
tin and Anderson report the result of their investigations as follows. I quote from 
their report : 

" We visited the packing house of Nelson Morris & Co., at the Union Stock Yards, 
who are manufacturers of oleo oils and neutral oils, where our investigation was as 
thorough as the one made at Swift & Co. 

" We were conducted through this plant by Mr. Johnson, general superintendent, 
who informed us, in response to the query as to the possibility of offal and diseased 
fats entering into the manufacture of oleo oils and neutral oils, that each beef and 
hog was regularly inspected by the Government inspectors after the animal had been 
killed and bled, and that the amount of stock which had been rejected by these 
inspectors during the year 1899, and which by reason of that inspection had been 
pronounced to be unfit for consumption and had been sent to the soap-grease fac- 
tory, covers an amount exceeding over $20,000. Our entire investigation at this plant 
resulted, substantially, the same as at the packing house of Swift & Co." 

On the 2d instant Special Employees Martin and Anderson visited the eleomarga- 
rine factories of W. J. Moxley, 63 West Monroe street, and Brann & Fitts, North 
Union street, Chicago, for the purpose of ascertaining the methods employed and 
the materials used by them in the production of neutral oil. These gentlemen report 
the result of their investigations at the above establishments as follows: 

" We found that, in the manufacture of oleomargarine, they (W. J. Moxley and 
Braun & Fitts) used neutral oil of their own manufacture. They buy leaf lard at 
the Union Stock Yards, usually from Armour &. Co. and Swift & Co. and Nelson 
Morris & Co., which leaf is taken to their factories, where it is put through the 
various processes employed by other producers of neutral oil. Neither W. J. Moxlcj 
nor Braun & Fitts are producers of oleo oil. Oleo oils are purchased by these firms 
from Armour & Co., Swift tfc Co., and Nelson Morris at the stock yards. The 
Uiaterials found at these establishments, which enter into the production of neutral 



756 OLEOMARGARINE. 

oils, were in no wise different from that found to be employed at other establish- 
ments that produced neutral oils, and there was nothing in the investigation that 
would go to show that any of the low grades of fats complained of in the published 
letter are used by these concerns." 

As both W. J. Moxley and Braun & Fitts manufacture leaf lard for commercial 
purposes, it is necessary for them to have in their establishments rendering tanks, 
but these rendering tanks are not used in the production of neutral oils. 

The result of my own investigations at the establishments visited by me are as 
follows : 

Friedmann & Co. are not packers of meats. They are manufacturers of oleomarga- 
rine and producers of neutral oils, but do not produce oleo oil. The fats from which 
they produce their neutral oils are purchased from the Anglo-American Provision 
Company, packers of meats at the Chicago stock yards. At the time of my arrival 
at the establishment of Friedmann & Co., several wagons of the Anglo- American 
Provision Company and Nelson Morris & Co. were found unloading leaf lard of the 
finest and best grade. No inferior or low grades of fats were found in any of the 
wagons. I followed the leaf lard that was being received from the time it left the 
wuuons until it was placed in the refrigerating room, where it is allowed to remain 
until all of the animal heat has been removed. This process, I am informed, requires 
anywhere from two to four days. From the refrigerating room I followed the leaf 
lard to the cutting machines, where it is cut into smaller bits, and from there to tlie 
grinding machines, where it is reduced to a pulp, and then on to the heating kettles, 
Avhere it is heated to about the temperature of 155° to 160°. These heating kettles 
are open kettles and are heated with hot water (not steam) by having the hot water 
circulate around the kettle in which the leaf lard is being heated. In other words, 
the heating kettle is a kettle within a kettle, hot water circulating between the 
two, in a space of 3 or 4 inches all around the inner kettle. From the heating 
kettle the neutral fats are removed and the neutral oils are expressed by straining 
process and filtration from the fiber and tissue. 

All of the fat that is not expressed from the leaf lard in the production of neutral 
oil, and that portion that remains in the tissue, together with other fats, is taken to 
a rendering tank, where it is subjected to a steam pressure of about 50 pounds to the 
square inch, and at a temperature anywhere from 260° to 300°, the result being the 
production of what is known as steam lard. 

Every packer of meats, whether he be also a manufacturer of oleomargarine or a 
producer of neutral or oleo oils, has in his establishment rendering tanks, but neu- 
tral oil is not and can not be obtained by heating in these tanks. In the first place 
there must be a total absence of any lardy smell in the neutral oil that is intended 
to go into the production of oleomargarine, and in order to obtain that result the 
leaf lard must be heated in open kettles, such as I have already described, and with 
only sufficient heat to break the grain of the fats. 

Any lard, whether leaf lard of the finest quality or of the lower grades, that has 
been subjected to heat at a temperature of more than about 160°, would take on the 
lardy flavor (the very thing that every oleomargarine manufacturer and producer 
of neutral oils desires to avoid), and would be wholly unfit for the manufacture of 
oleomargarine. 

I then visited the Anglo-American Provision Company, packers of pork at the 
Union Stock Yards. The Anglo-American Provision Company manufacture neither 
neutral oil nor oleo oil. They dispose of all their leaf lard to Friedmann & Co., and 
the balance of tlio hog fats are rendered up by themselves into steam-rendered lard. 

I next visited the plant of the International Packing Company at the Chicago 
stock yards. The International Packing Company are manufacturers of oleomar- 
gariue and producers of neutral oils. The oleo oil that is used by this company in 
the production of their oleomargarine is purchased by them from Swift & Co. and 
is considered to be of the finest quality. (A sample of this oleo oil is mailed to you 
this day, together with a sample of the neutral oil produced by the International 
Packing Company, and is made the subject of a separate letter.) 

The International Packing Company, being manufacturers of oleomargarine, have 
Bet apart a portion of their plant to be used exclusivelj'^ in the production of that 
article. Into this building all of the fats that go into the production of neutral oil 
are brought and are heated in open kettles, such as I have already described, as are 
used by every producer of neutral oil. The only portion of hog fats that come into 
this building that go into the production of neutral oil, which is used in the manu- 
facture of oleomargarine, is the leaf lard, the lower grades of hog fats being ren- 
dered up in the rendering tanks that are kept in their other buildings. 

On the 1st instant Revenue Agent H. B. Burgh and myself went to Hammond, 
lud., where we thoroughly investigated the methods that' are emplojed by the G. H. 
Hammond Company for producing neutral oil and oleo oil, and the materials that 
enter into their production. As in other establishments of this kind visited by uSj 
we followed the fats that go into the production of neutral oil and those that go 



OtEOMARGARINE. 75 1 

into the production of oleo oil from the time the fats are taken from the slaughtered 
animals to the finished oils, and from that on into where the oils are used in the pro- 
duction of oleomargarine. The production of neutral oil and oleo oil by the G. H. 
Hammond Company is in no wise different frotu that found in other similar estab- 
lishments. The materials used in the production of these oils were closely exam- 
ined by us, and were found to be of the highest grades. The much-mooted 
question of rendering tanks, which is referred to in the published letter, was care- 
fully investigated by us, with the result that the conditions found did not bear out 
the charges contained in that letter. On the other hand, the materials used in the 
production of these oils are of the finest quality and are carefully handled from start 
to finish, extra care being used with reference to cleanliness. 

The G. H. Hammond Company, at my request, furnished me with a sample of their 
neutral oil, a sample of their oleo oil, and a sample of their salad or cotton-seed oil. 
These samples I have this day forwarded to your office for your inspection with 
reference to the purity of the materials used by the G. H. Hammond Company, in 
the production of their oleomargarine, and are made the subject of a separate 
report. 

In pursuing our investigations with reference to the charges set forth in the pub- 
lished letter, we have the honor to advise you that, instead of finding the conditions 
as charged in that letter, I think we are absolutely safe in saying that we found 
the conditions to be exactly opposite. There is nothing in our investigations to 
show that producers of neutral oils and oleo oils have any knowledge of the 
"deodorizing process," nor have they introduced any deodorizing process in their 
establishments whereby the lower grades of fats can be processed and turned into 
the products that go into the manufacture of oleomargarine and butterine, as is 
stated in the published letter. 

The packers at the Chicago stock yards, who are also producers of neutral and 
oleo oils, have read published accounts in the Chicago papers, which are similar in 
tone to the clipping that you sent to me, and are making every effort to learn who 
the employee is that wrote the letter, claiming to have had thirteen years' experience 
at the stock yards as an employee, but so far they have been unable to locate the 
writer. However, it is the general impression among nearly all of the packers, as 
well as the oleomargarine manufacturers, that the author of the published letter is 
Charles Y. Kuight, manager Chicago Dairy Produce, a publication published in the 
interest of dairy products, 188 South Water street, Chicago. 

We have tried to make our investigations full and complete, and have endeavored 
to give the facts just as they presented themselves, with the view of supplying all 
of the information relative to the published charges that was obtainable, and hope 
we have covered the most important points. Our report may seem a little lengthy, 
but considering the ground that had to be gone over in order to make an intelligent 
report, we do not see how we could have conveyed the information otherwise. 
We are very respectfully, yours, 

James W. McGinnis, 
H. B. Burgh, 

Revenue Agents. 



Exhibit A. 

Armour & Co., 
Chicago, 111., April 30, 1900. 
Mr. H. B. Burgh, 

Revenue Agent, Chicago, III. 

Dear Sir: We have looked over the letter sent to the honorable Commissioner of 
Internal Revenue under date of April 24, 1900, purporting to have been written by 
an employee of the stock yards, and we beg to state that most of the statements 
therein we believe to be entirely without foundation in fact. 

The allegation that "the demand for so-called oleo oil or fat has so increased that 
the stock yards plant has introduced deodorizing processes, so that all kinds of 
inferior fats and offal can be turned into products which go into the manufacture of 
oleomargarine and butterine." we answer by saying that as we ourselves abandoned 
the manufacture of oleomargarine immediately upon the passage of the Illinois law 
rendering it illegal to color this article, we have since then sold the oleo oil and 
other products entering into the manufacture of oleomargarine to manufacturers of 
that article. The demand that we supply being both foreign and domestic, we are 
in position to state emphatically that we find no inquiry existing for the lower 
grades of fats and oils mentioned in the letter alluded to, but on the contrary that 
oleomargarine manufacturers demand and have supplied to them invariably products 
made from material that is first class in every particular. 



758 OLEOMAEGAEiNE. 

The statement fiat "barrels are filled with anything that can be processed, deodor- 
ized, and turned into oleo oil and then delivered to the factories; when these bar- 
rels are empty they are returned to the grease producers and filled again. This is 
the principal ingredient in the much advertised grade of finely colored butterine on 
the markat at the present time. It is carefully gotten up for the retail trade," we 
beg to say, so far as we know (and we believe we are fully informed) is made with- 
out the slightest warrant. 

The further statement in this letter as follows: "No tallow is sold from the stock 
yards nowadays," is false. The further statement that "Butterine demands it all," 
we know to be false. 

It is further stated that "the horse killers and dead animal contractors and fertil- 
izing producers furnish soap stocks, etc.," which is false, and we are not surprised 
that "no name is furnished as to who the writer of the above letter may be." 

Respecting the use to which many of the by-products of the hogs and cattle killed 
at the Union Stock Yards are put, we beg to state that — 

Leaf lard is exclusively used in the production of neutral oil. 

Beef suet and kidney fat of beef cattle are exclusively used in the production of 
oleo oil. 

We beg to state, in answer to your question respecting the employment of a ren- 
dering tank for rendering poorer grades of fat either from hogs or cattle for the 
production of neutral oil and oleo oils, thutno such rendering tanks for this purpose 
is employed by us, and that therefore we are sure that these so-called poorer grades 
of fat are not used in the manufacture of the cheaper grades of oils, oleomargarine, 
or butterine. 

In answer to your question as to whether any of the oils manufactured by us and 
used by oleomargarine manufacturers in the production of their oleomargarine or 
butterine are in any manner deleterious to public health, we beg to state that these 
oils are not only not deleterious to public health, but are wholesome, nutrient, 
palatable, and in all respects as desirable for human food as any other portion of the 
animals from which these oils are produced. 

In conclusion, we beg to state that the anonymous letter to which our attention 
has been called is utterly devoid of truth, and that the charges made respecting the 
quality of the oleomargarine now upon the market (and of the products from which 
it is manufactured) are, to the best of our knowledge and in the light of our experi- 
ence, entirely without foundation. 

Yours, very truly, Armour & Co., 

Geo. J. Brine. 



Union Stock Yards, 
Chicago, April SO, 1900. 
Mr. H. B. Burgh. 

Dear Sir: In answer to your inquiry relative to the nature of the product we 
supply to the manufacturers of oleomargarine and butterine, we have but to sav 
that in no case have we delivered them other than the straight goods, viz, leaf lard 
and back fat, nor has there been any solicitation on the part of such manufacturers 
for us to furnish any other than the two above-named products. 
Yours, truly, 

Boyd, Lunham & Co., 
Per Wm. Groh, Superintendent. 

Commissioner Wilson. It must be understood that I am not talking 
to you as a scientific man. I am telling you these things from the 
records. When it comes to science it is getting a little out of my line. 

Representative Baker. Will you please give me again the page of 
that investigation from which you were reading? 

Commissioner Wilson. This is Senate Document 2346. I read from 
page 47. 

Representative Baker. When were those hearings had; during 
what Congress and session? 

Commissioner Wilson. This is Senate Miscellaneous Document No. 
2346 of the first session of the Forty-ninth Congress, 1885-86, volume 5. 

Representative Allen. That was before what was known as the 
Mason Committee, I believe? 

Commissioner Wilson. No, no; that was the investigation made by 
a joint committee of Congress with a view of determining whether or 



OLEOMARQARITSTE. 759 

not tlioy would enact this original legislation. It is the foundation on 
wliicli the whole thing is built. 

Representative Allen. There is one other question I would like to 
ask, if you will permit me. I will ask you to state to the committee if 
you have any information as to the extent of the consumption of this 
article by the public and by what classes of i)eople it is generally con- 
sumed, if you know from your personal knowledge or from matters in 
connection with your department. 

Commissioner Wilson. It is pretty hard for me to give any opinion 
which would be worth anything on that subject. I think everybody 
buys it. 1 think it is clean and rei)utable. 

Kepresoiitative Allen. Do you regard its manufaciture as a fixed 
industry in the country, which ought not to be abolished? 

Commissioner Wilson. Yes, sir, I certainly do; and, if I may ven- 
ture this statement (you will pardon me if I go beyond what 1 should 
say), I will say to you, gentlemen, that any legislation which you may 
enact here with respect to stamping or identifying as an entity the 
quantity of oleomargarine that goes into the hands of A, li, or C to be 
used on their tables will give it a badge of credibility that it would not 
get anywhere else. 

The tobacco manufacturers would pay for all the marks, brands, and 
stamps that are on their tobacco simply for the purpose of having it 
under Government inspection. 

Kepresentative Bailey. Do you believe that this amendment you 
recommend would protect the public against the fraudulent sale of 
oleomargarine? 

Commissioner Wilson, Yes, sir. 

Kepresentative Bailey. You think it would? 

Commissioner Wilson. Now, 1 do not say it would completely pro- 
tect it. Of course, we have very strict laws with respect to the tax on 
distilled spirits; the tax is very high and the law is drastic and harsh, 
and yet, 

Kepresentative Wadsworth. And there is a law against murder, is 
there not? But murder is committed. 

Commissioner Wilson. Yes; and yet there are murders. But I say 
to you that the percentage of fraud would be extremely small if that 
were done. 

Kepresentative Bailey. Mr. Wilson, a statement was made here by 
the friends of the dairy interests that 90 per cent of the oleomargarine 
marketed in this country was sold as butter. Do you believe that is 
true? 

Commissioner Wilson. I say it is nearer 10 per cent. 

Kepresentative Williams. What was that question? 

Kepresentative Bailey. The question was that it had been stated 
to this committee that 00 per cent of the oleomargarine sold in this 
country was sold as butter. 

Commissioner Wilson. Of course I can not tell, but I do not think 
that is accurate. I simply do not think so. That is n)y honest convic- 
tion about it. 

Kepresentative Bailey. Do you think that this law is enforced as 
well as any other internal-revenue law? 

Commissioner Wilson. With respect to collecting the tax, better; 
with respect to the incidental matters, so far as the pure food law is 
concerned, no. 

Kepresentative Williams. Mr. Commissioner, 1 would like to ask 
you a question a little oft" of this line; 1 do not know whether you know 



760 OLEOMAEGAEINE. 

anything about it or not. Do you know anything about " renovated 
butter?" 

Commissioner Wilson. Yes, sir; I have been after those people 
lately, and taken every one of them out of the oleo factories. They 
have tried to renovate butter at some of these factories, as well as other 
places, and I have stopped it. 

liepresentative Williams. I wish you would tell us about that. 

Commissioner Wilson. I do not know much about it, except that 
they appeared to have wagons over the cities, and, indeed, at various 
country places where they have this product, and it gets spoiled; and 
they gathered the stuff in and sent it to these renovating establish- 
ments. One or two of the oleomargarine factories had arranged an 
annex of that kind, and I cleaned them out. 

Representative Williams. Talking about frauds upon butter, or 
upon butter eaters, which do you regard as the greatest fraud being 
perpetrated now, and the most plausible one, the one most easy to 
mislead people — oleomargarine or renovated butter? 

Commissioner Wilson. Well, I hardly think any idea which I might 
have on that subject could be of much importance or weight. The 
oleomargarine factories are wonderfully cleanly conducted affairs. If 
you gentlemen will send a committee in among them without their 
knowing it, and take hold of the matter yourselves, you will find that 
to be the truth. They are wonderfully cleanly conducted affairs. 

Eepresentative Williams. Now, I have understood — and I do not 
know but what you may have had occasion to find out something about 
it — that they send around and get the old rancid butter from restau- 
rants and hotels and other places, and carry it up to a central place, and 
" renovate" it, as they call it. 

Commissioner Wilson. Yes, they do. That is not denied. It is an 
industry. 

Representative Williams. It is an industry. 

Representative Allen. And that material is then sold for butter? 

Commissioner Wilson. Yes ; but so far as I know, the dairy people 
have nothing to do with that. That is a business as distinct from them, 
I presume, as it is from the oleomargarine business. I do not know 
that they have anything to do with it. I do not think so. 

Representative Haugen. You stated a while ago that the 10-per-cent 
tax would practically drive oleomargarine out of the market. On what 
ground do you base this opinion ? 

Commissioner Wilson. I do not think they could produce it. 

Represtative Haugen. What makes you think so? 

Commissioner Wilson. I do not think a good class of oleomargarine 
can be produced and placed in the hands of the consumer with that 
tax. Now, I have not any data at hand — I have some at the office, but 
none here — upon that question; so that I do not like to talk about it with- 
out being better informed. 

Representative Haugen. But in order to express an opinion of that 
sort you would naturally have some knowledge of the cost of the pro- 
duction of oleomargarine, and also the present or average market price 
of butter? 

Commissioner Wilson. Yes. 

Representative Haugen. Have you any information as to the cost 
of oleomargarine, uncolored? I believe the evidence before this com- 
mittee is that its cost is about 8 cents a pound. 

Commissioner Wilson. I have it down at the office. 

Representative Haugen. Can you not give us an estimate? 



OLEOMARGARINE. 761 

Commissioner Wilson. 1 should not vary it much from what you 
have stated. 

Kepresentative Haugen. Eight cents a pound! 

Commissioner Wilson. Yes; I think so. 

Representative Haugen. Now, then, what is creamery butter selling 
for in the markets, or what has been its average cost during the past 
year "? 

Commissioner Wilson. I do not know what the average cost of but- 
ter would be; possibly 25 cents. 

Representative Haugen. The proposed tax is 10 cents, which, added 
to the 8 cents per pound, would be 18 cents'? 

Commissioner Wilson. Yes. 

Representative Haugen. It is claimed that oleomargarine is as 
wholesome and as good an article as butter, and that it is worth as much, 
and sells for as much. Now, then, 10 and 8 are 18, representing tlie cost 
price of oleomargarine, according to those figures, while the average 
price of butter is put at 25 cents. How do you arrive at the conclu- 
sion, from those figures, that this act would practically drive the oleo- 
margarine manufacturers out of business? 

Commissioner Wilson. In the first place, you rob it of its pleasant 
aspect to the eye. You do not like to buy lardy-looking stuif for your 
table. It would be a worse badge upon it than to stamp the word 
"Oleomargarine" right on it, if it were colored. 

Representative Haugen. Yes; but under this bill the paying of the 
10-per-cent tax would permit the manufacturers to color their product 
and make it an imitation of butter, and then it would cost only 18 cents 
per pound, while you place the cost price of butter at 25 cents. That 
leaves a difierence of 7 cents per pound in the price of the two commodi- 
ties. 

Commissioner Wilson. Well, I do not know about the average cost 
of butter ; I do not want to undertake to speak definitely on that ijoint, 
because I am not acquainted. with it. 

Representative Williams. Mr. Commissioner, in the price of oleo- 
margarine which you have given, have you included the various taxes 
and licenses which may be paid along the line in order to comply with 
the laws governing its sale, or have you simply given the cost of manu- 
facture'? 

Commissioner Wilson. It is simply the cost of manufacture which 
has been referred to, as I understand — the special taxes and the pound 
tax. The si)ecial taxes, together with the pound tax, I i^resume add 
about 50 per cent to the cost of production, I should say. There are 
7,000 dealers in the United States at $48 each. 

Representative Williams. Retail dealers? 

Commissioner Wilson. Yes. 

Representative Williams. Then there are the wholesale licenses? 

Commissioner Wilson. The wholesale license fee is $480, and there 
are 300 or 400 wholesale dealers. 

Representative Williams. And the various States have legislation 
on tlie point, too, have they not? 

Commissioner Wilson. And then there are the manufacturers, 25 or 
30 of them, who pay $600 each. 

Representative Haugen. How many wholesale dealers are there? 

Commissioner Wilson. I would not like to say; I have not the exact 
figures in my mind. There are a good many. 

Representative Henry. Mr. Commissioner, the reduction of the tax 
proposed by the bill this committee has been considering, from 2 cents 



762 OLEOMARGARINE. 

a pound to a quarter of a cent per pound, would of course reduce the 
cost of uncolored oleomargarine to tbe consumer by just that amount, 
would it not? 

Commissioner Wilson. Oh, yes; yes sir. 

Representative Henry. And would it materially interfere with the 
consumption of oleomargarine as used for cooking purposes in hotels, 
saloons, etc.? Would it not be a positive benefit to the laboring man 
who uses oleomargarine to have the price reduced practically 2 cents a 
pound? 

Commissioner Wilson. Well, indeed, I hardly think so. I think the 
laboring man has a right to have his eye tickled about the color of 
his butter just as well as we have. 

Representative Henry. It is not a question of tickling his eye, but 
a question of whether he is to be deceived or not. Is the colored 
oleomargarine any the less palatable? 

Commissioner Wilson. Oh, no; I presume it would be just as pala- 
table, sir, uncolored as colored. It is simply a question of its appear- 
ance. I think the same result would follow prohibiting the coloring of 
butter that would follow prohibiting the coloring of oleomargarine; it 
would hurt its sale in tlie same way. It would make it objectionable. 
The two products stand exactly on the same basis as far as that is 
concerned. 

Representative Allen. Following that line, I understand you to say, 
Mr. Wilson, that you believe this tax on colored oleomargarine would 
entirely j^rohibit its manufacture. That being tbe case, the demand 
being so decreased, there would not be enough demand to justify the 
manufacture of uncolored oleomargarine, would there? 

Commissioner Wilson. Those are abstract questions about which I 
do not like to venture an opinion. You gentlemen who are farmers 
know more about it than I do. 

Representative Henry. You do not for a moment suppose that the 
practical abolishment of the tax on uncolored oleomargarine, or its 
reduction from 2 cents a pound to one-quarter of a cent a pound 
would prevent the consumption of oleomargarine to a very great extent, 
do you ? 

Commissioner Wilson. You would have to commence de novo and 
educate the people. They started in with it colored, in the first place. 
I ijresume everybody was afraid of it, even colored, in the first place; 
and now, if you take the coloring away, you will have to start again 
and get the people acquainted with it, and make tliem know tliat it 
tastes just as good, although it does not look so well. 

Re])resentative Henry. But the party using it for cooking purposes 
would not pay the extra 2 cents a pound for uncolored oleomargine? 

Commissioner Wilson. I do not know wbether he would or not. My 
judgment is that such a law would be a serious blow at the industry. 
That is simply my opinion. 

Representative W^illiams. I would like to ask you a question there, 
Mr. Commissioner. Have you read the Grout bill, which is now pending 
before the committee? 

Commissioner Wilson. Yes, sir. 

Representative Williams. Is there anything in that bill which would 
enable an internal-revenue officer to punish a man guilty of deception in 
selling oleomargarine as butter, any more than the existing law? 

Commissioner Wilson. I think not. I think the difference would 
simply be in reducing the number of people wbo would do so, and possi- 
bly reducing the number of people who would invite it. It would change 



OLEOMARGAKINE. 763 

the condition of things from what exists now; there is no (juestion about 
that, because I think the sale of oleomargarine, not for butter, but the 
sale of oleomargarine blank, is largely induced by the purchaser. 

Kepresentative Williams. He simply does not want his neighbor to 
know that it is oleomargarine that he is buying, although he knows it 
very well? 

Commissioner Wilson. That is it exactly. 

The Acting Ciiairman. As to the coloring of butter and oleomarga- 
rine, you put the two on the same basis, as I understand! 

Commissioner Wilson. Oh, coloring accomj)lishes the same thing 
for each. 

The Acting Chairman. Do you think it as necessary for butter to 
be colored as for oleomargarine to be colored — and what difference 
would you find in that respect, as between seasons, in butter! 

Commissioner Wilson. There are certain seasons of the year, you 
know, when butter is nearly white; and there are certain seasons of the 
year when, by reason of the food consumed by the animal, the butter 
is almost the color of the commercial product. Indeed, I think (though 
I do not want to say much about it, because I do not know much about 
it) the dairyman can feed his cows so as" to color the butter. I may be 
wrong about it, but that is my impression. 

Itepresentative Wilson. As a matter of fact, are not butter and 
oleomargarine both colored ibr the same purpose! 

Commissioner Wilson. Oh, yes; that is my understanding of it. 

Eepresentative Henky. You would make this distinction, would 
you — that one is a natural color, and the other is entirely artificial! 

Representative Wilson. But one is a natural color for a very short 
while only, of course. 

Commissioner Wilson. They can feed the cattle so as to get the 
desired color in the butter, 1 think, but not so uniformly, and in a 
state so pleasing to the eye, as by using coloring matter in the butter. 

Representative Henry. The demand for that uniform and pleasing 
appearance to the eye, to which you allude so pathetically, is largely 
an originated taste, an acquired taste, is it not! If people were accus- 
tomed to use white butter or white oleomargarine, there would be no 
necessity for the use of coloring matter. 

Commissioner Wilson. I say, if you commence and educate again, 
yes, sir; most certainly. I do not think it would hurt me at all. I 
could eat white butter. I have eaten it many a time. I have churned 
many a churning of it myself. 

Representative Haugen. You stated a while ago that these special 
taxes added 50 ])er cent, I believe, to the cost of the oleomargarine. 
Did 1 understand you correctly! 

Commissioner Wilson. Well, my recollection is that the special tax 
receipts would not be that much. Twice 8 is 10. The pound tax from 
oleomargarine last year must have amounted to about sixteen or seven- 
teen hundred thousand dollars, or somewhere along there. 

Mr. Knight. It was $1,6()0,000. 

Commissioner Wilson. You see, there is between three and four 
hundred thousand dollars of special taxes. The number of special 
tax-payers has been doubled in the last year. We had a little more 
money to use for that purpose, and we have done a good deal of work 
along that line. The result has been that we have doubled the number 
of retail oleomargarine dealers in the country. 

Representative HaiTGen. That would not be much over 2 cents a 
pound, would it? According to those figures, the cost of manufacturing 



764 OLEOMARGAKINE. 

oleomargarine would be about 4 cents a pound, if your statements are 
correct, if the 2 cents a pound is 50 per cent of cost? 

Representative Williams. I understood him to say that that was 
the amount collected — that the tax was 2 cents a pound. 

Commissioner Wilson. Yes, sir. With a tax of 2 cents a pound, 
the $1,000,000 collected would represent about 80,000,000 pounds. 

Representative Williams. That does not include these licenses and 
other expenses, does it? 

Commissioner Wilson. No. Between three and four hundred thou- 
sand dollars of the $1,600,000 comes from the special taxes. 

Representative Haugen. That would be about 2^ per cent, would it 
not? 

Commissioner Wilson. Yes, sir; something like that. 

Eepresentative Haugen. Then, if that is 50 per cent of the cost, the 
cost of the oleomargarine to the manufacturer would be about 4^ cents 
a pound. 

Commissioner Wilson. I do not know whether the 8 cents which 
has been referred to includes the pound tax and the special tax, or not. 
Of course if it does that would mean that the actual cost of manufac- 
ture was 5 and a fraction or 6 cents a pound. If it does not it means 
that the cost is 10 cents and a fraction. I do not know anything about 
that subject; I have not gone into it. 

Eepresentative Bailey. Have you seen the bill introduced recently 
by Mr, Wadsworth along this line? 

Commissioner Wilson. Yes, sir. 

Eepresentative Bailey. Do you think that bill will meet the require- 
ments of protecting the people as against fraud and the fraudulent sale 
of oleomargarine? 

Commissioner Wilson. I do, in the fullest possible way, and still 
allow them to manufacture oleomargarine. 

Eepresentative Weight. As 1 understand it, the figures which you 
have given of 8 cents a pound, cost of manufactui-e, and also in regard 
to the 50 per cent which you mentioned, are only given according to your 
opinion, without having the figures before you? 

Commissioner Wilson. That is all. 

The Chairman. If that is all, we thank you very much, Mr. Wilson, 
for your information. 

Commissioner Wilson. I have brought here Dr. Crampton, our chem- 
ist, to whom I refer all scientific matters, if the gentlemen wish to ask 
him anything on this subject. 

STATEMENT OF DR. CHARLES A. CRAMPTON, CHEMIST, INTERNAL- 
REVENUE BUREAU, TREASURY DEPARTMENT. 

Eepresentative Allen. Doctor, what position do you occupy? 

Dr. Crampton. I am the chemist of the Internal-Revenue OflBce. 

Eepresentative Allen. What have you under your immediate super- 
vision or care in that line? 

Dr. Crampton. I have the investigation of products which are sub- 
ject to an internal-revenue tax. 

Eepresentative Allen. Oleomargarine? 

Dr. Crampton. Oleomargarine, and other products. 

Eepresentative Allen. If you liave had any occasion to investigate 
or make an analysis of oleomargarine, I wish you would state to the 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 



765 



committee to what extent your researclies have gone, and what have 
been their results? 

Dr. Crampton. The great buUc of my work on that product is in the 
direction of determining whether a suspected sample is oleomargarine 
or butter. That constitutes the greater part, nine-tenths or ninety- 
nine one hundredths, of my work in connection with the product. I 
have, however, occasionally m^de a special investigation of the article, 
as to the ingredients which are used in it, and so forth. 

Representative Allen. Do you know from what manufacturer the 
oleomargarine which you have examined has come or of what factory 
it was the iiroductf 

Dr. Crampton. Not in all cases. I do, however, in the case of these 
samples which I have in my hand, which are, you might say, a supple- 
ment to the report of Eevenue Agent McGinnis. 

liepreseutative Allen. Just go ahead and make your statement in 
that regard in such way as you desire. 

Dr. Crampton. These samples were sent in by the revenue agent at 
the time he made his investigation of the factories in Chicago, and are 
samples which he took of the materials which entered into the mthm- 
facture of oleomargarine at these factories at the time he made his 
investigation. These materials are probably quite well known to the 
committee as the ordinary ingredients of oleomargarine. Three of 
these samples came from one place and two from another. 

Representative Allen. ]3esignate the places. 

Dr. Crampton. Do you want the name of the manufacturers from 
whom they camef 

Representative Allen. Yes. 

Dr. Crampton. The three samples came from Hammond Company, 
Hammond, Ind., near Chicago. The two samples came from the Inter- 
national Packing Company, of Chicago. 

The three samples are, respectively, oleo oil, neutral lard, and cotton- 
seed oil. These I have examined with a view simply of determining 
whether they are or are not what they are represented to be, and as to 
their general character as ingredients of oleomargarine, whether they 
are or are not fit materials to use for that purpose. This examina- 
tion I made under the direction of the commissioner, simply as a sup- 
plement to the revenue agent's reports; and I may say that these sam- 
ples speak for themselves, without any investigation. They seem to be 
wholesome and palatable, and proper materials for the production of 
this commodity, the manufacture of which is licensed by law, and with 
which we have to deal. If the committee cares to see these samples I 
will be very glad to exhibit them. 

Representative Allen. Do you find anything in the composition of 
those samples which render them deleterious as food for the human 
stomach? 

Dr. Crampton. No, I do not; no, sir. Of course, the investigation 
of them which I made was not a searching bacteriological investiga- 
tion or a very extensive investigation; because they are articles which 
are pretty well known, and have been investigated a great deal. 

Representative Allen. What is the relative proportion of bacteria 
found in oleomargarine and butter? 

Dr. Crampton. I am not able to speak on that subject as to my own 
investigations. I have not made investigations along that line. 

Representative Allen. But you give it to this committee as your 
opinion, as an officer of the Government in charge of that duty, and 



766 OLEOMAKGARINE, 

disinterested in the matter, that oleomargarine is a healthful article of 
food cou sumption'? 

Dr. Crampton. Yes, sir; I have no hesitation in saying that. As 
the Commissioner said in his remarks, we base the action of the oHice 
largely upon the extensive investigation which was made in the year 
1886 into the character of this product as a food material. At tliat 
time the opinion of the leading scientists of the country was, as the 
Commissioner has stated, in favor of the product — that it was not, in 
general, a material which should be condemned as an article of food. 
And while 1 have kept watch of literature on such matters since that 
time, I have not been able to find any chemical literature or any patent 
bearing upon the subject which has led me to suppose that the process 
of manufacture has changed radically in any way from the time the 
original bill was passed. 

Kepresentative Cooney. I would like to ask you a question for my 
own information. I was not in here when the Commissioner commenced 
his remarks. When I came in he was speaking with reference to that 
Senate document, and stating that what he read was the substance of 
the foundation upon which the internal levcnue law was based — and 
that was in regard to these fats which are used in the production of 
oleomargarine. It was stated that if they were permitted to remain 
unused in the product for a little while, or placed in vessels which were 
not absolutely untainted, they would become an obnoxious 

Representative Williams. "Offensive" was the word he used. 

Representative Cooney. (Continuing.) An otfensive product. That 
is your experience, likewise, is it? 

Br. Crampton. Yes, sir. 

Representative Cooney. Now, what I would like to know is what 
means the Government has of knowing that this fat is used at the 
proper time and in the proper way by the manufacturers of oleomar- 
garine? 

Dr. Crampton. Well, I presume it has no means of ascertaining the 
condition of the materials, except that the factories are open at all 
times to the inspection and supervision of the internal-revenue officers. 

Commissioner Wilson. Pardon me, but may I insert a few words 
right there? The fact that •' the first law of nature is self-preservation" 
is the answer to that question. If the materials are not used before 
they become rancid, they have lost their substance and are forever 
ruined; so that the manufacturers can not sell what they make of such 
materials. 

Representative Wadsworth. It is the same'as with cream, in butter 
making. If your cream is not used at the proper time, at the exact 
moment, your butter is of an inferior quality. The same law applies to 
oleomargarine. If you do not use the materials at the proper time the 
manufactured product is of poor quality. 

Representative Cooney. The statement of the Commissioner, then, 
as I understand it, is that the ])roduct, when the materials were not 
used at the proper time, would be offensive and olinoxious in itself. 

Representative Wilson. In other words, it would tell its own tale? 

Doctor Crampton. Yes; that is the ground upon which we have 
always proceeded. That is just what is stated in that testimony. 

Representative Cooney. And the process of manufacturing the oleo- 
margarine out of these fats at imju-oper times would not render the 
detection of that obnoxious quality any the less easy? Is that what I 
understand. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 767 

Dr. CrAmpton. T think that is so. 

Kepresentative Wilson. In other words, it would not take the oflfen- 
siveness away? 

Dr. Crampton. No. Now, I do not know that such processes have 
not been perfected; I am not undertaking to say that. I do not make 
inspections of factories myself, and that is a matter of which I can not 
si)eak from my personal kuoMiedge. It may be that methods and proc- 
esses are used for renovating such fats. We know that they do reno- 
vate butter. But if such practices are carried on they have not come 
to my knowledge. No such knowledge has come to me, or, so far as I 
know, to the Internal-Eevenue Office. We have gone upon the sui^po- 
sition that this statement is true — that these fats can not, after they 
have once become rancid, be successfully renovated and reused. That 
is the ground which we have always taken. If things have changed, 
and if new methods have been perfected, or if something unusual has 
occurred in the industry whereby this can be accomplished, we do not 
know of it, sir; we have no knowledge of it. 

llepresentative S'jokes. If such processes had been discovered, is it 
not likely that in the coarse of your reading upon the subject some 
information in regard to them would have come to you? 

Dr. Crampton. I think so; yes, sir. 

Eepresentative Williams. The dairymen would have reported it to 
him. 

Representative Bailey. Mr. Williams, I would suggest that the time 
is slipping by, and we have several men yet to hear, some of whom are 
expert butterine makers. 

Kepresentative Williams. Mr. Commissioner, I would like to ask 
you this question: Has there been reported to your ofilice any attempt 
to do away with the offensiveness which would follow from the stand- 
ing of these ingredients? 

Commissioner Wilson. No, sir. 

Eepresentative Williams. Nothing of the kind, has been reported 
by the dairy interests or by anybody else? 

Connnissioner Wilson. No, sir. 

Eepresentative Williams. That is what I want to know. 

Eepresentative Bailey. I will say to the committee that we have 
here the two expert butterine manufacturers from Armour and Swift's 
great factories at Kansas City, who are perfectly familiar with the 
manufacture of the product. If Dr. Wiley will now come before the 
committee, we should be glad to hear him for just a moment, and then 
have him give way to these men who are actually engaged in the manu- 
facture of butterine in two of the greatest manufacturingestablishments 
of the world. 

Eepresentative Wilson. I would like to ask Dr. Crampton just one 
more (juestion. I want to know, Doctor (if you know), what is the dif- 
ference between butter and oleomargarine, so far as the chemical ele- 
ments which enter into each are concerned? 

Dr. Crampton. They are very much the same, with the exception of 
the small amount of what are called the volatile or soluble fatty acids, 
which enter into butter and which do not enter into oleomargarine. The 
great bulk of the fat is of the same composition, chemically speaking; 
they are both glycerides. Of course, these volatile, fatty acids are very 
important, however; they give butter its flavor and taste, the pleasant 
"bouquet," you might say; and that is very important. There is no 
question about that. 



7G8 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Dr. Crampton also submitted, as part of his remarks, tlie following 
letter : 

Treasury Department, 
Office of Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 

Washington, May 16, 1900. 
The Commissioner of Internal Eevenue. 

Sir: I have the honor to report that 1 have made an examination of five samples 
of materials used in the miinufacture of oleomargarine, sent in by Revenue Ageut 
McGinnis, and described by him in his two letters dated May 2. 

Nos. 3972, 3973, and 3974 were obtained from the G. H. Hammond Company, manu- 
facturers of oleomargarine, Hammond, Ind. 

Nos. 3975 and 3976 were obtained from the Intern ationalPackiug Company, manu- 
facturers of oleomargarine, Chicago, 111. 

These samples are designated as follows: 

No. 3972, oleo oil, from Hammond. 

No. 3973, neutral, from Hammond. 

No. 3974, cotton-seed oil, from Hammond. 

No. 3975, oleo oil, International Packing Company. 

No. 3976, neutral lard, same. 

I have made chemical and microscoi)ical examination of these samples and find 
them to be as described on the labels and the reports of the agent. I find uotliiug 
objectionable about them, and should consider them entirely fit for use in the man- 
ufacture of oleomargarine. 

Respectfully, Charles A. Crampton, Chemist. 

STATEMENT OF DR. HARVEY W. WILEY, CHIEF CHEMIST UNITED 
STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 

Kepresentative Bailey. Dr. Wiley, please give your name to the 
stenographer. 

Dr. Wiley. My name is H. W. Wiley. 

Eepresentative Bailey. What position do you hold in the Govern- 
ment, Dr. Wiley? 

Dr. Wiley. I am chief chemist of the Department of Agriculture. 

Eepresentative Bailey. Have you any knowledge of the component 
parts of oleomargarine? 

Dr. Wiley. Yes, sir. 

Eepresentative Bailey. Will you please tell the committee, in as 
brief a way as you can, whether or not, in your judgment, it is a whole- 
some article of food? 

Eepresentative Williams. Before you answer that, excuse me one 
moment while I ask you this question: Has not the Chemical Division 
of the Department of Agriculture become, in a measure, the chemical 
division of the entire Government? Are not things sent to you from 
the other Departments to be investigated? 

Dr. Wiley. Yes, sir. 

Eepresentative Williams. From the Treasury Department and else- 
where ? 

Dr. Wiley. Yes, sir. 

Eepresentative W^illiams. I simply wanted to bring out that fact. 

Dr. Wiley. Through the Secretary of Agriculture, we collaborjite 
with almost all the Departments of the Government, and especially the 
Trensury Department. 

With relation to the question just asked Dr. Crampton, I have here a 
chart which will show you at a glance thedifl'erence between butter and 
some of the other products. Butter is a much more complex substance 
than oleomargarine. 

[At this point Dr. Wiley exhibited a chart, of which the following is 
a coi)y :] 



OLEOMAKGAEINE. 



769 



Comjjjosition of butler fat 



Acids. 



Per cent. 

Dioxyatearic 1. 00 

Oleic 32.50 

Stearic 1.83 

Palmitic 38. 61 

Myristic 9.89 

Laurie 2. 57 



Glycer- 
ides. 



Per cent. 

1.04 
83.95 

1.91 
40. 51 
10.44 

2.73 



Caprlo 

Caprylic . . , 

Caproic 

Butyric 

Total 



Acids. 



Glycer- 
ides. 



Per cent. 

.32 

.49 

2.09 

5.45 



Per cent. 
.34 

.53 
2.32 
6.23 



94.75 



100.00 



Dr. Wiley. This table shows the average composition of American 
butter, a substance about which the committee has heard a great deal. 
There may be some terms there which are not strictly legal, and which 
some of you who are farmers may not thoroughly understand. 

Representative Williams. The first item in the column is "dioxy- 
stearic acid." What kin is that to stearin? 

Dr. Wiley. That is a very near relation. 

Representative Williams. Then it appears that butter has stearin 
in it? 

Dr. Wiley. Oh, yes. Yes; it has quite a notable quantity of stearin 
in it. It not only lias dioxystearic acid but it has stearic acid also. 
Those acids which com])ose butter are, in butter, combined with glyc- 
erin; and it is the combination of glycerin, which is a base, with these 
and other acids, which makes the butter fat. 

The acids are named in the left hand column, the percentage of the 
acids in the average butter in the middle column, and the ])ercentage 
of the glycerides (that is the name applied to the combination of the 
acids with the glycerin) in the right hand column. 

Now, dioxystearic glyceride or stearin — the proper name of that 
substance would be dioxystearin, when combined with glycerin — com- 
compo.'^es 1.04 ])er cent of the average butter fat. 

Representative Wadsworth. You state positively, then, that butter 
contains stearin, do you? 

Dr. Wiley. Oh, yes; there is no doubt of that. 

Representative Wadsworth. That is positive, is it? 

Dr. Wiley. That is absolutely certain. It contains, altogether, 3 
per cent of stearin. 

Representative Wadsworth. Three per cent of stearin? 

Dr. Wiley. Yes; that is, the two stearins together — stearin and 
dioxystearin — form 3 per cent of butter, Olein forms a little over one- 
third of the whole quantity of butter — that is, of course, butter which 
is free of water, free of curd, and free of salt. These are pure fats. In 
butter they are not. The butter, as it goes on the market, contains 
about 12 per cent of water and 2 \)er cent of curds, and the amount of 
salt which it is desired to put in it. Some people want more and some 
less; but this table shows the composition of the pure fats which com- 
liose the butter. 

Rei)resentative Wadsworth. What relation does oleic acid bear to 
oleo oil, which is used in the manufacture of butteiine? 

Dr. Wiley. Oleo oil is largely pure olein : not altogether, but prac- 
tically so. Cotton oil is largely olein and linoleine and the olein in 
butter is of exactly the same composition as the olein in cotton-seed oil. 
Olein, wherever it occurs, whether in animal or vegetable products, has 
the same composition^ and palmitinhas the same composition wherever 
it occurs. 

S. Rep. 2043 49 



770 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Eepresentative Williams. Will you explain what is meant by the 
figures opposite "oleic," under the head of "glycerides?" 

Dr. Wiley. When you combine glycerin with oleic acid, it forms 
olein; and that is the form in which it exists in butter. Palinitin, you 
see, is the chief constituent of butter, making 40^ per cent, altogether, 
of the total. 

[At this point Dr. Wiley submitted the following:] 

Characteristics of certain fats. 

The composition of butter fats, as shown by the latest analyses, is exhibited in 
the table. 

It should be mentioned in addition that butter fat has been found to contain 
minute quantities of coloring matter — lecithin, cholesterol (cholesterin) and phy- 
tosterol (plivtosterin). 

Further, there is evidence to show that butter fat is not made up of the simple 
triglycerides, but that it contains mixed glycerides of butyric, palmitic, and oleic 
acids. Such compounds are represented by the formula — 

C3H5(C4H702).(Cl6H3i02).(C,8H330»). 

The evidence of the presence of these compounds is obtained in the following 
manner : 

" If a mixture of tributyrin, tripalraitin, and triolein be prepared and treated with 
alcohol, it is possible to extract the tributyrin completely. With butter fat, on the 
other hand, such an experiment can not be made— a fact due, without doubt, to the 
butyric acid being combined with certain higher fat acids, and the same glycerol 
radicle." — (C. A. Browne's recent article.) 

Beef fat and lard are composed of a mixture of the triglycerides of stearic, palmitic, 
and oleic acids. 

Cotton seed oil differs from the two last-named by containing a large percentage 
of the liquid glyceridcs, olein, and linolein. According to Hazura the ratio of oleic 
to iinoleic acids in cotton-seed oil is 3:4.5. 

Several investigators have found cotton-seed oil to contain from 1| to 2 per cent 
of unsaponifiable matter. Blytb states that this uusaponifiable matter is phytos- 
terol (photosterin), which has the formula C:fiHnO and resembles in many ways a 
similar product found in auimal fats and known as cholesterol (cholesterin). 

Eepresentative Wadsworth. What is palmitin'? 

Dr. Wiley. It is a compound of palmitic acid with glycerin. These 
acids, although they have different names, are very closely related. 
This is simply a series of what is known as the fatty acids, of which 
vinegar is the beginning. The substance we know as vinegar is the 
lowest of this series; and these fatty acids are formed by additions to 
that substance. These are the fatty acids : 

[At this point Dr. Wiley exhibited two tables, of which the following 
are copies :J 

Fatty acids. 

Acetic acid series: 

Acetic . ........ ..... . . — C2 H4 O2 

Butyric C4H8O2 

Caproic . Cs HiaOs 

Caprylic Cg HihOs 

Caprio - CioHioOa 

Laurie Ci2Hi402 

Myristic - -. ChHssOj 

Palmitic CieH^Oj 

Stearic CiMH:i602 

Arachidic C20H40OS 

Oleic acid series: 

Oleic acid CisHhOz 

Linoleic acid series: 

Liiioleicacid ,...- CigHiiOg 

Glycerin... i C3H6(OH) 



OLEOMARGARINE. 771 

Glycerides : 

Tributyrin Cr,H5(C4H702)3 

Tripnl 1 1 M f i n . 0:jH.r,(Cir,HM Oj^s 

Tristciu iu C,-.Hr,(Ci8H:,50.2)3 

Trioleiu C3H6(Ci8H.r!Oo)3 

Trilinolein , C3Hf,(C,RH3i 0.2)3 

C4H7O2 

Mixed glyceride of butyric, palmitic, and oleic acids C3I 



i C4H,02 

sHrX CieHriiOi 

( C18H33O2 



Dr. Wiley. The acid in vinegar is acetic acid, which is the first of 
these fatty acids, and the otliers which you see there, of which acetic 
acid is the type, form the lowest members of this series. Tlien comes, 
after acetic acid, butyric acid, which is the chief volatile acid of butter, 
and gives it its peculiar flavor; while in goat milk the percentages of 
caproic, caprylic, and capric acids are quite large, and give it that 
strong, goaty flavor which it has. They are also present in butter, but 
in lesser quantities. Now, these are the other fatty acids: Laurie, 
myristic, palmitic, stenric, and arachidic (which is found in peanuts); 
while the oleic acid series (wliich is nearly related to them) and linoleic 
acid (which exists in flaxseed oil) form members of a separate series 
of acids. 

Before leaving this tal)le, 1 want to call your attention to the remark- 
able resemblance between these acids, simply increasing, as they do, in 
regular order by the addition of a molecule composed of hydrogen and 
carbon to each one. In the table, "0" means carbon, "H" means 
hydrogen, and "O" means oxygen. 

Look at acetic acid, whicii is the acid in vinegar. That has two atoms 
of carbon, four of hydrogen, and two of oxygen in its molecule. Now, 
you see, all the acids of that series have absolutely the same amoujit 
of oxygen. They all have two atoms of oxygen; but the increase in 
each case is made by adding two atoms of carbon and four atoms of 
hydrogen. In other words, if you add C2 and H4 to one acid, you get 
the next. You will see that in every case it is a regular increase from 
the beginning to the end of the series. If you add C2 H4 to acetic acid, 
for instance, you get butyric a(;id. Add G2 Hi to butyric acid and you 
get caproic acid, and so on down through the series. They are all 
related in that step-ladder way, one with another. 

Kepresentative Bailey. In regular numerical progression? 

Dr. Wiley. In numerical progression. Now, there is no acetic acid 
in butter; but the next one to acetic acid (the vinegar acid) is butyric 
acid, which is the chief one of these volatile acids in buttc^r. You see, 
there is 6.23 per cent of butyric acid in butter. Now, the goaty acids, 
which are named from the Latin name for "goat," because they exist 
largely in goat fat, are the caproic, caprylic, and capric acids, the 
caproic acid being the largest in amount, and the others being present 
in small quantities. Next comes lauric acid and myristic acid in con- 
siderable percentage; but the most abundant of them are the oleic, 
stearic, and palmitic acids belonging to the upper series. The .>tearic 
acid of the upper series is the smallest in quantity and the palmitic 
acid the largest in quantity in butter fat. 

Eepresentative Williams. Is palmitic acid named from palm oil? 

Dr. Wiley. Yes; palmitic acid exists largely in palm oil; hence the 
name. Now, so far as wholcsomeness is concerned, these bodies bear 
practically the same relation to the digestive organism, with this excep- 
tion, that the lower acids are more easily decomposed, and hence, under 
the influence of the ferments which produce digestion the presumption 
is that they digest more rapidly. This is exactly what 1 said in my 



772 OLEOMAEQAErNE. 

testimony before the Senate committee. They asted me if I thought 
oleomargarine was as digestible as butter. I do not think it is. 1 do 
not think it digests so well as butter, because it contains more of the 
higher series of acids, and practically none of the lower series, which 
are more easily decomposed under the influence of ferments. All diges- 
tion is fermentation. 

Some one has spoken about the bacteria. We have, unfortunately, 
a prejudice against bacteria in this country. As a matter of fact if it 
were not for bacteria we would all speedily die; we would have no 
agriculture, no manufactures, and no human beings. The bacteria are 
essential to all kinds of life, and hence the fact that a food contains or 
does not contain bacteria is not a measure of its wholesomeness. The 
most wholesome foods, such as milk aud butter, often contain the 
largest number of bacteria. 

Now, butter is perfectly full of bacteria, teeming with bacteria, while 
oleomargarine, properly made, has practically only the bacteria which 
come from the milk or cream used in its manufacture. It is, therefore, 
a substance which naturally keeps much longer than butter, because of 
the absence of the ferments which decompose the latter, so that is 
rather against its digestibility, because the ferments are essential to 
all digestion. 

JJ^ow, in oleomargarine you have practically tristearin, triolein, and 
tripalmitin. Those are the three chief constituents of oleomargarine, 
because all the elements which enter into the composition of oleomar- 
garine are rich in those three bodies. The oleo oil, the neutral lard, 
and the cotton seed oil all contain almost exclusively these high glycer- 
ides, and very little, a mere trace, of the lower glycerides. I have never 
conducted any digestion exiieriments — I have digested oleomargarine 
myself often, I am sure, in the ordinary way, but without giving it any 
scientific control 

Representative Allen. What is the result of your experiments as 
to digestion? 

Dr. Wiley. My impression in regard to the digestibility of butter as 
compared to oleomargarine is formed from a purely theoretical stand- 
point, without having tried experiments on human beings and noted 
the time of digestion, because I do not know that that has been accom- 
plished, and more than that the actual time of digestion is a matter of 
very little consequence, provided the food is digested. In fact it is a 
very good thing that we do not digest all our food instantaneously, 
because otherwise we would be hungry after one meal before we would 
get the next. The fact that a food is slow of digestion, like fruit, for 
instance, is no reason that it is unwholesome, iso one would say that 
meat is necessarily more wholesome than fruit because it is more easily 
digested. You can digest meat in much less time than you can digest 
fruit, and yet nobody claims that fruits are unwholesome. 

The Acting Chairman. You would say, then, that butter is more 
quickly digested than oleomargarine? 

Dr. Wiley. I believe it is more easily digested; that it requires less 
effort. 

The Ohaieman. You think that is the reasonable inference? 

Dr. Wiley. From a chemical study of the composition of butter, it 
is reasonable to infer that it requires less effort on the part of the vital 
organs to ferment the butter, and that is the reason why I say that I 
believe butter is a more digestible substance, more easily digested, 
more quicklj'^ digested than oleomargarine. 

Now, the value of a food is measured solely by two standards. First, 



II 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 



773 



its palatability, aud, second, its nutritive properties. Ton need not try 
to convince buiiian beings that [)alatability is not an element in nutri- 
tion, because it is, and yet you get a great deal more out of a food if it 
is palatable in its taste and attractive in its appearance, because the 
attitude of the digestive organs changes absolutely with the appear- 
ance of the food. If you were to put butter up in the form of ink it 
might be just as digestible, and all that, and yet it would not be so 
useful as a food. The appearance of a food has a great deal to do with 
the attitude of the digestive organs toward it. 

A Member. It is simply a reHex action from it? 

Dr. Wiley (continuing). Yes; because the mind, the mental atti- 
tude, influences the secretion of the ferments which produce the diges- 
tion, and hence we must have some regard to that appearance. 

Kepresentative Williams. That is so true, Professor, is it not, that 
sometimes when a person takes a prejudice against a particular article 
of food it will make him vomit if he attempts to eat it? 

Dr. Wiley. That is very often the case. That is due to his mental 
attitude. We all have our idiosyncrasies. 

I would like to say that we have studied in the Department of Agri- 
culture for seventeen years, since I have been the chief chemist of that 
Department, the subject of food adulteration; and, among others, this 
substitution of oleomargarine for butter is one of the chief items of study 
which we have undertaken. My own personal attitude is perfectly 
well-known. I think that anyone who sells an article for what it is not 
is obtaining money under false pretenses. I believe it is a crime, a 
criminal offense; and I believe that the sale of oleomargarine as butter 
is a criminal offense, and should be prosecuted as such. The Commis- 
sioner of Internal Eevenue says he gets the money out of it. That is 
very well from his point of view; he said he did not execute the law 
from the pure food point of view. But what we want is a law which 
will be executed from the pure food point of view, so that the man who 
ofifends not only has to pay the tax, but has to pay the penalty for 
offending against the criminal code. 

Representative Williams. Have you read this Grout bill? 

Dr. Wiley. Yes, sir. 

Representative Williams, Is there anything in the Grout bill which 
executes the law, from the pure-food standpoint, any better than any 
existing legislation? 

Dr. Wiley. Of course, I am not lawyer enough to give an opinion 
in respect to that; but what I want to call to your attention on this 
point is this matter of color. 

Now, I am not a prohibitionist in regard to color. I think if i)eople 
want to color their food with harmless materials it is perfectly proper 
that they should do so, provided the purchaser understands in buying 
a food that he is buying an artificially colored one, and let him be the 
judge. If he wants the artificially colored article, all right, 

I sent out just a few weeks ago into the markets of this town to buy 
some oleomargarine and butter. I also got a piece of white silk. I 
took the samples of oleomargarine and butter which I got, took about 
the amount which one would use in an ordinary meal, and I dyed this 
silk with the coloring matter which these samples contained. I could 
not find on the markets of this town a sample of uncolored butter, nor 
of uncolored oleomargarine; but I did find this — that instead of secur- 
ing uniformity by coloring butter we get the greatest disparity in 
appearance. 

One argument which has been advanced in support of coloring butter 



774 OLEOMARGARINE. 

is that it is made uniform. Bat the point is not a good one, because 
the people who color butter do not eolor it uniformly. We find the most 
remarkable variations in color. Some of it is almost red and, on the 
other hand, there [exhibiting a piece of silk] is a pale yellow, closely 
resembling the natural tint of butter. 

Kow, these colors are all coal-tar dyes, everyone of them. The 
vegetable dyes, like annotto, have almost ceased to be used in coloring 
butter. You may find them in some localities. Some States require 
that butter be colored with annotto and not with coal tar dyes, but 
everyone of these is a coal tar dye, and you will see by the variations 
in tint (they do not show very well in artificial light) that the amount 
of color in the samples was very different. The same amount of material 
was us(h1 in each case. Now, compare these two [exhibiting samples]. 
That [indicating] was a very light-colored sample; this [indicating] 
was a very heavily colored sample. 

Dr. Wiley at this point submitted the following statement: 

COLORING MATTERS USED FOR COLORING BUTTER AND ITS IMITATIONS. 

Annotto, the principal vegetable dye used, is mainly compoaed of tlio pnlp sur- 
rounding the fruit Bixa orellaiia growing in the East and West Indies and .South 
America. Allen states tliat two diftVrent kinds reach England, namely, the Spanish 
annotto, imported from Brazil, and the flag or French annotto, which comes from 
Cayenne. 

Annotto contains two yellow coloring matters which have been given names 
derived from the botanical names of the plants. 

Bixin, C:8H3405, is one of these, but its properties and chemical relationships have 
been imperfectly studied. When separated in the form of its soda salt it has a 
reddish color. 

Clellin is described as yellow and soluble in water and alcohol. These two color- 
ing matters combined, in annotto, give the substance its characteristic orange-yellow 
color. 

Coal-far dyes. — When diazobenzeue-sulphonic acid acts on amids, with an alkaline 
solution of phenols, a series of coloring matters is obtained ranging from yellow to 
deep orange or red. These dyes are called tropii^olius, because the shades of color 
they produce resemble those of the nasturtium Hower (Tropwolum magnus). They 
usually occur in coumierce as soda salts and are distinguished according to their 
shades, troitaiolin Y, being the most yellow, and the tropseolin 0, 00, and so on, as the 
shades become redder. The shade of the color becomes redder by the substitution 
of toluene, xylene, or cumene for benzene. 

Two of these dyes which have been used for coloring foods are the acid or fast 
yellow and the orange yellow or orange G. 

The acid yellow, or the fast yellow, is the soda salt of amido-azobenzene sul- 
phonic acid, represented by the formula: 

C6H4(S03Na). N:N. C6H4.NH.3. 

Orange G is sodium salt of benzene — azobetanaphtol-disulphonio acid, having the 
formula : 



CeHsNrN. CoH^I^^^^^^^)' 



This class of dyes is also known as sulphonated-azo dyes. 

Victoria yellow has also been reported as a coloring material for butter. This 
substance is a mixture of the sodium salts of the dinitro-ortho and dinitro-para- 
cresol C6H2(CH3).(N02)2.0Na. 

Itepresentative Williams. Do you get the colors in these samples 
from butter? 

Dr. Wiley. From butter and oleomargarine, indiscriminately. 

Eepresentative Henry. Are we to understand that aniline dyes are 
used in coloring oleomargarine and butter 1? 

Dr. Wiley. Yes, sir ; almost exclusively. 

Eepresentative Henry. I supposed that annotto was the coloring 
matter used. 



OLEOMARGAKINE. 775 

Dr. Wiley. I doubt i^ you can find a sample of butter in this town 
colored with aniiotto. 

Kepreseutative Henry. Annotto is used all through the creameries of 
the North, so far as I kuow. 

Represeutative Williams. Perhaps the law in Connecticut requires 
butter to be colored with annotto. 

Dr. Wiley. They use coal-tar dyes in the product sold here. 

Representative Williams. Do you regard the aniline dyes as equally 
wholesome? 

Dr. Wiley. I do not say that coloring your intestines saffron injures 
your health. The amount of color used in these substances, however, 
is very small. I do not, myself, fancy eating artificial colors. I would 
rather have the good, old-fashioned butter, with its natural color, 
whether deep or light; and I believe that we ought to educate the taste 
of our people in that way. I believe we are ruining the taste of our 
people by coloring our butter; and the farther South you go the deeper 
the color gets. 

Representative Henry. Pardon me again — do you think these ani- 
line dyes aifect the flavor of butter? 

Dr. Wiley. No, sir; oh, no. These dyes are absolutely without 
flavor. 

Representative Henry. Wherein are they unwholesome? 

Dr. Wiley. I did not say they were. I said I did not, myself, fancy 
eating them. 

Representative Neville. Do you think the fact that people color 
butter is any excuse for people being iierinitted to color oleomargarine, 
if, as a matter of fact, it results in putting butter and oleomargarine 
onto people who do not want to eat it in that shajte? 

Representative Bailey. Then reverse the question. 

Representative Neville. Yes, sir; answer it, and then reverse it? 

Dr. Wiley. I believe tliat every food product should have the same 
right before the law. I do not see why there should be a distinction. 

Representative Baker. You stated a minute ago that the numufac- 
turer of every food product has the right to make it palatable to the 
consnmer. 

Dr. Wiley. And to make it attractive in its taste, provided he tells 
what is in it — provided he does not injure the health of the consumer. 

Representative Neville. You just stated that you would prefer to 
have butter without coloring? 

Dr. Wiley, Yes, sir; I prefer it so, very much, for myself. 

Representative Neville. So do I, and 1 apprehend there are a great 
many people in the same position. 

Dr. Wiley. I i)refer it very much; and having been brought up in 
the dairy industry, and being interested in the subject, I believe we are 
injuring our dairy industries by permitting the coloring of butter. 

Representative Henry. That has been for years my contention with 
butter makers — that the dairy interests were injuring their own prod- 
ucts by artificial coloring. 

Dr. Wiley. Yes; that is my idea, my conviction. You can get 
uncolored butter in New York; you can go and get it at Delmonico's, 
and some other high-priced restaurants ; and the fact that tlie uncolored 
butter brings the highest price in the market ought to be an object 
lesson to our dairymen that they are standing in their own light when 
they color their butter. Now, if they would let the manufacturers color 
oleomargarine, and would keep butter at its natural color, there would 
be no difficulty in discriminating between the two. 



776 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Eepresentative Neville. Another question, ^Professor: Were any of 
these tests that you have described made on butter furnished by farmers 
from the country? 

Dr. Wiley. Oh, I do not know. I simply bought my butter and 
oleomargarine in the open market. The samples which I bought are 
all here; but I do not know who made them. 

Representative Allen. Professor, with regard to the heiltlifulness 
of oleomargarine, have you found in it anything deleterious to the human 
system as a food product? 

Dr. Wiley. I never have in the analysis of oleomargarine. 

Re])resentative Allen. You have examined it with that view and 
purpose, have you? 

Dr. Wiley. Not especially with a view to finding deleterious sub- 
stances; no, sir; but with simply a view to determining its com})osition. 
But 1 never have detected in fresh samples of oleomargarine any bad 
odor or bad taste, nor have I noticed in the analysis the presen<'e of 
bodies foreign to those wliich I have just mentioned, except that tlieie 
are portions of butter in oleomargarine, if churned with cream or milk; 
and I believe that for many markets at the present time glucose is used 
in small cpiantities in oleomargarine as a preserving agent. It is 
demanded by the markets of some portions of this country or of for- 
eign countries. 

ilepresentative Allen. What is the relative amount of stearin in 
butter and oleomargarine? 

Dr. Wiley. There is very much more in oleomargarine. 

Representative Allen. To what extent? 

Dr. Wiley. I could not now state the exact quantity of stearin in 
oleomargai ine, but it must be 20 or 155 per cent, perhai)S, while in butter 
it is only about 4 per cent. 

Representative Bakek. Twenty-five per cent of stearin, you say? 

Dr. Wiley. 1 do not remember the exact figures, but I know there 
is very much more in oleomargarine than in butter. 

Representative Baker. Let me call your attention to the fact that 
the report ol the Treasury Department does not show any 

Dr. Wiley. I have not looked into the question for years. 

Representative Williams. The report of the Secretary of the Treas- 
ury, Dr. Wiley, shows the amount of stearin in oleomargarine as 0.007. 
That is almost inappreciable? 

Dr. Wiley. Yes. 

Representative Williams. Now, then, I notice that, according to 
your statement, the amount of stearic acid, or whatever it is 

Di'. Wiley. Dioxystearin and stearin. 

Representative Williams. Yes; the amount of dioxystearin in but 
ter was 1.04 per cent, was it not, or just 1 per cent? 

Dr. Wiley. One per cent in round numbers. 

Representative Williams. Exactly 1 per cent. 

Dr. Wiley. And of stearin about 2 per cent. 

Representative Williams. So, according to that, if these two reports 
are correct, there is more stearin in butter than in oleomargarine? 

Dr. Wiley. Now, I wish to state to the committee tliat I have not 
looked at this point, in regard to the amount of stearin in oleomarga- 
rine, for many years; and i may be mistaken in my statement. If so, 
I wish to reserve the right to correct it after looking the matter up. 

Representative Williams. I simply took the amount of stearin in 
butter from your statement. 

Dr. Wiley. Yesj that is all right. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 777 

Representative Williams. And the araonnt of stearin in oleomar- 
garine, 0.007, from tbe statement of the Secretary of the Treasury. 

Dr. Wiley. I know about the amount in butter, because it is only 
lately that I have made up this table, and looked the matter up afresh. 
But in regard to the amount in oleomargarine I have not looked at it 
for many years. I wish to reserve the right to correct my statement iu 
that resi)ect after further investigation. 

(A copy of the report of the Secretary of the Treasury was handed to 
Dr. Wiley.) 

Dr. Wiley. He does not give the amount of stearin in the neutral 
lard and the oleo oil and cotton seed oil. He does not give that at all. 
He only gives some that is used specially; but stearin is found iu those 
other ingredients, which he does not mention there at all. I will give 
the committee the exact Iigures on that point. 

[Dr. Wiley subsequently submitted to the committee the following 
letter:] 

United States Department of Agriculture, 

Division of Chemistry, 
Washington, D. C, May 16, 1900. 
Hon. Jas. W. Wadsworth, 

Chairman of Committee on AqricuUure, House of Representatives. 

Dear Sir : I desire to submit the following additional statement in regard to the 
percentage of stearin iu oleoiiiiirg.uiiie: 

In thtj statement furnished by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue it is said 
that only 0.007 per cent of stearin are found in oleomars>avine. On examining care- 
fully these data I find that they refer to the amount of stearin which is added in 
the process of manufacture, but this statement does not refer to the stearin which 
is normally found in the natural constituents used iu the manufacture of oleomar- 
garine. 

Stearin is a natural glyceride found in the fats of all animals and in the oils of 
all vegetables. It has the highest melting point of any of the ordinary natural fats, 
and tilose bodies which contain the largest percentage of it have the li ighest melting 
point, such as tallow, while those bodies which have smaller quautilies of stearin 
have low melting points, as, for instance, cotton-seed oil. 

The natural quantity of stearin found in lard, oleo oil, and cotton-seed oil varies 
largely with different samples. The average composition of neutral lard, from the 
data which I am able to find on record, may be given as 62 i)art8 of olein and 38 parts 
of stearin and palniitin combined, of which the greater amount is stearin. Tal- 
low contains a very much larger pro])ortion of stearin, but the oleo oil which is 
used in the manufacture of oleomargarine has a large part of its stearin separated 
by subjecting it to cold belore it is used iu the manufacture. It is difficult, there- 
fore, to state even apiiroximately the quantity of stearin in oleo oil, but I should 
say that 20 per cent would be a very low estimate. 

Cotton-seed, oil has a still lower percentage of stearin, but I can not give 
definitely the quantity which the average oil employed would represent. 

From the above it is seen that in neutral lard and oleo oil, which are the chief 
constituents of oleomargarine, there would be an average content of at least 25 per 
cent of stearin. T^iese two fats constitute about 60 per cent of oleomargarine; 
hence the total amount of stearin in oleomargarine is approximately 15 per cent. 
This, you will see, is exactly in accoi'dance with my statement before the committee, 
where I said I thought that oleomargarine would contain 20 per cent of stearin. 

You will understand that the above is an approximate estimate, but it will be 
found on further investigation, I am sure, to be very close to the truth. You will 
notice from the testimony which I gave before the committee this morning that 
butter fat contains about 4 per cent of stearin in various fornis. Oleomargarine 
contains, say, at least 16 per cent. Thus the quantity of stearin in oleomargarine 
is approximately four times as great as in butter. 

I trust the above, given in harmony with your request, will prove satisfactory. 
Respectfully, 

H. W. Wiley, Cftenifs*. 

Eepresentative Williams. Do you not think it would be a step for- 
ward, which would be advisable, to prohibit impartiality, in connection 
with all food products, artificial coloring of one product in the sem- 
blance of other products, or of other articles of the same product, or 



778 OLEOMAEGAKINE. 

selling one product in the name of other products orof other articles of 
the same product ? 

Dr. Wiley. Well, I have jnst said that I was not a prohibitionist in 
regard to coloring foods. I would not say that colors should not be 
nsed in the manufacture of food. I would even be willing to admit the 
use of copper in preserving the color of peas and beans, wliich look so 
attractive in their green color, and which, if not preserved in this way, 
soon become yellow on standing, and lose their attractive appearance. 
But I have always iusisted, in my ])ublic addresses and in my commu- 
nications to Congress, before committees and otherwise, that no color- 
ing matter should be employed unless the fact is plainly indicated upon 
the package, so that the purchaser may know exactly what it is. And 
that is the attitude that I hold toward pure-food legislation — that it 
should be general and not special in its character. I believe that the 
dairy interests would be far better protected under the Brosius bill, 
which is pending before Congress, than under a special bill, because all 
the interests would be placed on the same footing. The Brosius bill 
absolutely prohibits the sale of any product as an imitation or under 
the name of another, and provides penalties for that specific purpose; 
so that it would be absolutely impossible under the law, if that bill were 
passed, to sell oleomargarine for butter anywhere in this country. 

Eepresentative Williams. That is, in interstate commerce? 

Dr. Wiley. Yes; as far as Congress can provide, under interstate 
commerce, of course, for prohibiting the transportation of these articles. 
At the present time, with perhaps the exee]>tion of— well, I do not know 
that I will make any exception — I believe that the fraud in selling 
oleomargarine for butter (although I do not know the statistics) is per- 
haps the most pronounced of any food fraud in this country and is 
deserving of the most rigid punishment. 

Eepresentative Williams. Jn that connection, will you tell us some- 
thing about the iiaud of "renovated butter," if you know about it.^ 

Dr. Wiley. Yes; I know a good deal about that, not from a manu- 
facturing point of view, but the other. 

Eepresentative Williams. I wish you would tell the committee 
about it. 

Dr. Wilev. Two years ago I was addressing fanners' institutes in 
southern Indiana, and I saw, loading on the cars at North Vernon, car 
after car of barrels. I said to my friend, who Avas the agent, "What 
have you got in all these barrels?" "Why," he said, "butter, which 
we have bought all over this country." I said: "Are you sending it 
to New York?" "No, trending it to Elgin." "What for?" "Why," 
he said, "they take it there, and it is renovated and sold as Elgin 
creamery butter all over this country." And there was carload after 
carload of country butter (and some of you know what country butter 
is, indiscriminately) which was hardly tit to go on to the market, but 
which was being sent there for the purpose of having it reduced to 
uniform grade in a town famous for its butter, so that, being sent from 
that town, it could get an additional price in the world's markets. 
And that is a very common practice where creameries do not exist; and 
they are not found all over this country. The old-fashioned way of 
maidiig butter in the farm-house still obtains in such places; and 
sometimes, as Mr. W^adsworth has said, the butter is made of cream 
which is not taken al the right moment, and which is not entirely 
palatable. Now, I do not know the exact process of renovation, 
although I know something about it. I know that the butter is melted ; 
I know that the curd is removed, and it has been stated that the ran- 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 779 

cidity is corrected by the addition of an alkali, presumably bicarbonate 
of soda, or something of that kind, but of this 1 have no personal 
knowledge. Then the material is rechurned with fresh milk, resalted 
and molded, and makes a very presentable appearance in the market. 
That is what is known as renovated butter. 

Kepreseiitative Williams. Do you know anything about their col- 
lecting and buying rancid butter from the hotels and restaurants, and 
renovating that? 

Dr. Wiley. No; I only know what I have seen, as described to you. 
I do not know anything, personally, about the collection of such but- 
ter; but I imagine that economical hotel keepers and restaurateurs do 
not throw away their left-over butter. 

STATEMENT OF W. E. MILLER, ESQ., REPRESENTING ARMOUR & 
CO., KANSAS CITY, KAN. 

Kepresentative Bailey. I will say to the committee that Mr. Miller 
is the expert who has control of the butterine factory of Armour & Co., 
at Kansas City. 

Mr. Miller. Mr. Chairman and members of this committee, no 
manufactured article has been so grossly misrepresented and abused as 
the product known as "butterine" or "oleomargarine," and the hrst 
point we wish to make is that butterine is not an imitation. 

Butterine possesses merit, and it is not necessary to imitate another 
article in order to sell it. This product has a separate and distinct 
value commercially, and is not confused with butter in the mind of the 
housewife. 

The first butterine manufactured was of very high color, while butter 
at that time was almost universally sold in its natural state. The 
dairymen were quick to see that the high color pleased the public, and 
they immediately com menced to color their ])roduct also. We have 
taken the aggressive at all times. The progressive butterine nianu- 
1:1^ tiirers conceived the idea of new shape rolls, brick, and prints, and 
also attractive packages, which a|)iieak'd to the eye of the bu yer ^^ e 
have had many prominent dairymen acknowledge that the butterine 
manufacturers discount them when it comes to attractive appearance 
of their product in packages. 

Butterine has a great deal of merit. People know what they are buy- 
ing, and call for it. On pages 7 and 9 of the report of the committee 
appointed by the Senate to investigate pure food, we read the following: 

I will not read all that I intended to read, on account of the lateness 
of the hour. This is a summary of their report: 

In re^^ard to butterine or oleomargarine, it is not clairaed by any of the witnesses 
before your committee that it is in any way deleterious to public health. On the 
contrary, all expert evidence upon the ])oint strongly confirms the testimony of the 
mauul'iictur.'rs of this article to the effect that it is a healthful food product. 

As regards the much discussed question of color, I would say that 
we use exactly the same as that sold to a majjority of all the creameries 
in the West, and in about the same proportion. In order to sell our 
product we must color it now the same as we did when we commenced 
its manufacture. If we had started out using no coloring whatever 
we would doubtless have had as large a business established on uncol- 
ored to day as we have on colored butterine. However, as the trade 
have become accustomed to colored goods, we could not at this late 
hour get them accustomed to the uncolored product. In fact, we have 



780 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

attempted to sell uncolored biitteiine in a uumber of prohibitive States, 
but it has proved a rauk failure. 

I will say just here that in case this Grout bill is passed it will kill 
the industry. The uncolored product will not sell. We have tried it 
in a number of prohibitive States, and, as I say, it has proved a failure 
In each instance. 

Why should color be prohibited from butterine and not from butter? 
The same color is used in similar quantities in both articles. If it is 
undesirable in one, why is it not undesirable in the other? 

Taxing butterine is discrimination in favor of butter. Why would 
it not be just as reasonable to place a ban on cable and electric cars, 
because they displace the horse; or to say that gas and electricity 
must be restricted, because they decrease the profits of the oil kings; 
or that '' nearsilk" should be heavily taxed, because it is an imitation 
of the real article and answers the same purpose as silk? This is a 
progressive age. Something valuable is given to the public each year 
in the way of invention; and while it may interfere with the interests 
of a few, yet it benefits thousands. Butterine is an up to-date product, 
and possesses sufficient merit to sell successfully throughout the world 
for just what it is. 

It has been represented to this committee that a large per cent of 
the butterine manufactured is sold for butter. This is a mistake and 
can not be proven by facts. Much publicity has been given to the sale 
of a few packages of butterine for butter, the wrai)i)ers of which were 
branded "oleomargarine," but this is not conclusive evidence that all 
dealers in the United States are practicing the same deception. We 
acknowledge that a small per cent of butterine is sold fraudulently, 
but this is no reason why its sale should be prohibited altogether, sim- 
ply because one unscrupulous dealer in a hundred may give it to a 
purchaser Avhen he calls for butter. It should be noted that no 
purchaser has ever been heard to complain of being deceived and not 
getting good value for his money. The complaint comes from the 
National Dairy Association, who are posing as philanthropists, and 
espousing the cause of these purchasers without even first getting their 
permission. 

Much of the literature with which Congress has been flooded ema- 
nated from one source. Postal cards and jjetitions were sent individu- 
als throughout the United States, with the request that they sign and 
mail them to members of Congress. It is easy to get the assistance of 
the ignorant by telling them in a long editorial that butterine is 
unwholesome, etc., but when these same individuals come before intel- 
ligent men, such as we have before us to-day, they dare not say one 
word on this point. 

Right here I will produce a copy of the Chicago Dairy Produce, 
edited by Mr. Knight, in the back of which I notice copies of blank 
applications which he has asked his readers to send into members of 
Congress. I also understand that they have a printing establishment 
in Chicago wliere most of this literature is printed; and here is a card 
which was sent a certain party, dated March 15, 1900. 

[At this point Mr. Miller exhibited a printed postal card, which was 
left with the committee.] 

I also see that here is a piece of literature which has been mailed 
indiscriminately over the United States under the frank of Congress- 
man Grout. 

Eepresentative Bailey. What is that? 

Mr. MiLLEE. It is an article on butterine. 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 781 

Kepresentative Batley. Did you get one of theraf 

Mr. Miller. It is in tbe interest of the Gront bill. 

Kepresentative Allen. Did yon get oue of tbeui under a frankt 

Mr. Miller. No; but this came to a party in our employ. 

Kei)resentative Allen. Who was he! 

Mr. Miller. The one in our employ, you mean? 

Kepresentative Allen. Who was that man? 

Mr. Miller. Oue of our employees. 

Kepresentative Allen. What is his name? 

Mr. Miller. James Hobson. He is an assistant in the butterine 
department. 

Kepresentative Allen. He got that under the frank of Mr. Grout? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir; here is the document, right here. 

Kepresentative Allen. Leave it with the conimittee. 

Representative Neville. I would like to ask if that is not a public 
document? 

Mr. Miller. Why, yes; it is published, but it is published by Con- 
gressman Grout. 

Kepresentative Bailey. No ; he asked if it was not a public document? 

Mr. Miller. No ; it is a reprint. 

Kepresentative Bailey. A reprint of what? 

Mr. Miller. It is the reprint of an article by some Ph. D. It says: 

Reprinted from the Year Book of the United States Department of Agriculture for 
1895. 

Now, gentlemen, dealers do not sell butterine promiscuously for 
butter, as is claimed; and if the promoters of this crusade had taken 
the time and trouble to investigate in the various markets, they would 
have found such was the case. We furnish all dealers selling our but- 
terine with signs. They do not find it necessary to practice deception. 
Our butterine sells on its own merits. 

Just here I think it apropos to inform this committee that the 
secretary of the National Dairy Association made the statement to 
Charles A. Sterne, a broker of Chicago, at the close of the Senatorial 
pure food investigation there, that he had never been inside of a but- 
terine factory. Yet this gentleman leads the fight against butterine, 
and writes long editorials on a product he has never even seen manu- 
factured. 

The internal revenue regulations are strict and effective, and if the 
National Dairy Association will commence the fraudulent sale of but- 
terine they will very soon find out that this dei)artnient is not only alive 
and active, but that justice is dealt out very swiftly. We urge our trade 
to sell butterine for just what it is, and never encourage or countenance 
violation. All original packages are branded "oleomargaiine," and 
all of our regular brands which are sold under wrappers are also 
branded "oleomargarine." In addition to this, the retail dealer must 
brand the word "oleomargarine" on the outside of the wrapper. 

Butterine is wholesome, nutritious, and palatable. There is no secret 
whatever about the process of manufacture. Our factory is open to the 
public at all times. This product is composed of the following ingredi- 
ents: Oleo oil (made from choice fats of the beef), neutral lard (or the 
leaf lard of the hog), refined cotton-seed oil, milk, cream, salt, and 
butter. 

We have never had a i)ound of paraffin in our factory, and we do 
not desire stearin. 

The proportions of butterine vary according to the grades desired. 
Cleanliness is enforced in our factory with the rigidity of the laws of 



782 



OLEOMARGARINE. 



II 



the Medes and Persians. This product will remain sweet indefinitely, 
because it contaius very little butyric acid, which is the decaying prin- 
ciple in butter. We call your attention to the opinions of a number of 
noted chemists whose characters are beyond reproach and whose 
opinions are of the highest character. 

I quoted Professor Wiley here in my paper, but as he is present, I 
have refrained from reading that part of my remarks. 

There has been a good deal said about the melting point of butterine 
being much higher than the temperature of the stomach. The temper- 
ature of the stomach is 98.4°. 

Eepreseutative Allen. Are jou a chemist, Mr. Miller ? 

Mr. Miller. No, sir; but that is the statement of chemists. Now, 
in order to settle this question, I sent some samples to Professor 
Schweitzer, who is professor of chemistry in the university at Colum- 
bia, Mo., and who also has charge of the experiment station there. He 
has been a lifelong friend of Professor Wiley, who will vouch for his 
ability. He made a test of four samples; and the melting point of 
these four samples, commencing with the lowest grade, was as follows: 
82.950,84.650,93.650, 96.80O; and 96.80O, which is the same as our 
highest grade of butterine, is the melting point of pure butter. Where- 
fore, the melting point of the highest grade is almost two degrees under 
the temperature of the stomach. I would like to submit his letter as 
part of my statement. 

(The letter above referred to is as follows :) 

Columbia, Mo., April 10, 1900. 
The Armour Packing Compant, 

Kansas City, Kans. 
Gentlemen: The four samples of butterine, the meltiug points of which you 
desired lae to determine, came to hand on April 7, and gave the following results: 





Begins to 
melt. 


Fluid. 


Perfectly clear. 




0. 
28.00 
28.20 
28.25 
a4.50 
33.50 


°0. 
28. 30 
28.75 
31.00 
36.00 
35.00 


28.30 
29.25 
34.25 
36.00 
36.00 


°F. 

82 95 




84 65 




93 65 




96 80 


Best butter 


96.80 







If the mean between the temperatures at which the samples begin to melt and at 
which easy iiuidity is attained are taken to represent the mean melting points, then 
the results are: 





Meltin 


5 point. 




oO. 

28.15 
28.47 
29.62 
35.25 
84.25 


p_ 
82.67 




82.24 




85.31 




95.45 




93.65 







Yours, truly, 

P. Schweitzer, 
Professor of Agricultural Chemistry and Chemist to Experiment Station. 

Representative Cooney. Will you permit me to ask you again what 
position Professor Schweitzer holds? 
Mr. Miller. He is professor of chemistry at the State University, 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 783 

Columbia, Mo., and he is also professor of agricultural chemistry and 
chemist to the experiment station. 

Eepresentative Cooney. Chemist? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. Now I will read the opinions of a number of 
other well known chemists. 

Prof. S. W. Johnson, director of the Connecticut Agricultural Exper- 
iment Station and professor of agricultural chemistry at Yale College, 
New Haven, says: 

It is a product that in entirely attractive and wholesome as food, and one that is 
for all ordinary and culinary purposes the full eqnivaleut of good butter made from 
cream. I regard the manufacture of oleomargarine as a legitimate and beneficent 
industry. 

Dr. A. G. Stockwell, who needs no introduction, says, in the Scientific 
American : 

In every-day life butter is very essential. Its free use by sufferers from wasting 
diseases is to be encouraged to the utmost. Considering the foregoing, it seems 
strange that oleomargarine has not been thought of as a palatable and suitable 
article of diet lor those suffering irom wasting diseases. 

It is free irom all objections. As a matter of fact, it is a better and purer butter 
than nine-teuths of the dairy product that is marketed, and one that is far more 
easily preserved. There are a large number who imagine oleomargarine is made 
from any old scraps of grease regardless of age or cleanliness. The reverse is the 
fact. Good oleo can only be had by employing the very best and freshest of fat. 
This artificial butter is as purely wholesome (and jierhaps even better as food) as 
the best dairy or creamery product. 

Jollies and Winkler, the official chemists of the Australian Govern- 
ment, after thorough investigation of butterine, reported: 

The only germs found in "oleo" are those common to air and water. Althougli 
carefully searched for, tubercular bacilli and other obnoxious bacilli were conspic- 
uous by their absence. 

Prof. G. C. Caldwell, of Cornell University, says: 

The process for making butterine, when properly conducted, is cleanly throughout, 
free from animal tissue or other impurities, and consists of pure fat, made up of the 
fats commonly known as alaine and margarine. It possesses no qualities whatever 
that can make it in the least degree unwholesome. 

Prof. W. O. Atwater, director of the United States Government 
Agricultural Experiment Station, Washington, D. C, says: 

Butterine is perfectly wholesome and healthy, and has a high and nutritious value. 
The same entirely favorable oijinion I lind expressed by the mosti)roniiuent European 
authorities — English, French, and German. 

It contains essentially the same ingredients as natural butter from cow's milk. It 
is perfectly wholesome and healthy, and has a high nutritive value. 

Prof. Paul Schweitzer, Ph. D., LL. D., professor of chemistry, Missouri 
State University, says: 

As a result of my examination, made both with the microscope and the delicate 
chemical tests ap])lical>le to such cases, I pronounce butterine to be wholly and une- 
quivocally free from any deleterious or in the least objectionable substances. Care- 
fully made physiological ex])erimcnts reveal no dillerence whatever in the palatability 
and digestibility between butterine and butter. 

Dr. Adoli)h Jolles, of Vienna, from address before section 7 of the 
International Hygienic Congress at Budapest, said: 

As regards nutritive value, pure butterine or oleomargarine is as digestible and 
nutritive as pure butter. 

Prof. George F. Barker, of the University of Pennsylvania: 

Butterine is, in my opinion, quite as valuable as a nutritive agent as butter itself. 
It is perfectly wholesome, and is desirable as an artiilo of food. I can see no reason 
why butterine should not be an entirely satisfactory equivalent for ordinary butter, 
whether considered from the physiological or commercial standpoint. 



784 OLEOMAEG ARINE. 

Gentlemen, the passage of a law such as the Grout bill would destroy] 
an industry in which there are $15,000,000 invested and 25,000 menl 
employed. Butterine in its natural state is unsalable, because it is not) 
pleasing to the sight. We could not sell butterine with an additional] 
tax of 8 cents per pound; therefore, should this bill become a law, a] 
legitimate industry, which it has taken years to build up, would bel 
wiped out of existence. The effects of such legislation are manifold. 
The butterine manufacturers, wholesale and retail dealers, and con- 
sumers, are not the only injured i^arties. It would deprive the Govern- 
ment of over $2,000,000 revenue annually, and practically destroy the 
cotton-seed oil industry of the South, in which there are millions of 
dollars invested and many thousand men employed. The injury to the 
cattle and hog industry is almost beyond estimate, although it has been 
conservatively stated that the depreciation would be $62,000,000 
annually." 

The present tax and regulations are sufficient to control the sale of 
this product, and the intent of the proposed legislation is not to fur- 
ther regulate but to destroy the industry altogether. This would 
establish a dangerous precedent of destroying one industry to the 
advantage of another, which is directly against our Constitution. 

While butterine is consumed in large quantities by the better class 
of people, yet it is sold principally to a class of buyers who can not afford 
high priced butter. Kill thebutterine industry and millionsof poor labor- 
ers will be compelled to do without a palatable article for their bread. 
Twenty cents per pound was the very lowest price at which the cheap- 
est grade of batter could be purchased during the winter months in 
Kansas City, and the quality of the article was not even up to the 
cheapest grade of butterine. A good, sweet, and palatable grade of 
butterine retailed during this time at 15 cents for a single pound, or 2 
pounds for 25 cents. The laboring man has some rights, as well as the 
creamery man, and his rights should be taken into consideration by all 
legislative bodies. 

It has been rey)resented to this committee that the butterine indus- 
try was killing the butter business — that, to use the language of the 
opposition — 

National legislation sncli as is embraced in the Grout bill is absolutely essential 
to prevent the almost absolute destruction of an industry bringing to the agricul- 
turists of this country fully $500,000,000 per year. 

We would call attention to the fact that ligures do not show that the 
butter business is going backward, but, on tlie contrary, actual tigures 
show that it is steadily growing. From 1870 to 1890 the output of but- 
ter in the United States increased 134 pei- cent. From 1800 to 1900, 
the production of butterine in the United States increased 172 per cent. 
The total sales of butterine the last revenue year are only 2i per cent 
of the total make of butter. In 1890 the total butterine sales were 2.6 
per cent of the total amount of butter produced, or a decrease of one- 
tenth of one per cent in ten years. Yet without these iigures you 
would be led to believe that butterine was an octopus, the arms of 
which were stubbornly fastened into the very vitals of the dairy indus- 
try, crushing out its life and energy. The average prices of butter for 
the year ending January 1, 1900, was the highest since 1891. Does this 
look as if the industry needs protection to prevent its almost absolute 
destruction? This crusade is purely a matter of sentiment rather 
than justice. 

Now, it may be asked where I got my figures for the last year. I will 
say that I got them from Mr. Wilson, who is editor of the Elgin Dairy 



OLEOMARGAEIlSrE. 785 

Keport, and is supposed to be one of the leading men in the dairy inter- 
est; so 1 would judge that what he gave us was about correct. 

Before closing, I would like to quote here from the New York Produce 
Keviewaud American Oreamery,but I will simply give you tlie substance 
of their article. In speaking of the output of butter for the last year 
and the prospect for the couiing year, they say that the increase would 
be from 10 to 20 per cent, and that the industry is flourishing and pros- 
perous. Yet they come before Congress and would make you believe 
that the industry needs protection. 

Eepreseutative Allen. Give that quotation to the reporter, in con- 
nection with your remarks. 

Mr. Miller. Very well; I will do so. I thank you, gentlemen. 

Eepreseutative Baker. How large a percentage of your production 
of oleomargarine or butteriue is uncolored? 

Mr. Miller. Uncolored? We make practically no uncolored but- 
teriue at all. There is no demand for it. 

Eepreseutative Baker. It is sold to some extisnt? 

Mr. Miller. Very little. I do uot suppose we make 2,000 pounds of 
uncolored butteriue a week. When the prohibitive laws went into effect 
in Missouri and Iowa and a nutnber of other States we tried to do some 
uucolored butteriue business, but we could not sell the product at all. 

Eepreseutative Baker. I hold in my hand several bills — not from 
your firm, but from a Chicago firm — for uncolored butteriue sold to the 
retailers. 

Mr. Miller. We are doing practically nothing in uncolored butteriue. 

Eepreseutative Baker. Another question, if you please. You speak 
of cotton-seed oil as being how large a percentage of butteriue? How 
much do you use iu your establishment! 

Mr. Miller. It varies at different seasons of the year. In the 
winter time we use a larger per cent than we do in the summer time. 

Eepreseutative Baker. I suppose so ; but can you uot tell us, roughly ? 

Mr. Miller. It will range, I suppose, from 18 to 25 per cent. 

Eepreseutative Baker. Oh, that is not in accord with the informa- 
tion we have. 

Mr. Miller. I am only speaking about our own factory. I know 
nothing about what the others do. I know what we use. 

Eepreseutative Baker. How large an amount of milk and cream do 
you use? 

Mr. Miller. That will vary. The volume of milk, cream, and salt 
will be somewhere about 20 per cent. 

Eepreseutative Baker. The reports made from the Internal-Eevenue 
Bureau the other day established the fact that the percentage of milk 
and cream as reported, not from your establishmeut, but altogether, 
was very much larger than of cotton-seed oil. In fact, if I am not 
mistaken, the cotton seed oil was only about 5 per ceut, and the milk 
and cream some 16 or 17 of the entire composition. 

Eepreseutative Williams. No; you made a mistake there. You 
were misled by the form of the report, to some exteut. I understand 
that what they call butter oil 

Eepreseutative Baker. That makes about 10 or 11 per cent. 

Eepreseutative Williams. That makes about 8 per cent and a frac- 
tion — 42 of cottonseed oil, and 4 of what they call butter oil. 

Eepreseutative Baker. In other words, it makes about one-half of 
the amount of milk and cream used — that is to say, it is a very small 
percentage of the aggregate. 

Eepreseutative Williams. I was astonished, like you, to notice that 

S. Rep. 2043 50 



786 OLEOMARGARINE. 

the proportion of cotton-seed oil was less than I had been told, and 
that the per cent of milk and butter was greater than I had been told. 

Kepresentative Baker. Yes; I was, too. 

Kepiesentative Neville. Will you permit me, Mr. Miller? You 
staled a moment ago that you could not sell butterine in its uncolored 
state, did you not? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. 

Representative Neville. That you had tried it, and that it was a 
failure? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. 

Representative Neville. But that you did sell it in its colored state 
without any fraudulent sales of it — that as a matter of fact, it was 
sold (you mean by that that it was sold by you as a wholesaler, or as a 
manufacturer) as butterine? 

Mr. Miller. As butterine. 

Representative Neville. Not as butter? 

Mr. Miller. No, sir. 

Representative Neville. And that the dealers to whom you sold it, 
also sold it upon its merits? Is that what you mean to say? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. 

Representative Neville. Now, you sell it in Nebraska, do you not? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir; we sell some there. 

Representative Neville. Do you not send a good deal of it from 
Kansas City into Nebraska? 

Mr. Miller. Well, it could not be called a great deal, because it is 
not a very large market. We sell considerable; yes. 

Representative Neville. Now, is it not true that every pound of 
colored oleomargarine that is sold in Nebraska is sold in violation of 
law? 

Mr. Miller. Well, that may be; yes. 

Representative Neville. Then, as a matter of fact, that which is 
sold in Nebraska is sold in violation of law? 

Mr. Miller. Not necessarily. The law was tested in Omaha, and 
the lower courts declared the Nebraska law unconstitutional. The 
dealers feel that they are handling the goods on a strictly legitimate 
basis now. 

Representative Williams. It is sold in violation of the statute, then, 
but of a statute which has been declared unconstitutioual? 

Mr. Miller. Declared unconstitutional. 

Representative Haugen. You stated a minute ago that this 10 per 
cent tax would destroy the cotton industry of the South. You meant 
the cotton seed industry, did you not? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. 

Representative Haugen. What is the number of pounds or gallons 
of cotton-seed oil used in the oleomargarine output? 

Mr. Miller. How much do we use, do you mean? 

Representative Haugen. What is the amount used in the aggregate, 
by all the factories ? 

Mr. Miller. I think it is in the neighborhood of 10,000,000 pounds. 

Representative Haugen. Per annum? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. 

Rei^resentative Haugen. What is the amount used each month? 

Mr. Miller. Of butterine? 

Representative Haugen. Of cottonseed oil? 

Mr. Miller. I could not give you those figures. 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 787 

Representative Haugen. You had some estimate in your mind when 
you made that assertion, did you nof? Toll certainly would not make 
a statement of that kind unless you had. 

Mr. Miller. You mean the amount of cotton seed oil mauufacturedt 

Eepresentative Haugen. Yes. 

Mr. Miller. 1 am not prepared to give you that statement, because 
I am not in that business. 

Eepresentative Haugen. On what ground do you base your state- 
ment that the passage of the Grout bill would destroy the cottonseed 
industry in the South, unless you know something as to the proportion 
used in your industry? 

Mr. Miller. For the reason that if they could not use these 
10,000,000 gallons of the refined oil in the manufacture of butterine, 
they would have to sell it in its crude state; and it would place a ban 
upon what little export business they had, and kill that. Therefore, it 
would practically ruin the industry. 

Eepresentative Haugen. It would be necessary to know what per- 
centage the 10,000,000 gallons is of the whole production, would it not? 

Mr. Miller. T make the statement that it would destroy the indus- 
try for the cotton seed oil people. 

Eepresentative Haugen. It would cut oif the sale of the 10,000,000 
pounds annually, would it not? 

Mr. Miller. Well,it would cut off the sale of more than that, because 
they export considerable. If the sale of the product was killed in this 
country, the exporters would not buy it. 

, Eepresentative Haugen. The 10 per cent tax would not aflect the 
export of cotton oil? 

Mr. Miller. It would kill the butterine industry. They would not 
have any use for the butter oil here; and if they went to export it, the 
people on the other side would say, "That product is under a ban in the 
United States; why should we buy it? " 

Eepresentative Haugen. You state, then, that you have no knowl- 
edge of the number of gallons or the number of pounds of cotton-seed 
oil produced in this country? 

Mr. Miller. ISTo, sir. 

Eepresentative Haugen. And yet you make the statement that this 
bill would destroy the cotton-seed industry of the south? 

Mr. Miller. I make the statement as I get it from the cotton- seed 
oil people. 

Eepresentative Neville. I wanted to ask one further question when 
I was interrupted a while ago. You state that you are now selling but- 
terine in Nebraska because the lower courts have held that the law 
was unconstitutional? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. 

Eepresentative Neville. You know that that matter has been car- 
ried to the Supreme Court, do you not? 

Mr. Miller. No, sir. 

Eepresentative Neville. And you also know that the case was only 
decided a few months ago, do you not? 

Mr. Miller. No, sir. 

Eepresentative Neville. When was it decided? 

Mr. Miller. The cases that were decided in the lower courts were 
only decided a few months ago, and have never been carried up. If 
they have, they have been carried up without my knowledge; and 
they were our cases, and we handled them. 



788 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Eepresentative Neville. 1 nuderstand that they have been carried 
up, iiotwithsfcaiuling- you have no knowledge of it, but that the deci- 
sion was only rendered a few months ago. 

Mr. Miller, Yes, sir. 

Representative Neville. Now, then, is it not true that you sold 
butter all last year and the year before in violation of the law! 

Mr. Miller. No, sir; we did not. We sell our goods in Kansas. 
There is no law in Kansas. 

Eepresentative Neville. But at the same time, you sell in Nebraska 
also, do you not? 

Mr. Miller. We sell in Kansas. Our goods are sold in Kansas 
City, and not in Nebraska. 

Representative Neville. But you sold them to your Nebraska cus- 
tomers? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir; we did. 

Representative Neville. And you knew that if they sold your prod- 
uct there, colored, they either had to sell it as butter or colored oleo- 
margarine, in violation of law, did you not? 

Mr. Miller. As .soon as the law went into effect the cases were 
brought up to see whether the law was nnconstitntional or not; and in 
the meantime the retailers went ahead and sold. 

Representative Williams. Being advised by their counsel that the 
law was unconstitutional? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. 

Representative White. Has the law been finally adjudicated in the 
last court of the State of Nebraska! 

Mr. Miller. No, sir; not in the last court. 

Representative Stokes. Do we understand you to say that the pas- 
sage of this law would destroy the cotton industry of the South? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir; the cotton-seed oil industry. 

Represeutative Stokes. That is the point I wanted to bring out. 

Mr. Miller. Yes; the oil part of it. 

Represeutative Stokes. Have there not been published statements — 
I do not know that you are aware of what was said before the com- 
mittee here, but I think the statements were made by the cotton-seed 
oil men here that tbat would be the effect on their business. 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. 

Representative Cooney. Now, Mr. Miller, I would like to ask a ques- 
tion for my own special information, which I have not heard explained 
here, while I have been here, anyway. This cattle industry cuts a 
bigger figure in this matter with many of us than has been given atten- 
tion. In my countiy, the cattlemen, the cattle raisers and hog raisers, 
are under the impression tbat they now receive from $2 to $3 per head 
more for their cattle, and from 20 to 30 i)er cent more for their hogs, 
than they will if this bill is passed ; and 1 believe they get the informa- 
tion from Kansas City. Now, I am very anxious to know if that is a 
fact, and I will be very glad if you can figure out and show to me how 
these parties living in my country get that additional amount of money 
out of their cattle and hogs. 

Mr. Miller. I will explain it in tliis Avay: We use only the choice 
fats of the beef in the manufacture of oleo oil. 

Representative Cooney. Will you give the figures and facts, so that 
I can be satisfied on that iioint? 

Mr. Miller. The rich caul fat which we get out of the beef will aver- 
age about 40 pounds to the steer, and in using it in the manufacture of 
butterine it has an enhanced value over ordinary tallow. Of course 



OLEOMARGAEIFE. 789 

that value varies at difT'erent times of the year— sometimes there is a 
difference of 3 cents, sometimes more, and sometimes not so much — 
but say to day oleo oil is worth cents and common tallow is worth 5 
cents, and if we could not use this caul fat in the manufacture of but- 
terine it would go into tallow and have no greater value than tallow. 
The same is true of the lard of the hog. We only use the leaf lard in 
the manufacture of butterine. Now, if we could not use it in butterine 
it would be sold as ordinary lard, and there a difference of about 2 
cents a pound in the two articles. 

Representative Cooney. Have you any figures on that subject, in 
regard to cattle, which you could leave here? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir; I can do that. 

Eepresentative Cooke v. Tou say the cattle raiser makes $2 or $3 a 
head which he would not make if this bill were i)assed? 

Mr. Miller. I might supplement my remarks by saying that if there 
were no demand for this neutral lard and oleo oil in the manufacture of 
butterine it would depreciate the value of his stock. 

llepresentative Cooney. How much? 

Mr. Miller. Well, it will vary at different times in the year. We 
figure about 20 cents per hog and about $2 per head of steer. 

Eepresentative Cooney. Now, who gets that $2 per head? 

Mr. Miller. Who gets it now? 

Eepresentative Cooney. Yes; who gets it now? 

Mr. Miller. The cattle raiser. 

Eepresentative Cooney. How do you make that out? 

Mr. Miller. Why doesn't he get it? 

Eepresentative Cooney. Well, he sells his cattle to those who buy 
cattle in the market, and it is when they are slaughtered that the fat is 
purchased by the oleomargarine men. Do they divide any of this profit 
among them? 

Mr. Miller. It is just this way. If this law went into effect 

Eepresentative Cooney. Does the farmer who raises the steer or sells 
the steer upon the market get all of this difference? 

Mr. Miller. He is getting it now; yes, sir; and if the law went into 
effect he would not get it thereafter. He would accept $2 a head less 
for each steer. 

Eepresentative Cooney. That is just what I would like to know, Mr. 
Miller. If you have any proof of that fact, that the farmer who raises 
the steer and sells it upon the market gets the two or three extra dol- 
lars himself, I would be very glad to have it. I can see how the value 
of the steer may be enhanced ; but does he get all this enhanced value? 

Mr. Miller. LlC does. 

Eepresentative Cooney. That is what I wanted to know. 

Eepresentative Williams. That would be a matter of bargaining 
and huckstering in the market, would it not? 

Mr. Miller. Yes, sir. 

Eepresentative Williams. Of course the farmer and the jobber — the 
men who bought the stock to sell again — would each be trying to get 
the most they could out of it? 

Mr. Miller. That is right. 

Eepresentative Williams. It would depend upon the individual sales 
as to who got it and who did not. 

Eepresentative Baker. Mr. Miller, does the firm that you represent — 
the Armour Packing Company — manufacture a substitute for lard com- 
monly known as "cottoleue?" 

Mr. Miller. No, sir. 



790' 



OLEOMARGARINE. 



Eepresentative Baker. Nothing of that character? 

Mr. Miller. No, sir; the Kansas City firm does not. 

Kepreseutiitive Haugen. And you claim tliat if the sale of this oil 
is cut off entirely it will make a difference of $2 for every steer killed 
in this country ? 

Mr. Miller. In the lard, it would make a difference of 20 cents per 
head in the hog, and $2 per head in the steer. 

liepresentative Haugen. I understand that there were about 4,600,- 
000 cattle killed last year, and that about 24,000,000 pounds of this lard 
was used, which would amount to about 2| pounds to every steer killed 
in this country, every head of cattle. Now, do you figure that this is 
worth $1 a ponnd? 

Mr. Miller. You understand that there is quite a good deal of this 
oil exported! 

Eepresentative Haugen. Oh, well, that has nothing to do with this, 
you understand. This bill will not cut off the export business. 

Mr. Miller It will injure the export business, too. 

Representative Haugen. It has nothing whatever to do with that. 

Representative Neville. Mr. Chairman, I understaiul tliat there 
are other gentlemen here who desire to be heard, and it is now tlie 
usual hour of going up to the session of the House. I move that we 
adjourn until tomorrow morning. 

[Mr. Miller also submitted the following as part of his remarks:] 

[Extract from editorial in the New Tort Produce Tleview and American Creamery, issue of 
Wednesday, April 18, 1900.] 

In the first place there is every prospect of a larger make of butter in this country. 
Some new creameries have been built, farmers are inclined to give the dairy more 
attention, and more cows will be milked this year. To what extent this will increase 
the output of butter it is difficult to detenuine, but if the weather conditions are 
reasonably favoraltle the production for the entire country may be 10 per cent 
greater than in 1^99. Keports that have already come to us from a given territorj^ 
show about this increase for the first half of April, and the season is certainly no 
earlier than last year. It is quite probable that the New England States, New York 
and I'ennsylvania may show a proportionately larger increase than the West, as all 
of these States suffered severely from an early drought last year. 

[Extract from editorial in the Chicago Dairy Produce, issue of Saturday, April 7, 1900.] 

CHICAGO BUTTER RECEIPTS. 

A glance at the table printed elsewhere in this issue, showing arrivals of butter 
in this market for eleven months, beginning May 1, 1899, compared to the correspond- 
ing eleven months of the preceding year, reveals for the past four months ([uite an 
increase. For last month this increase amounted to over 19,000 packages. 

[Extract from the New York Produce Review and American Creamery, issue of Wednesday, 

May 2, 1900.] 

GOOD year's business — REVIEW OP THE BUTTER MARKET FOR THE PAST TWELVE 
MONTHS — VOLUME OF TRADE WAS LIGHTER— HIGHER PRICES RULE TROUGUOUT, 
THE AVERAGE BEING ABOUT 2| CENTS MORE THAN THE PREVIOUS YEAR. 

On Monday last the trade year for butter closed, and while the varied experiences 
of the season are too fresh in the minds of most operators to need extended com- 
ment, some features were of such special interest as to merit a brief summary. 

Ever since the season of 1896, when summer prices were so low, we have been 
vrorking toward a higher level of values, and the past season has made records that 
have not been equaled since 1893. It has been a year of large speculation and large 
profits. The high cost of the summer product did not seem to lessen the interest in 
the storage deal, and nearly as much butter was put away in June and July as during 
the corresponding months of 1898. * * * 

The storage butter of the country was worked out at a handsome profit to holders, 
and the better rates ruling throughout for the fresh goods gave satisfactory returns 
to the dairymen. It is true that the higher prices ruling for butter have made a 



OLEOMAEGAKINE. 



7yi 



much largur sale for oleomargarine, but, on the other hand, the more profitable rel urns 
for the dairy i>roduct will greatly encourage the business and farmers, who have 
devoted so much attention to grain and stock raising, will now give attention to the 
dairy herds, believing that the restoring of remunerative prices is not for a single 
season only but for sonu; years to come. 

The fluctuations in prices have been most marked, showing a variation from the 
lowi'st to the highest i)oint of 12 cents a pound, and the averaue for the year was 2^ 
cents higher than for the previous year. The shortage of supplies during the winter, 
after the storage goods were x'ractically exhausted, forced the market so high as to 
curtail consumption largely, but when the market was 25 cents or less the movement 
was generally free and healthy. 

[Extracts from pages 659, 660, and 661 of No. 7, Vol. XI, of United States Experiment Station Record, 

edited by E. "W. Allen, Vh. D.] 

The relative cHgeaiihUiiy of several sorts of fat bi/ man. I, Margarinatid naturalhutter, 
E. Luhri;/ (Zischr. ('utersiich. Nahr. u. Gciinssmtl., 2 {1S99), No. 6, pp. 4S4-50G).— The 
author reviews the literature of the subject and reports results of 4 experiments on 
the digestibility of margarin and butter made with a healthy man, 29 years old, 
weighing 74 kg. Holstein butler and 3 sorts of margarin were used, called accordingto 
their quality, No. 1, 2, and 3. The tests were quite similar, the fat in each case form- 
ing part of a mixed diet of meat, bread, vegetables, etc. The composition of the 
margarin and butter was determined and the fat content of all the articles of diet. 

The average results of the tests follow : 

Average digestibility of margarin and iutter. 





Fat. 




In daily 
food. 


In daily 
feces. 


Digested. 




Grams. 

138. 35 
118.64 
112. 89 
111.79 


Chrams. 
4.62 
3.91 
3.46 
4.82 


Per cent. 
96.68 




96.70 




96.93 




95.69 







If corrections are made for the fat in the food supplied by other materials than 
margarin or butter, the average coefificients of digestibility in the 4 tests are 97.35, 
97.39, 97.90, and 96.53 per cent, respectively. The author stiulied the undigested 
fat in the 4 experiments and determined the amount of true fat in the undigested 
ether extract. Taking account of these values, the corrected digestibility of the 
margarin and butter fat in the tests reported above is 98 31, 98.25. 98.46, and 97,77 per 
cent, respectively. In the author's opinion the true undigested fat was not butter or 
margarin fat, and accordingly he believes that it is safe to conclude that butter and 
margarin are completely digested. (The fat recovered in the feces is believed to be 
derived from the digestive juices and metabolic products i^roduccd in the body 
during the experiment.) If it is insisted upon that the two kinds of fat are not 
compietidy digested, it must still be granted that as regards digestibility they are 
practically alike, since the difference is very small. * * * 

From a study of the chemical characteristics of the undigested fat the author intro- 
duces certain corrections in the above values and conclu<les that 97.86 per cent of the 
butter was acttially digested and 97.55 per cent of the margarin. From a physio- 
logical standpoint the 2 fats are thought to be completely digestible and of equal 
value. 

[Extract from pp. 375, 376, Experiment Station Eecord, Vol. XI, No. 4, Department of Agricnltnre.] 

The nil tritire value of margarin compared tviih butter, E. Bertarelli {liir. Iq. e. San. 
Pubb., 9 {1898), Xos. 14, pp. 538-545; 15, pp. 570-579).— Three experiments with healthy 
men arc reported, in which the value of margarin and laitter was tested when con- 
sumed as part of a simple mixed diet. In one experiment the value of a mixture of 
olive oil and colza oil, which is commonly used in Italy, in the neighborhood of 
Turin, was also tested. The author himself was the subject of one of the tests. 
He was 24 years (dd. The 8ul>,jects of the other tests were two laboratory servants; 
one 27 years old, the other 32 years old. » * *^ 

The principal conclusions follow: When properly prepared, margarin diifers 
but little from natural butter in chemical and physical properties. On an average, 
93. 5 to 96 per cent of fat waa assimilated when margarin was consumed, and 94 to 



792 



OLEOMARGARINE. 



96 per cent when butter formed part of tLe diet. The moderate nse of margarin 
did not cause any disturbance of the digestive tract. (Experiment Station Record, 
Vol. XI, No. 4, Department of Agriculture, pp. 375, 376.) 

(The committee thereupon, at 12 o'clock m, adjourued to meet Thurs- 
day, May 17, 1900, at 11 o'clock a. m.) 



Committee on Agriculture, 
House of Eepresentatives, 
Washington, I). C, Thursday, May 17, 1900. 
The committee met at 11 o'clock a. m., Hou. Hermau B. Dahle in the 
chair. 

Present: Representatives Wadsworth, Henry, Bailey, Wright, Hau- 
gen, Dahle, Williams, Stokes, Lamb, Cooney, Allen, and Neville. 

Present, also, Professor H. W. Wiley, chief chemist, United States 
Department of Agriculture; W.E Miller, esq., representing the Armour 
Packing Company, Kansas City, Kans. ; C. N. Lavery, esq., represent- 
ing Swift & Co., Kansas City, Kans.; Charles Y. Knight, esq., repre- 
senting the National Dairy Association, and others. 

STATEMENT OF C. N. LAVERY, ESQ., REPEESENTING SWIFT & CO., 
KANSAS CITY, KANS. 

Eepresentative Bailey. Mr. Lavery, will you please state to the 
committee what your business is? 

Mr. Lavery. 1 am manager of the butterine or oleomargarine depart- 
ment of Swift & Co., Kansas City, Kans. 

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee: We, as representa- 
tives of three of the largest manufacturers of oleomargarine in the 
United States, beg to enter our protests against the passage of House 
of Eepresentatives bill 3717, known as the "Grout bill." 

The Grout bill, if enacted by the voice of Congress, means the wip- 
ing out of one of the chief industries of our country (that of the manu- 
facture of oleomargarine), a business which has been recognized by the 
laws of the United States as legitimate and a common necessity. It 
means the taking away from the millions of laboring men of the only 
opportunity they have of procuring a clean, i)ure, wholesome article of 
food at a reasonable cost — not as a luxury, but as a daily diet. It 
means the crushing of one industry and making a monopoly of another. 

We, as manufacturers, wish to refute in the most em])hatic terms the 
claim that oleomargarine is placed on the market and sold for butter. 
The internal-revenue laws provide that a manufacturer or wholesale 
dealer shall place on each package of oleomargarine sold a tax-paid 
stamp to the amount of 2 cents for each pound contained. He must 
also stencil on it, in a conspicuous place, the word " oleomargarine," in 
letters not less than 1 inch square. He is compelled to keep a correct 
record of each package of oleomargarine sold, together with the buyer's 
full name and address, which information is furnished the honorable 
Commissioner of Internal Eevenue, through his various collectors, at 
the end of each month. 

The retail dealer is compelled to keep his stamp (which is a permit 
from the Government to sell oleomai^garine, and for which he pays $4 
per month) conspicuously displayed. He is required to sell from the 
original package in lots not to exceed 10 pounds, and to stamp on the 



OLEOMARGARINE. 793 

outside of each package sold the word " oleomargarine" in letters not 
less than one fourth inch square, together with his name and address. 

Thus it can readily be seen that there is absolutely no excuse for a 
consumer being sold oleomargarine for butter. We, as manufacturers, 
encourage the handling of oleomargarine strictly in compliance with the 
revenue regulations, furnishing to the trade, free of charge, all necessary 
stamps for marking packages, signs, notices, etc. 

We desire that oleomargarine be placed before the consumer strictly 
on its merits. 

Kepresentative Williams. One word right there, if you please. 
Have you read this Grout bill? 

Mr. Laverv. Yes, sir. 

Eepresentative Williams. Do you find any provision in it which 
would lead to the detection of lawbreakers or law violators any more 
than the provisions of the existing law! 

Mr. Lavery. No, sir; I do not. 

Kepresentative Williams. One other question. This billincreases 
the tax upon oleomargarine, when colored, to 10 cents"? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Representative Williams. Now, would or would not lawbreakers 
who liave been violating the law with the pieseiit tax have additional 
temptation to violate the law under the new tax'? 

Mr. Laverv. I should say that they would. 

Eepresentative Williams. Let me ask you one other question. 
What would be the eft'ect of the Grout bill upon honest men, who have 
complied with the present law? W^ould it not mean simply an increased 
expense to them? 

Mr. Lavery. It would mean an increased expense. 

Representative Williams. Unless it drove them out of business, 
of course. 

Mr. Lavery. And their business would be decreased to such an 
extent that they would probably go out of the business entirely ? 

Representative Williams. Now, the point I want to get at is this: 
You have read these laws, I ijresume. I understand you to say that 
your idea, as a business man, is that the effect of the passage of the 
Grout bill would be to punish the honest dealers and furnish further 
temptation to the dishonest dealers to violate the law? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

There is no need to go into the details of the manufacture of oleomar- 
garine, as it has become such a well-known article of commerce that 
everyone knows its general i>rocess. 

That the people want oleomargarine is clearly demonstrated by the 
fact that the sales in the United States increased from 21,513,573 
I)Ounds in 1888 to 83,145,081 pounds in 1899. This increase is not due 
to the public being deceived and sold oleomargarine for butter, but to 
the fact that the consumers have learned the value of oleomargarine 
and ask their dealers for it. 

We claim the same right to color oleomargarine yellow that a cream- 
ery claims to color butter, and most respectfully ask this committee 
not to vote to prohibit the use of a harmless coloring in one in favor of 
the other. We claim that oleomargarine is not an imitation of butter, 
but that it is recognized "in the exact form it has always been sold" 
by the United States Government as a separate and distinct article of 
commerce, and that through public use it is acknowledged to be at the 
present time a staple article of food. 

It is a well-known fact that the manufacturer of oleomargarine first 



794 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

conceived tlie idea of giving to bis product a uniform color, and thereby 
rendering it more pleasing to the eye by the use of a harmless coloring. 
The creameries throughout the country, taking advantage of the idea 
suggested, adojited the same color as their standard. They found it 
improved the appearance of butter as well as of oleomargarine. E'ow 
these same creameries come before Congress and ask to have a law 
enacted to force the manufacturer of oleomargarine to abolish the use 
of coloring, claiming that they have the exclusive right to its use. 
A prominent dairy authority writes : 

The nianufacture of oleomargarine is as legitimate as that of butter. It sup- 
presses the lower grades of butter, and makes the finer butter more sought after. 
There is nothing for the dairyman to fear in it; his sal'ety can be insured by improv- 
ing the quality of liis buttrr. The trade in oleomargarine might safely be left to 
itself. It is a blessiug to the community to supply it, at a low price, a clean, sweet 
substitute for costly butter. 

It will be seen that there are yet some people in the butter business 
who are willing to admit that the manufacture and sale of oleomarga- 
rine is legitimate, and a separate and distinct business, and not main- 
tained for the purpose of antagonizing the dairy interests of the 
country. 

We make oleomargarine because the people demand it. We color it 
yellow because it has always been sold that way. 

Gentlemen, do you believe it would be right to say to the consumers 
of this country, "In future you will have to take your oleomargarine 
white, or buy bntter?" Do you think, injustice to the oleomargarine 
manufacturers, that Congress sliould destroy their business (which has 
taken years of labor and thousands of dollars to establish) by forcing 
them to place their product on the market in an unsightly and unsal- 
able form f 

People who want butter should, by all means, have it. People who 
buy oleomargarine because they know it is good, should not be com- 
pelled to accept it in a distasteful form or go without. 

Butter and oleomargarine both occupy conspicuous places when con- 
sidering the demands of the consumers of this country, and neither 
should be discriminated against for the sake of the otiier, but they 
should be placed on an equal basis and sold on their merits. 

The creamery interests have no more right to say we shall not color 
oleomargarine than we have to say they shall not color butter. 

It has been said that if Congress forbids the coloring of oleomarga- 
rine it should also lorbid the coloring of butter. This is wrong. Con- 
giess should not forbid the coloring of either, but should encourage 
the coloring of these products, in order to enhance the value and 
sightliness of both. 

Again, it has been claimed that our packages are in imitation of 
those used for butter. Our packages consist of more than 20 dif- 
ferent styles against two standard butter packages, viz, solid packed 
tubs and 1-pound square prints or bricks. The latter style of pack- 
age originated with the oleomargarine manufacturers, and has been 
adopted by the creameries. 

Sixty per cent of our production goes on the market in packages 
known as rolls and prints, which are wrapped in printed parchment 
paper, as per samples, which we herewith respectfully submit to your 
honorable body for inspection. 

(Mr. Lavery at this point exhibited to the committee samples of 
wrappers for packages of oleomargarine.) 

Mr. Lavery. You will notice, gentlemen, that the word "oleomar- 
garine" is plainly printed on each of those wrappers iu letters the size 



OLEOMARGARINE. 795 

of the largest letters in the brand, which is strictly in compliance with 
the internal revenue regulations. 

Kepresentative Henry. Allow me to ask where in the country those 
packages are retailed? 

Mr. Lavery. We sell them in the entire West. My house does busi- 
ness in tbe western territory, and these are our standard brands. Those 
wrappers have been approved by the honorable Commissioner of Internal 
Eevenue. 

Kepresentative Allen. Do I understand you to say that each pack- 
age has a wrapper of that kind around it? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. Now, I do not make the statement that all 
of our rolls and prints are put up in that wrapper; but the majority of 
them are. 

Kei)resentative Allen. Why not all? 

Mr. Lavery. We can not print a cloth wrapper, for the reason that 
we have not been able to secure an ink which will not run, after the 
cloth becomes moist from the damp and moisture in tlie oleomargarine. 
It runs through and discolors the goods underneath. But ink will 
stand on a parchment paper; and therefore we use that wrapper as 
much as possible. 

Kepresentative Williams. How are these packages which are put 
up in cloth branded? 

Mr. Lavery. They are not branded at all. The cases containing 
them are branded in accordance with the regulations. 

Kejiresentative Williams. Those you put in cloth, then, are con- 
tained in wooden cases, and the cases are branded, are they? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir; they are packed in wooden cases or tubs, and 
the outside of the package or tub is properly marked. 

Kepresentative Williams. The law requires, does it not, that they 
shall be ])ut in packages either of wood or of paper, and that the pack- 
ages are to be branded? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir; the law requires that what is known as an 
original package (which is a package containing ten pounds or more) 
must be branded with the word "Oleomargarine," in letters not less 
than one inch square, and shall bear the manufacturer's name. 

Representative Allen. I do not suppose there is any question about 
the law. That law speaks for itself, and I do not suppose there will 
be any dispute about it; so it will not be necessary to consume time on 
that point. 

Kepresentative Henry. Mr. Chairman, if I may be permitted, I 
would like to ask a question just for information. We had, some little 
time ago, an exhibit made of quite a large number of pound packages, 
bought of dealers in Chicago, a pound of oleomargarine in each. They 
were wrapped in ordinary brown ])aper, a sheet four times as large as 
that [indicating] — heavy brown paper. The four corners were turned 
down like that [indicating]. Under one corner there was printed the 
word " Oleomargarine." 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Kepresentative Henry. The packages, in each case, were handed out 
by the retailer in response to an inquiry for butter. In order to deter- 
mine that the law had been complied witli, the purchaser would have 
had to turn down and examine critically each one of the four corners. 
I wish to ask if yen have any knowledge of that practice; and if so, how 
far it obtains in your part of the country? 

Mr. Lavery. I have heard of a few isolated cases of that kind. In 
the majority of cases the customer would ask for oleomargarine, but 



79() ' OLEOMARGARINE. 

would require it not to be stamped; but the dealer, in order to comply 
with the regulation, would stamp it and turn down the corners in the 
manner you have mentioned. 

lleprevsentative Williams. Let me ask you a question. Doing that 
was a violation of the law, was it not? 

Mr. Lavery. Well, strictly speakiug, I should say it was; yes. 

Eepresentative Williams. Is there anything in the Grout bill that 
would prevent that violation of law? 

Mr. L AVERY. No, sir. 

Eepresentative Allen. What is your purpose or reason for not 
wrapping all these packages with this bianded paper? Why do you 
wra{) some with that and some without? Please explain that to the 
committee. 

Mr. Lavery. Wehave some trade which does not care for the printed 
wrappers, for reasons of its own; of course we are in business to give 
the people what they want, as long as we can do so consistently; and 
we do not refuse to till their orders for plain-paper prints. 

Eei>resentative Allen. You sell to the jobbers, do you? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir; we sell to the jobbers and retail dealers. 

Eepresentative Allen. And you sell to retail dealers also? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Eepresentative Allen. About what jn-oportion of your output is put 
up m the wrappers of this kind, and what in the other packages? 

Mr. Lavery. I would say that about 60 per cent of our product goes 
on the market in rolls and prints, and of that 60 per cent I would say 
50 per cent goes out in this style of package, wrapped in branded 
paper. 

itepresentative Allen. And the other 10 per cent, say, goes out in 
the other shape? 

Mr. Lavery. In cloth wrappers, or occasionally a plain paper 
wrapper. 

Eei)resentative Allen. I^ow, you supply those wrappers yourselves, 
do you ? 

Mr. Lavery. Oh, yes; yes, sir. 

Eepresentative Allen. Do you use any ordinary brown wrapping 
paper for that purpose? 

Mr. Lavery. No, sir; we do not. 

Eepresentative Allen. You do not use any of that? 

Mr. Lavery. We do not. 

Eepresentative Allen. Do you stamp each one of those papers that 
you use? 

Mr. Lavery. Only in this manner. [Exl-ibiting wrappers.] 

Eepresentative Bailey. As to these original packages, where you 
put them out without putting this brand on them, the law provides that 
the retail dealer, when he sells the separate packages, shall rewrap 
them, and stamp "Oleomargarine" on them; does it not? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir: for wltich pnr])ose we furnish to all retail 
trade, free of charge, a rubber stamp, made strictly in accordance with 
the internal-revenue regulations. 

Eepresentative Bailey. That is all. 

JMr. Lavery. Permit us to ask, gentlemen, would it be possible to 
sell to a consumer who can read the English language, one of these 
packages for butter? 

There have recently appeared, in certain newspapers, editorials and 
interviews regarding the purity of oleomargarine. Some j)eople through 
ignorance, or with a desire to deceive, have made the statement that 
all kinds of fats, with no regard to their condition, are used in its man- 



OLEOMAEGARINE 



797 



ufacture. They have even gone so far as to say that fats from animals 
■which have died of disease and scraps from retail uieat markets and 
hotels — in fact, anything of a fatty nature that can be procured at a 
low cost — enter into the manufacture of this product. 

I want to say to this committee that all sucli stories emanate from 
people who know absolutely nothing of the subject they are discuss- 
ing, or are malicious falsehoods given out for the purpose of creating 
prejudice against oleomargarine. The ingredients of oleomargarine 
are of so delicate a nature that the greatest care is absolutely necessary 
in their preparation. We could not use an inferior oil if we wanted to, 
because the product made from it would not be salable. (Oleomar- 
garine, to be acceptable to the consumer, must be pure, sweet, and 
wholesome; and in order to have it so we must use the choicest of 
ingredients in its manufacture. Both oleo oil and neutral lard, as well 
as oleomargarine itself, are by nature very susceptible to foreign flavors 
of any kind. So much so, in fact, that were a whole carload of either 
shipped in a refrigerator car containing a single box of oranges, the 
flavor from the oranges would penetrate the other contents of the car 
to such an extent that they would be rendered useless for the purposes 
for which they were intended. It can, therefore, readily be seen that 
the uews])aper stories above referred to are so utterly ridiculous and 
impossible that they deserve no consideration whatever. 

To verify my statements in this regard, I take pleasure in referring 
to Prof. Henry Morton's statement before the Senate Committee on 
Agriculture and Forestry in the year 1880. In the course of that state- 
ment, in reply to Senator Jones, who asked about tlie "vile compounds" 
which are used in making oleomargarine. Professor Morton said: 

To auyoue who knows about it these stories are simply al)snrd. It ia utterly 
impossible to do any such thin^. As I have Siiid, if the aiiini:)! has been dead a 
short time the fat ran not be used. For instance, you can not use fat from the meat 
which is hung up and exposed for sale in the market for the purpose of making oleo- 
margarine. Although such meat is not hurt for ordinary use and can be cooked and 
eaten, the fat of it would be utterly ruined for the purpose of making oleomarga- 
rine. 

Professor Chandler, testifying before the same committee, said, at the 
commencement of his remarks: 

I would not, of course, wish to take up the time of the committee by repeating 
anything that Dr. Morton has said, but I will say at the outset that I agree with 
Dr. Morton in every statement that he has made. 

Professor Chandler also said : 

Some of you remember, I presume, that before the discovery of the passage around 
the Cape of Good Hope to India the only dyestuff cultivated to any extent in ling- 
land was woad, an inferior dye which our ancestors employed for dyeing their 
products. When the trade with Bengal sprang up indigo was brought to England, 
and immediately there was a great hue and cry made against indigo. It was said 
that it was going to ruin the woad farmer of England, and they called it devil's 
dirt — Teufelsdrockh was the name in German — and it was made a capital crime in 
England, France, and Germany fnr anybody to be caught with indigo on his prem- 
ises. It was not stiggested that it should be colored blue, because that was its natu- 
ral color, and it was not necessary. Soon after logwood was discovered in Honduras, 
and when it was attempted to introduce it into England as a dye laws were passed 
against it; and we have had that kind of legislation always. 

It is not many years since a petition was presented to Parliament, in England, 
protesting against the use of hops in beer, on the ground that it would destroy the 
digestion of the English people. There was a similar attempt at legislation in 
regard to tlie burning of soft coal. They had used only wood and charcoal in 
England, and when it was proposed to take coal out of the ground and bring it to 
London they said it would ruin the industry of the people who cut wood in tlie 
forests to make charcoal; that it was unhealthy, and would make a smoke that 
would get into the lungs of the knights who came from the country to Parliament 
to sit and legislate for the people. 



798 OLEOMARGARINE. 

The demand for oleomargarine is due to education. The public has 
become acquainted with oleomargarine through a disposition on the 
part of the manulacturers to teach it. Our factory is always open to 
the ins])e('tion of the public. We are always at home to visitors. 
Nothing gives us more pleasure thnn to see a party of visitors approacli- 
ing our oleomargarine factory. \Vc h;vve no secrets. Every branch of 
our business, from churning to shipping, continues in the presence of 
visitors. 

It is our pleasure to show the public every ingredient of oleomarga- 
rine going through its course of preparation. Our churns, and every 
utensil used in connection with oleomargarine, are as sweet and clean 
as hot water and steam will make them. Our floors are cleaner than 
the average dining table. 

We claim that it is absolutely impossible for germ life to exist in our 
oleomargarine factory, and we want the public to come and see for 
themselves. These are the reasons the oleomargarine business is 
growing, and not that this i^roduct is palmed off on innocent purchasers 
for butter. 

In the face of an increasing production of butter in the United States, 
and advancing prices for this product — the Elgin market ruling higher 
the past year than at any time since 1891 — we ask, gentlemen, do you 
think this article of food is really suffering for the want of such protec- 
tion as the creamery interests are asking Congress to give it? 

The passing of the Grout bill would be one of the most unjust pieces 
of class legislation ever enacted. It would mean that thousands of 
families would actually be deprived of one of the necessities of life, as 
they could not pay the prices asked for butter, and would not buy 
oleomargarine in the form this measure asks us to make it. 

Gentlemen, we ask you, in justice to the business to which the Grout 
bill means a death blow, and in justice to the thousands of consumers 
throughout the country, not to recommend the passage of the Grout 
bill by Congress, thus placing your stamp of approval upon a measure 
which, if enacted, will destroy a legitimate business, make a monopoly 
of another, and work one of the greatest of hardships on the laboring 
men and consumers of this country forever afterwards. 

Permit us, gentlemen, to thank you for the privilege of being heard 
before your most honorable body. 

liepresentative Allen, I would like to ask you, sir, about what 
amount of capital your company has invested in this industry? I refer 
to this industry alone, the manufacture of oleomargarine. 

Mr. Lavery. Swift & Co. have two oleomargarine factories, one at 
Chicago, and one at Kansas City. At Kansas City we have, I should 
sav, taking the cost of the plant and of wholesale licenses, etc., an invest- 
ment of $500,000. 

Representative Allen. In the two plants? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Representative Allen. How many employees have you who are 
engaged exclusively in this industry? 

Mr. Lavery. At the factories alone we employ about 250 people, all 
told. 

Representative Allen. In both factories ? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. Aside from that we have salaried represent- 
atives all over the country. 

Representative Allen. Does your knowledge serve you as to whether 
these employees are mostly men of family — whether married men pre- 
dominate among them or not? 



OLEOMARGAHrN-E. 799 

Mr. La VERY. As a rule, yes, sir. The majority of the men employed 
by our factory at Kansas City are married men. 

Representative Allen. Can you tell this committee about the aver- 
age pay which you give them per day? 

Mr. L AVERY. The average for ordinary labor, I should say, is about 
$18 to $20 a week. Skilled laborers and foremen of departments will 
earn $25 and $30 per week. 

Representative Allen. Will the abolition of this industry throw those 
men out of employment? 

Mr. Layery. It certainly will. 

Representative Allen. Have you any knowledge, personally, as to 
whether or not the production of oleomargarine increases the price of 
beef cattle? 

Mr. Layery. Yes, sir. 

Representative Allen. Will you tell the committee about that? 

Mr. Layery. Each beef contains about 50 pounds of fat, known as 
caul fat, from which oleo oil is made. Should we not utilize this fat 
in the production of oleo oil, it would go on the market as a cheaper 
fat, on the basis of tallow, and at a difl'erence in i^rice to day of about 
4 cents a pound. 

Representative Allen. That is the difference between tallow and 
oleo oil? 

Mr. Layery. Yes, sir. In the tallow and oleo oil markets to day 
there is a difference of about 4 cents a pound. That would mean a 
difference in the price of the 50 pounds of caul fat taken from each beef 
equal to $2 a head. 

Now, you might go further, and say that were the oleo-oil production 
of this country discontiued, and that fat thrown into tallow, it would 
result in an increased production of tallow, and would naturally force 
the tallow market down far below what it is to-day. Of course you 
can not tell where it would go, but it would do away with the use of oleo 
oil, and that fat would have to be sold as a cheaper fat. 

Representative Allen. Where do you get your fat? From the beef 
you kill yourselves? 

Mr. Layery. Yes, sir; entirely. 

Representative Allen. From what part of the country is your 
product generally derived? In what part of the country do you get 
your tallow principally. 

Mr. Layery. From the entire West — Kansas, IS^ebraska, Colorado, 
New Mexico, Arizona, Texas — in fact, you might say, from every State 
west of the Mississippi River. 

Representative Allen. Do you know the average number of cattle 
you slaughter per year ? 

Mr. Layery. There were slaughtered at Kansas City last year 
1,912,019 head of cattle. Now, Swift & Co. killed, I presume, one- 
quarter of that number — I would say one-third of that number. 

Repiesentative Allen. It is claimed by the advocates of the Grout 
bill that the average increase in the price of each steer slaughtered is 
only about 40 cents, I believe, taking the whole number of cattle 
slaughtered in the United States, together with the value of the oil 
used in the manufacture of oleomargarine. Have you any information 
on that point? 

Mr. Layery. You will understand that we use the entire caul fat 
from the beef in making oleo oil. We do not consume all of that oleo 
oil ourselves; we export a great deal of it. 



800 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Representative Williams. Let nie ask you, right there, whether or 
not you export it as oleo oil. 

Mr. Lavery. As oleo oil. 

Eepreseiitative Williams. As oleo oil, and not as oleomargarine? 

Mr, Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Representative Allen. Now, about what proportion of that do you 
consume and what proportion do you export? 

Mr. Lavery. We consume, ourselves, a fourth, I should say, of our 
entire production. 

Representative Allen. Now, do you think that the prohibition of 
the use of oleo oil here, in the manufacture of oleomargarine, would 
have any effect upon that export production? 

Mr. Lavery. It most certainly would. 

Representiitive Allen. In what way? 

Mr. Lavery. Foreign countries, and especially Germany, are watch- 
ing for every opportunity to legislate against the entrance of American 
meats and by-products, and if our own Congress should pass a law 
which would practically kill the oleo industry in this country we have 
no reason to believe that Germany and other Euroi)ean countries would 
not take similar action and prohibit the entrance into their country of 
oleo oil and such materials as we have legislated against ourselves; and 
such action would therefore kill, or at least greatly injure, the export 
oleo-oil business. 

Representative Allen. I will ask you another question with regard 
to the cotton-seed oil that you use in the production of this material. 
Do you use any of that? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Representative Allen. To what extent? 

Mr. Lavery. The four principal ingredients used in the manufacture 
of oleomargarine are oleo oil, neutral lard, milk and cream, and cotton- 
seed oil. Of those four ingredients cotton-seed oil comprises about 
25 per cent. We are now using on an average, we will say, for the 
year, about a car of cotton -seed oil a week, or four cars a month. 

Representative Allen. How much is a car? 

Mr. Lavery. From 32,000 to 35,000 pounds. 

Representative Allen. What grade of cotton seed oil do you use? 

Mr. Lavery. The very best grade of cotton-seed oil, known as butter 
oil — highly refined cotton-seed oil. 

Representative Allen. Of your personal knowledge what class of 
people generally consume oleomargarine in your city, where you live? 

Mr. Lavery. All classes of people buy oleomargarine; but the mass 
of buyers, I should say, are among the laboring class of people. 

Representative Henry. Mr. Lavery, can you explain the discrepancy 
between your statement as regards the percentage of cotton-seed oil 
you use and the official statement made in reply to an inquiry of Con- 
gress by the Internal Revenue Bureau? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir; I stated that 

Representative Henry. The report, as I understand, shows the use 
of about 10 per cent; you say you use about 25. It may be that you 
use more than other manufacturers. 

Mr. Lavery. I stated that oleomargarine consists of four principal 
ingredients — oleo oil, neutral lard, milk and cream, and cotton-seed oil. 
Now, of those four ingredients cotton seed oil comprises about 25 per 
cent. Of course, we add salt and coloring matter. 

Representative Heney. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue, in 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 801 

response to an inquiry from Congress, says that about 10 per cent of 
cotton- seed oil is used. 

Mr. Layer Y. He says 10 per cent of all ingredients. He gives here 
neutral lard, oleo oil, cotton-seed oil, sesame oil, coloring matter, sugar, 
glycerin, stearin, glucose, milk, salt, butter, oil, and cream. I am tak- 
ing the four principal ingredients. 

Representative Henry. I simply wish you would explain the differ- 
ence between the two statements. 

Mr. Lavery. I am leaving out a great many of the small items which 
are given in that statement, and taking the four principal ingredients. 

Kepresentative Henry. Then allow me to ask you what percentage 
cotton-seed oil is of your gross product? 

Mr. Lavery. I would say, taking all the materials used, that this, 
statement is about correct. 

Kepresentative Henry. That is all. 

Kepresentative Neville. Now, I want to ask you a question oi- two. 
Of what is oleo oil composed — just the fat of which you speak, the 
caul fat? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Kepresentative Neville. The caul fat alonef 

Mr. Lavery. The caul fat alone. 

Kepresentative Neville. How much of that oleo oil did your firm 
produce last year? Have you not got those figures? 

Mr. Lavery. I have not got those figures at hand; no, sir. 

Kepresentative Neville. You have them on your books at Kansas 
City? 

Mr. Lavery. We have. I can furnish them, but I can not give 
them ott'hand. 

Kepresentative Neville. Now, you speak of being unable to sell this 
material unless it is colored? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Kepresentative Neville. As a matter of fact, if it is wholesome, and 
the fjeople want it, will they not buy it when it is not colored? 

Mr. Lavery. It it is placed on the same basis with butter, I should 
say that in the course of time we could educate the people to buy uncol- 
ored butterine the same as uncolored butter. But they have always 
bought oleomargarine colored. It has always been colored since we 
first began to manufacture it in this country. The people are educated 
to the use of colored oleomargarine, and they do not want to buy it 
otherwise. 

Kepresentative Neville. Now, as a matter of fact, the coloring adds 
nothing to its quality, except simply as far as its appearance is con- 
cerned ? 

Mr. Lavery. Nothing except the appearance. 

Representative Neville. Now, you also stated that your trade was 
largely in the West. 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Kepresentative Neville. You have been selling, and did sell last 
year, and year before last, in Nebraska very largely, did you not? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Kepresentative Neville. Is it not true, when you say there are cer- 
tain customers who, for their own reasons, desire to have the oleomar- 
garine go out without the brand upon it, that that is for the purpose 
of enabliui: it to be sold in those States where there is a law against 
coloring it* 

S. Rep. 2043 51 



802 OLEOMAKGARINB. 

Mr. Lavery. I do not think so. 

Kepresentative Neville. Now, there was a lot of your manufactured 
product sold in Nebraska last year and the year before, was there not? 

Mr. Lavery. We do some business in Nebraska; yes, sir. 

Ivepresentative Neville. Now, is it not true that there is and has 
been right along a law upon the statute books there which prohibits 
the sale of oleomargarine colored in imitation of butter. 

Mr. Lavery. Well, there has been a law there, but it has been in 
litigation. 

Kepresentative Neville. But is it not true that this butterine of 
yours which was sold in Nebraska, colored, had to be sold as butter, or 
it could not have been sold? 

Mr. Lavery. No, sir: I do not think so. 

Representative Neville. Have you traveled through Nebraska 
lately? 

Mr. Lavery. I have been in Nebraska; yes, sir. 

Representative Neville. And have you seen establishments there 
selling colored oleomargarine branded as oleomargarine? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Representative Neville. Tell me one place where you saw it. 

Mr. Lavery. Omaha has a number of stores which handle oleo- 
margarine, pay the internal-revenue license, and sell it as oleomarga- 
rine. 

Representative Neville. And have it branded as oleomargarine? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Representative Neville. Notwithstanding this law on the statute 
books? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. We have ourselves sent in the last three 
months at least a dozen oleomargarine stamps to retail dealers in 
Omaha. 

Representative Neville. In the last three months? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Representative Neville. Now, that was since the lower court held 
that the law, for technical reasons with reference to its passage, was 
not constitutional, was it not? 

Mr. Lavery. We have always furnished the stamps necessary for 
the marking of packages in Omaha; and 1 believe the Omaha dealers, 
without exception, handle oleomargarine and sell it for exactly what 
it is. 

Representative Neville. Do you not know that a firm there in Omaha 
was lined $800 only a short time ago for selling oleomargarine as butter, 
and that they have now got an application before the Internal Revenue 
Department here, which was put in through me, to have that money 
returned to them? 

Mr. Lavery. I do not know, sir. 

Representative Neville. The application was put in through me, 
and I was called upon to assist in getting the money returned to them. 

Mr. Lavery. I do not know that, no, sir. 

Representative Neville. Well, I say to you that that is true. 

(After informal discussion among members of the committee) 

Representative Williams. Suppose there were a law of the United 
States taxing butter, when colored artificially in any manner, 10 cents 
a pound; do you think it would interfere with the sale of butter? 

Mr. Lavery. I most certainly do. It would be a pretty good thing 
for butterine. 

Representative Williams. Then a law taxing oleomargarine to that 



OLEOMARGAKINE. 803 

ainonnt would interfere with the sale of oleomargarine for exactly the 
same reasons, would it notf 

Mr. Laveky. Yes, sir. A law of that kind would be a pretty good 
thing for the oleomargarine manufacturers. 

liepresentative Neville. Now, is it not true that if oleomargarine 
were not i)nt up in such shape that it could be sold apparently as but- 
ter, oleomargarine would sell to the poor peoi)le, who, you say, want it, 
lor a much lower price than it does in its present form ? 

Mr. Laveby. I do not think so. I think the vast majority of the 
oleomargarine sold in this country is sold for oleomargarine. 

Kepresentative Neville. Now, then, you know that a majority of 
the states in the Union have laws prohibiting the coloring of oleomar- 
garine in imitation of butter, do you not? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Representative Neville. In those States which have such laws will 
you explain to me how you sell oleomargarine as such, and yet colored 
as butter, without violating those laws? 

Mr. Lavery. Well, 1 can only say that the people want oleomar- 
garine even in the anticolor States, an<l, regardless of the fact that there 
are laws on the statute books prohibiting the sale of the product col- 
ored yellow, there is such a demand for it that in a great many of the 
States there is very little attention paid to the enforcement of that law. 
Take the Southern States, for example. 

Eepresentative Neville. Now, would not the same thing be true 
with reference to the peddlers of green goods, if there were such a 
demand for them! 

Mr. Lavery. I do not think that is a fair comparison. 

Representative Neville. Perhaps not; it may be extravagant. 

Representative Williams. l>y tlie way, Mr. Neville, do you contend 
that the law of the State of Nebraska forbidding a man to manufac- 
ture colored oleoniai garine in Kansas and ship it into Nebraska in the 
original package is a constitutional and valid law? 

Representative Neville. Why, I confess that, like all other matters 
of the kind, it comes under the police-regulation law ; but I say that 
when the packages get into Nebraska and are broken, if their contents 
are then sold as colored oleomargarine they are sold in violation of law. 

Representative Williams. Your opinion and mine, then, coincide, 
of course? 

Representative Nevili,e. There is no question about that. I think 
we both know what the law is. But you can not ship oleomargarine 
there, and brenk the packages and sell it, except in violation of law. 

Representative Williams. No; that comes under the local law. 
But these people who manufacture oleomargarine in other States are 
not amenable to any law of Nebraska. 

Representative Neville. Mr. Lavery, let me ask you just another 
question. In what sized packages do you ship colored oleomargarine 
to the retailers in Nebraska? 

Mr. Lavery. Our packages range from 30 to 60 pounds; that is, for 
the retail trade. 

Representative Neville. In one caddy? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Representative Neville. When the retailer gets it in Nebraska, he 
is compelled, if he sells it pound by pound, to break the package, is he 
not? 

Mr. Lavery. We sell 

Representative Neville. Answer that question. 



804 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

Mr. L AVERY. What is your question? 

Representative Neville. The retailer who sells it in ISTebraska, 
pound by pound, is compelled to break the package when he sells it 
there, is he not? 

Mr. Laveey. Certainly. 

Representative Neville. That is all. 

Mr. La VERY. We ship any amount of oleomargarine to Nebraska, to 
the city of Omaha and other places. 

Representative Neville. 1 know it; I live there and 1 know all 
about it. 

Representative Cooney. Mr. Lavery, I would like to ask you a ques- 
tion. Have you any figures in your statement here with reference to 
the values placed upon cattle for slaughtering purijoses, with reference 
to the oleo oil which is made from the fat? 

Mr. Lavery. I have not prepared any figures ; no, sir. 

Representative Cooney. You have none, then, in your statement 
here? 

Mr. Lavery. No, sir. What information did you want, Mr. Cooney? 

Representative Cooney. I wanted information in regard to the value 
which this oleomargarine business gives to cattle. 

Mr. Lavery. I stated a while ago that there are about 50 pounds ot 
caul fat taken from each beef. 

Representative Cooney. Yes; you state that from memory, do vou 
not? 

Mr. Lavery. That is an actual fact. There is an average of 50 
pounds to a beef, and that is the fat from which oleo oil is made. 

Representative Cooney. Yes; I understand that. 

Mr. Lavery. There is to day a difference between the price of oleo 
oil and tallow 

Representative Cooney. I undeistand that perfectly; you went all 
over that. Now, do you say that all of this fat is made into oleo oil? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir, 

Hepresentative Cooney. In all the beeves that are slaughtered? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Representative Cooney. That is the general method pursued by 
slaughtering institutions? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir; I think so. 

Representative CooneY. To devote this part of the animal to the 
manufacture of oleo oil? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir; I think that is the method generally pursued. 

Representative Cooney. Now, this oleo oil is either manufactured 
into oleomargarine here or is shipped abroad? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Representative Cooney. And you say that of the fat which your 
institution receives you utilize about one-fourth in the manufacture of 
oleomargarine? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir; that is right. 

Representative Cooney. And the balance you ship. Those answers 
were drawn from you by questions asked by Mr. Neville. Have you 
any figures at hand to show just what amount you use and what 
amount you ship? 

Mr. Lavery. No, sir. I stated a while ago that I could furnish 
those figures, but 1 have not them at hand now. 

Representative Cooney. You did not really charge your mind with 
them when you left home, did you? You did not charge your mind 
with the figures on that particular subject? 



OLEOMARGARINE. 805 

]\rr. Lavery. No, sir. 

Eepresentative Cooney. And what you state is simply from your 
best information on tbat subject, according to your recollection? 

Mr. Lavery. And from experience. 

Eepresentative Cooney. Now, there is another question in connec- 
tion with that matter which I want to ask, and that is, if, in making 
tbis statement, you meant to say that to the stock raisers of the country 
tlieir beef cattle are w^orth $2 per head more than they would be if 
there was no manufacture of oleomargarine? 

Mr. Lavery. The figures certainly show that. 

Eepresentative Cooney. These $2 go, then, to the cattle raiser, do 
they? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Eepresentative Cooney. None of that amount goes to the oleomar- 
garine manufacturer? 

Mr. Lavery. Why should it? If it increases the value of a beef 
steer, the man who owns the beef steer certainly reaps the benefit of it. 

Eepresentative Cooney. Then the oleomargarine manufacturer and 
the man who buys and slaughters the steer make none of this extra 
profit; that is, they receive none of this extra profit of $2. 

Mr. Lavery. I do not see how they could, except the profit through 
the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine. 

Eepresentative Cooney. Well, do they receive part of that $2 in that 
way; and if so, how much? 

Mr. Lavery. None whatever, that I can see. 

Eepresentative Cooney. Do they receive any profit on the balance 
of the beef, then? 

Mr. Lavery. How is that, sir? 

Eepresentative Cooney. Do they receive any of the profit out of the 
balance of the beef, or is it all given to the cattleman? 

Mr. Lavery. According to the method of buying cattle to-day, the 
value of a steer is arrived at by figuring what the beef contained in 
that steer is worth, together with the by-products. 

Eepresentative Cooney. Yes. 

Mr. Lavery. If there is a by-product contained in the steer which is 
of value in bringing a high price on the market, it increases the price 
which the packer can pay for the steer just that much; but if you 
reduce the value of that by-product $1 a head, it simply cuts off that 
much money from the price of your steer. 

Eepresentative Cooney. This is wliat I want to get at, Mr. Lavery. 
You state that a slaughtered steer will contain about 50 pounds of this 
fat, out of which you make oleo oil ? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Eei)resentative Cooney. And that that fat is worth 4 cents per pound 
more than it would be if it were made into lard? 

Mr. Lavery. I said tallow, not lard. 

Eepresentative Cooney. Into tallow, I mean; and that 4 cents, you 
say, goes to the stockman? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Eepresentative Cooney. Now 1 will ask you if you treat the stock- 
man, and if the stockman is treated in the market, upon the same basis 
of the value of his steer on all other parts of the steer? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Eepresentative Cooney. And if he is not, why is he not? 

Mr. Lavery. Well, he certainly is. He is given credit for all the 
by-products in the purchase price of that steer. 



806 OLEOMARGARITSTE. 

liepresentative Cooney. He is given all of the value of all parts of 
his steer, then'? 

Mr. Lavkry. Yes, sir; in the purchase price. 

Representative Williams. You mean that renders him able to offer 
that much more? 

Mr. Lavery. That is exactly it. 

Kepresentative Williams. As a matter of fact, however, the actual 
price arrived at in selling a steer, like anything else, is a matter of 
bartering and huckstering in the market? 

Mr. Lavery. That is the idea; yes, sir. 

Eepresentative Cooney. That is a very different thing. I want to 
know who gets this $2 which Mr. Lavery is talking about. lie says it 
is the stockman who gets it. It could not be a matter of huckstering 
and bartering, then, if the farmer gets it. 

Representative Haugen. I would like to continue the questions 
which have been asked you. You claim that the manufacture of this 
product makes $2 of ditference per head of cattle? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Representative Haugen. On what ground do you base your claims? 
What is the number of cattle slaughtered, according to the Govern- 
ment reports or estimates which you have? 

Mr. Lavery. In the United States? 

Representative Haugen. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Lavery. I have not those tigures at hand. 

Eepresentative Haugen. I think it is about 5,000,000 head, is it 
not? According to the Agricultural Dei)artment report, it is 4,054,000. 

Mr. Lavery. I only have the figures for the Kansas City markets. 

Representative Haugen. According to the reports, there were 
24,491,709 pounds of this oleo oil consumed. 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir; here in this country. 

Representative Haugen. In manufacture? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Representative Haugen. That would amount to less than 5 pounds 
to each head of cattle, would it not? 

Mr. Lavery. Well, you understand that, as 1 stated a while ago 

Representative Haugen. I am referring now to whatever this bill 
refers to. It has nothing to do with the oleomargarine shipiied abroad. 
This bill does not aflect the exports; it refers to what is consumed here 
at home, or what is colored. Now, this would amount to less than 5 
pounds to a head, would it not? 

Mr. Lavery. I have not figured that out. 

Representative Haugen. Well, it is necessary, in view of the state- 
ments and assertions that you have made, to iigure it out in dollars 
and cents, and in pounds. 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Representative Haugen. Now, then, if there are 24,000,000 pounds 
used or consumed, and 5,000,000 head of cattle slaughtered, that is less 
than 5 pounds to each head of cattle killed? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Representative Haugen. You stated a while ago that there was a 
difference of 4 cents a pound between the prices paid for this fat for 
the purposes of tallow and oleo oil. Now, then, 5 pounds of fat at 
4 cents per pound is 20 cents, or less than 20 cents (or each head of 
cattle killed, according to your own statement, is it not? 

Mr. Lavery. Well, taking only the amount of oleo oil consumed in 
this country, it would probably be tluit much less than $2. I consider 
that this bill would aflect more than our own country. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 807 

Representative Haugen. We will come to that later, but I wish to 
make this point clear. 

Mr. Lavery. It would be much less than $2 on that basis. 

Representative Haugen. Are my statements correct, then"? 

Mr. Lavery. It is simply a question of figures. I have not figured 
it out. 

Representative Haugen. It is necessary to use figures to arrive at 
the result. 

Mr. Lavery. That is simply a question of figures. 

Representative Stokes. Is it possible, Mr. Lavery, for you to have 
one set of prices for home consumption, and another set of export 
prices"? Is that possible under any conditions in our commercial 
arrangements? 

Mr. Lavery. Do you refer to oleo oil? 

Representative Stoke;^. I refer to any commodity that is exported. 

Mr. Lavery. No, sir; the prices are usually the same. 

Representative Stokes. The same? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes; sir. 

Representative Stokes. Undoubtedly. 

Mr. Lavery. We base our market price of oleo oil, for both foreign 
and domestic use, on exactly the isame conditions. 

Representative Haugen. Now, you state that this bill will affect 
the ])rice of the oil which you export. Let me ask you this question: 
Did it affect the price of oleomargarine when the present law, provid- 
ing for the 2-cent tax, was enacted? I believe you stated a moment 
ago that the trade had increased. 

Mr. Lavery. Why, no, sir. While I think the 2-cents per pound 
tax is unjust, it is within reason; and we can pay that tax and still do 
business. 

Representative Haugen. You claim that the lOcent tax would 
l)ractically kill your industry ? 

Mr. Lavery. I certainly do ; yes, sir. 

Representative Haugen. What is oleomargarine worth to-day, 
uncolored? What is the average price for the year? 

Mr. Lavery. The average price to day is, say, 11 to 14 cents, whole- 
sale. 

Representative Haugen. The uncolored oleomargarine? 

Mr. Lavery. The uncolored oleomargarine; yes, sir. There is no 
difference between the cost of the colored and the uncolored product. 

Representative Haugen. What is the average price of butter the 
year round? 

Mr. Lavery. The Elgin market this week is, I think, 18 or 19 cents— 
possibly 19. 

Kejuesentative Hattgen. You sell the uncolored oleomargarine no^ 
for how ijiuch, you say? 

Mr. Lavery. We make no difference in the price of colored and 
uncolored oleomargarine. 

Representative Haugen. It is about 11 cents, you say? 

Mr. Lavery. That is the wholesale price ; yes, sir. The price ranges 
from 11 to 14 cents. You understand that we make two or three differ 
ent grades of oleomargarine. 

Representative Haugen. At this time of the year butter is much 
lower than at other seasons, is it not? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Representative Haugen. The price of butter, on an average, is 22 to 
24 cents, is it not? 



808 OLEOMAEGAKINE. 

Eepreseutative Williams. Do you mean retail or wholesale? 

Kepresentative Haugen. I mean wliolesale. 

Mr. Lavery. I think that is a fair average. It averaged higher than 
that last year, however. 

Kepresentative Haugen. Say that a fair average price for butter, at 
wholesale, is 1^4 cents a pound, and that of your i)roduct is 11 cents. 
You claim that yonr product is worth just as much and will sell for 
just as much as butter, do you? 

Mr. Lavery. You must understand that there are seasons when the 
Elgin market has been much lower than that. If this bill were passed, 
half of the time the cost of oleomargarine would be higher than the 
Elgin market price of butter. Based on the present figures oleomar- 
garine would cost more to produce than Elgin butter. 

Hepresentative Haugen. At the present market i)rice you could not 
pay the 10 cents per ])()und? 

Mr. Lavery. Ko, sir. 

Kepresentative Haigen. But on an average, if the average ]nice of 
butter is 22 cents, then you could pay the 10 cents, as I understand 
oleomargarine can be manufactured for about 8 cents per pound? I 
believe that is the testimony before this committee. 

Mr. Lavery, No, sir; it can not; that is too low. 

Representative Hai gen. But it sells at 10 or 11 cents. Is it not a 
fact that it is sold for less than 10 cents'? 

Mr. Lavery. No. sir; it is not. 

Representative Wright. I would like to ask one question in con- 
nection with iMr. Hangen's questions. From your answers to his ques- 
tion, Mr. Lavery, I infer that the wholesale price of oleomargarine 
is about 11 cents, and the wholesale price ot butter about '22 cents. 

Mr. Lavery. The Elgin market to day is about 18 or 19 cents. I 
would not say ])ositively on that ])oint, one way or the other. 

lvei)resentative Wright. I wanted to ask, then, if it is true that 
people want oleomargarine, whether you could not still add the 10 
cents to it and sell it on the same ba^is as butter? 

Mr. Lavery. No, sir; they would not buy it on the same basis as 
butter. They buy oleomargarine because it is a wholesome product, 
and can be bought slightly cheajier than butter. 

The Acting Chairman. When you speak of the cost being 11 or 14 
cents, does that include the 2-cent tax, or not? 

Mr. Lavery. That includes the tax; yes, sir. It includes the 2-cent 
tax only. 

The Acting Chairman. Are there any further questions? 

Representative Neville. I would like to ask the gentleman one 
further question. If, as a matier of fact, this tax is established at 10 
cents per pound, and the people actually want to (consume oleomar- 
garine, want to eat it, could they not afford then to buy it direct them- 
selves and color it, and still get it much cheaper than they get butter, 
and would they not do it? 

Mr. Lavery. No, sir; because they have not the facilities for color- 
ing it, for handling the coloring in the way it should be handled; and 
they would not go to that trouble. 

Representative Neville. Now, then, by coloring it, you add at least 
from 8 to 10 cents jer pound in value to it, do you? 

Mr. Lavery. Well, I do not figure that way; no, sir. 

Representative Neville. How much do you figure that you add to 
its value by coloring it? 

Mr. Lavery. You might say the whole value of the product is taken 
away from it if you take the color out. 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 809 

Representative Neville. And then, by putting the coloring matter 



in- 



Mr. La VERY. Our experience is that uncolored oleomargarine will 
not sell. 

Representative Neville. Then, the putting of the color into it is 
wliat gives it its value? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. If peoi)le had been educated to use uncolored 
oleomargarine, they would not expect it any other way, but they have 
not; they have always bought it colored. 

Rei»resentative Neville. Now, what does it cost to make it without 
the coloring in it? 

Mr. Lavery. The manufacture costs about a cent under the whole- 
sale price. 

Representative Neville. It would then cost about 10 cents? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Representative Neville. That is the wholesale price? 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

Representative Neville. Now, the retail price, you say, is about 18 
cents ? 

Mr. Lavery. No, sir ; I said 11 to 14. 

ADDITIONAL STATEMENT OF DH. H. W. WILEY, CHIEF CHEMIST, 
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 

Dr. Wiley. I simply wish to say that I have prepared here a little 
statement to place in my evidence of yesterday, in connection with my 
statement in regard to stearin in oleomargarine. It appears in the 
re[>ort of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue that there is only 0.007 
of one per cent in oleomargarine. On looking the matter up 1 find that 
he means that that much stearin has been added in the i)ro(ess of 
manufa(;ture. He does not refer to the stearin which is present in the 
neutral lard, the oleo oil, and the cotton seed oil. They all contain 
stearin. My statement which 1 made to the committee is strictly cor- 
rect—that the total amount is from 15 to 20 per cent. I would like to 
submit this and have it incorporated in my evidence, as I proposed 
yesterday. 

That is all I have to say. 

Representative Stokes. Dr. Wiley, I would like to ask you a ques- 
tion. Will you I'lease state to the committee what degree of heat will 
destroy the tuberculosis germ, in the opinion of chemists'? 

Dr. Wiley, It takes a temperature of from 150° to 160° F. to surely 
destroy the pathogenic germ of consumption. 

Representative Stokes. Have you any information as to what degree 
of temperature is reached in the production of oleomargarine, or the 
prei)aration of its elements? 

Dr. Wiley. I can state in regard to neutral lard, because I have 
often seen that made. 1 think the temperature there is probably high 
enough to kill the germ. I do not know what temperature is used in 
prei)aring oleo oil. 1 am not acquainted with that. 

Representative Stokes. One other question. Is it not a fact, ])retty 
well demonstrated through the Bureau of Animal Industry, that the 
dairy herds of the country are largely impregnated with tuberculosis 
germs? 

Dr. Wiley. I think that is well recognized everywhere — that tuber- 
culosis is very prevalent among our dairy cows. 



810 OLEOMAEGAEINE. 

Representative Stokes. Another question. Is it equally so among 
tbe beef herds? 

Dr. Wiley. I could not say in rogard to that. I do not think it is. 

Representative Stokes. Is it not true that the beef herds, however, 
before slaughtering, are subjected to an inspection by the Government 
through the Bureau of Animal Industry"? 

Dr. Wiley. Not being connected with that Bureau, I could not say 
positively. 

Representative Stokes. That is a fact which has been developed 
here. 

Dr. Wiley. Yes, sir; I think they are all inspected. 

Representative Stokes. Another question : Do you know whether or 
not they are inspected after slaughtering? 

Dr. Wiley. I know that pork is inspected for trichina. I think beef 
cattle are inspected also after slaughtering. 

Representative Stokes. They are inspected also? 

Dr. Wiley. Yes; that is my impression. 

Representative Stokes. Then in the event that an animal here and 
there should escape these tests, and should still contain tuberculosis 
germs, is it not probable that that danger would be eliminated in the 
process of manufacturing oleomargarine, which is subjected to the high 
temperature you have mentioned? 

Dr. Wiley. The temperature required in rendering the fat and pre- 
paring the oil would be high enough to kill most of those germs, I 
should think. 

Re[)resentative Stokes. One other question: Is it possible, in the 
manufacture of butter from the cow, in the creameries, to eliminate 
those germs if the germs exist in the herd? 

Dr. Wiley. Not by the application of heat, because that would ruin 
the physical properties of butter. 

Representative Stokes. Is there any other process within your 
knowledge? 

Dr. Wiley. Nothing except the addition of preservatives, which is 
equally objectionable. 

Representative Cooney. I want to ask you this question. Dr. Wiley: 
If the answers given by you to Mr. Stokes's questions are correct, would 
it not follow that it is much safer and healthier for a person to confine 
himself strictly to eating oleomargarine and let creamery butter entirely 
alone; does that not necessarily follow from the questions and answers? 

Dr. Wiley. If you are to avoid danger from infection of tubercu- 
losis, I think that would be true. 

Representative Neville. Professor, would not that apply to every 
other food product in just the same way? 

Dr. Wiley. Yes, sir. There is no food product whi(;h does not at 
some time carry dangerous germs. If we applied that rule we would 
exclude all food. 

Representative Oooney. As a matter of fact, then, it would be much 
better to direct the attention of this bill to creamery butter than to 
eleomargaiine? 

Dr. Wiley. As far as tuberculosis is concerned, undoubtedly. 

Representative Bailey. Dr. Wiley, let me ask you this question: Do 
you consider oleomargarine a wholesome article of food. 

Dr. Wiley. I do. 

The Acting Chairman. I would like to ask Mr. Lavery to what 
temperature he heats the milk and cream used in the manufacture of 
his butteiine? I believe you stated, Mr. Lavery, that you used milk 
and cream ? 



OLEOMARGARIKE. 811 

Mr. Lavery. Yes, sir. 

The Acting Chairman. You sterilize it? 

Mr. Lavery. We do not sterilize it; no, sir. We handle our milk 
aud cream exactlj' as a creamery would for making' butter. In fact, we 
Lave a graduate of the Madisou (Wis.; Dairy School looking after our 
milk rooms; aud of course we set that milk at night to ripen for the 
next day's use. It all depends on the condition of the weather as to 
how warm that milk is when it is set — from (55° to 75° I would say. 

The Acting Chairman. But you can not heat it up to 140° or 150°, 
as Dr. Wiley says cream or milk must be heated in order to destroy 
these germs? 

Mr. Lavery. No, sir; we can not. If we should do that we would 
cook it, and spoil it. 

Mr. Miller. I will say, just here, to settle this question of the tem- 
perature, that our oleo oil is heated up to 150° or 100° F. In making 
oleo oil, we heat it to 150°. 

I would like to ask Dr. Wiley a question just there. Dr. Wiley has 
made the statement here that butterlne contains 15 to 20 per cent 
stearin. I would like to have him state to the committee that that 
stearin in itself is perfectly wholesome and healthy, because all oils 
contain stearin. Stearin is simply the heavy body in all oils. 1 think, 
perhaps, the commission have a wrong impression of the article of 
stearin; and if Dr. Wiley will kindly explain to them just what 
stearin is in oil, I think it will leave a better impression. 

Dr. Wiley. It is fully explained in this document, which I will put 
in my evidence. 

Mr. Miller. It is? 

Dr. Wiley. Yes. 

Mr. Miller. Then that is all right. 

Mr. Lavery submitted the following petition: 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee on Agriculture: We, the 
uiidersijined merchants of Kansas City, herewith wish to affirm that we are pro- 
vided with a Federal retail license for the sale of oleomargarine. We understand 
fully all the laws regulating the sale of this product, and do comply with them in 
every particular. 

At no time have we sold oleomargarine for butter or allowed packages of same to 
lenve our respective places of business without being stamped in accordance with 
the inTernal-re\ euue regulations. 

In our opinion, the passage of House of Representatives bill No. 3717, known as 
the Grout bill, would be an injustice to us, as it would take away our right to buy 
and sell a legitimate article of commerce, and one which the demands of our trade 
justify us in handling. 

It would work a hardship on hundreds of Kansas City laboring men and their 
families who are regular purchasers of oleomargarine. 

We therefore respectfully request that you consider our protests when passing 
upon the ])roposed measure. 

Eeinhardt Bros., M. Quinn, M. Ross, A. Denebeim, A. L. Shauklin.C. S. i'>rig- 
ham, A. R. Moss, .J. H. Duncan, E. Klein, Wm. Burnett, Elstein Bros., 
Rice & Gibson, R., E. E. Shafer, H. F. Schaiblc, H. Roberts' Sons, C. E. 
Robiuson, M. Mvers, M. Klein, Jones Dry Goods Co., Silverman Bros., 
A. M. Chnrchtler, R. H. Williams, H. Stelling, .los. Smart, David Suuirt, 
D. A. White, J. D. Quinn, W. Barrett, C. P. Jehu, Matthews Coopera- 
tive Grocery Co., bv M. W. Matthews, Manager., A. H. Kampinuir, Walt 
H. Mailand, E. H. Rodekopf, L. T. Bush & Co., Blum's Parlor Market, 
Aaron P. Duncan, Theo. Tegren, Samuel Stewart, L. H. Henry, C. A. 
Pettit, N. Hoogland, Otto Ander8on,J. L. .lones, B. M.White, L. G. Eike, 
Geo. J. Clausen, James Maguire, Hartford Bros. Grocery Co., N. R. 
Foley, F. F. Brandt & Co., L. T. Franks, McHale Ji: Co., A. Ofner, A. H. 
Schuy]er,W. J. Doust,W. A. Griswold, Jones & Irvin, M. H. Brotherson, 
L. Benson, Tucker & Com]ianv, Headley & Moore,W. A. Yearnshaw, 
C.W. Green, S. D, Hustead, M. J. Marlcy, .1. CTcnuier, Lilies &. Clark, 
Frank Forsberg, L. H. Tennier, F. J. Koch, J. C. Fisher, Peter Goes 

(The committee thereupou, at 12.15 o'clock p. m., adjourned.) 



812 



OLEOM ATiaARTNE. 



Oleomargarine 

Swiffs 




OLEOMARGAEINE. 



813 



OLEOMARGARINE 




Swllt's Jersey 




OLEOMARGARINE 




SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE INTRODUCED IN SUPPORT OF 
H. R. 3717 (THE GROUT BILL) BEFORE THE 
SENATE COMMITTEE ON AGRICUL- 
TURE AND FORESTRY. 



COMPILED BY 



CHARLES Y. KNIG^HT, 

Secretary National Dairy Union, 

AT THE REQUEST OF THE COMMITTEE. 



815 




816 



SUMMARY AND REVIEW OF EVIDENCE. 



Appearing in behalf of the Grout bill were: 

Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture. 

Hon. S. C. Bassett, president Nebraska State Board of Agriculture. 

Hon. John Hamilton, secretary department of agriculture of Pennsylvania. 

Hon. G. L. Flanders, assistant commissioner of agriculture, New York. 

Hon. F. J. H. Kracke, assistant commissioner of agriculture of New York. 

Hon. H. C. Adams, food commissioner of Wisconsin. 

Hon. J. C. Blackburn, food commissioner of Ohio. 

Hon. W. W. Grout, of Vermont. 

Hon. W. D. Hoard, president National Dairy Union. 

Hon. James A. Tawney, of Minnesota. 

Chas. Y. Knight, secretary National Dairy Union. 

Luther S. Kaufman, attorney for Pennsylvania Pure Butter Protective Association. 

John H. Habacker, butter merchant, Philadelphia. 

Isaac W. Cleaver, retail merchant, Philadelphia. 

Joseph C. Sharpless, farmer, Westchester, Pa. 

E. D. Edson, butter merchant, Philadelphia. 

W. F. Drennen, butter merchant, Philadelphia. 

Thomas Sharpless, farmer, Chester County, Pa. 

Isaac W. Davis, president Produce Exchange, Philadelphia, Pa. 

Samuel Jamison, wholesale butter dealer, Philadelphia, Pa. 

C. H. Eoyce, from Norton's farm. New York. 

J. J. Dillon, editor Rural New Yorker. 

E. B. Norris, master of New York State Grange, and representing National Grange. 

W. A. Rogers, from Watertown, N. Y., Produce Exchange. 

Summerfield B. Medairy, president Baltimore Pure Butter Protective Association. 

James Hewes, president Baltimore Produce Exchange. 

Food commissioners not present, but filing letters of approval of the Grout bill were — 

Hon. Elliott O. Grosvenor, food commissioner of Michigan. 

Hon. B. P. Norton, food commissioner of Iowa. 

Hon. J. B. Noble, food commissioner of Connecticut. 



LAWS OF THE STATES. 

The strongest evidence we offer Congress of our claim of protection 
against a counterfeit article is the fact that thirty -two States, with 
over 60,000,000 of the 74,000,000 population, have condemned the 
article we seek to tax 10 cents per pound through its absolute exclu- 
sion from commerce in their borders, so far as State laws can do so. 

The map upon the opposite page appears on page 557 of the com- 
mittee testimony, showing the States which have passed these laws 
absolutely forbidding the sale under any condition of oleomargarine 
colored in semblance of butter, and Montana has levied a tax of 10 
cents per pound upon such article. 

A synopsis of these laws, prepared by the Agricultural Department 
of the Government, will be found in the testimony before the House 
Conunittee on Agriculture, beginning at page 593. 

S. Rep. 2043 52 817 



818 OLEOMARGARINE. 

The constitutionality of such laws, forbidding the manufacture and 
sale of oleomargarine made in semblance of butter, has been upheld in 
every supreme court the matter has ever been brought before, includ- 
ing Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Ohio, iVIissouri, 
and the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Plumley v. 
Commonwealth, handed down December 10, 1894, and reported in 
United States, 165. The State cases are: New York, People v. Aren- 
burg, 105 N. Y., 123, 129, 130; supreme court of Maryland, McAllis- 
ter V. State, 72 Maryland, 390; supreme court of Maryland, Pierce v. 
State, 63 Maryland, 596; supreme court of New Jersey, Waterbury 
V. Newton, 21 Vroom (50 N. J. Law), 534-537; supreme court of Mis- 
souri, decision handed down in 1897, and Ohio case in April, 1900. 

Yet despite the strong support these laws receive in the upper courts, 
during the fiscal year ended July 1, 1899, the Treasury Department fig- 
ures show that 62,825,000 of the 83,000,000 pounds of colored oleomar- 
garine made were sold in violation of the laws of these States (House 
evidence, p. 20), and that of the 9,068 retail dealers doing business in 
the United States for the year ending July 1 last, 7,073 were violating 
the various anticolor laws of the United States and onl}^ 1,995 were 
doing business as permitted by the laws. Of the 107,000,000 pounds of 
oleomargarine produced in the United States for the year ending July 
1, 1900, 66,820,196 pounds were produced in States which prohibit 
the manufacture and sale of colored oleomargarine, and 40,240,859 
pounds were produced in those States which permit such production. 
(Senate evidence, p. 463.) 

FEAUD AND LAWLESSNESS. 

The most important testimony in connection with the measure now 
before the committee, however, we believe to be that which goes to 
show that the same condition exists to-da}'^ that existed when the dairj'^- 
men came before Congress in 1886 and asked for national legislation 
to stop the sale of oleomargarine as butter, securing what at the time 
was thought to be permanent relief. 

The original basis of a demand for national legislation was that oleo- 
margarine was being sold to the public as butter, to the prejudice of 
the public and the financial loss of those who produce and deal in the 
pure article of butter. We believe that the evidence which we have 
presented before this committee, although only an infinitesimal part of 
what could easily have been adduced, has proven that the same condi- 
tions exist to-day. 

In reviewing this evidence, we shall begin with the city of Chicago, 
because it is at this point, as shown in the statement of the writer, on 
page 463, 2,691 of the 9,068 retail dealers in oleomargarine of this 
country were doing business at the end of the last fiscal year, June 30, 
1900, and the Government reports show that in that State was sold 
almost 25 per cent of all oleomargarine produced in the United States 
the year previous. It is in the city of Cliicago that 46,500,000 of the 
107,000,000 pounds of oleomargarine made in the United States were 
manufactured last year. It is here where two leading firms make from 
25 to 33 per cent of all the oleomargarine produced in this country. 

On page 461 will be found the following as the opening of my state- 
ment before your honorable body : 

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I want to open this matter by reading a statement 
which is a copy of a letter which I received from a retail grocer's clerk in the city of 



OLEOMARGARINE. 819 

Chicago some time last year. I am familiar with the gentleman's name, but I have 
not put it in here. I will vouch, however, for the condition, and prove it to you, 
but I merely read it as an introduction : 

"During the past twenty- two years I think I have worked in nearly every first- 
class grocery in Chicago, and I can truthfully say that eight out of every ten have 
been and are still selling butterine for pure butter. I recently was employed in one 
of the largest groceries and markets on one of the most prominent streets of the city. 
During the time I was employed there we never sold one pound of butter, for we 
never had it in the house to sell. We clerks would talk among ourselves about it, 
and would often compare notes with other clerks, and to satisfy myself I made quite 
a canvass of all the stores in the mile and found only one that did not impose on its 
trade. ' ' 

Gentlemen, from experience I can vouch for the accuracy of that statement, and I 
want to give you a little experience and I propose to demonstrate it right here. 

And on page 469 the following, in a letter written me by J. H. Mon- 
rad, assistant food commissioner of the State of Illinois, will further 
substantiate what this clerk says: 

Deak Sik: In reply to your inquiry, I beg to say that it is my impression that 
about 76 per cent of all the oleomargarine retailed in Chicago ia sold as butter. 

After having heard these statements before your committee, certain 
oleomargarine makers questioned their accuracy in the public prints 
of Chicago, whereas the matter was taken before the Chicago Butter 
and Egg Board, an organization of the wholesale butter and egg inter- 
ests of Chicago, and the following conclusions mailed the writer, which 
appear in full on pages 554 and 555 of the printed report: 

Chicago BtrrrER and Egg Board, 

Chicago, January 12, 1901. 
At the regular meeting of the Chicago Butter and Egg Board, held January 12, 
1901, the following statement was presented by George W. Linn, president of the 
Illinois Dairy Union, and generally discussed by the members of the board, and by 
a unanimous vote it was declared to be the sentiment of the individual members, as 
nearlj'^ every member has been familiar with the unfair and unlawful methods pur- 
sued by the dealers in oleomargarine for years. 

John W. Low, President. 
Chajkles E. McNeill, Secretary. 

The statement alluded to follows, and was signed by eighteen leading 
butter firms of Chicago: 

Chicago, January 12, 1901. 

Whereas we are informed by newspaper reports and other sources that the 
manufacturers of oleomargarine are inclined to deny the assertion of the officers of 
the National Dairy Union that the retail trade sell oleomargarine almost exclusively 
as butter; and 

Whereas from our long experience in competition with this class of goods we have 
repeatedly and continually been brought face to face with the fact that fully 75 per 
cent, and possil^ly as high as 95 per cent, goes to the consumer as pure butter, we, 
as an organization and as individuals, desire to go on record as corroborating the 
statement made in that particular by the officers of the National Dairy Union. 

The following will be found also on page 555, from the Daily Trade 
Bulletin, the official price current of the Chicago market, for January 
12, 1901: 

It is generally admitted by dealers that the demoralized condition of the butter 
market at present is due to the use of butterine. Dealers estimated that at least 75 
per cent of the retailers are selling butteruie. 

Such has been the condition in Chicago for years. State laws had 
proved wholly inadequate, but during the summer of 1899 your orator, 
as secretary of the Illinois Dairy Union, concluded to make an extreme 
effort to stop some of this fraud, and employed Mr. Hugh V. Murray 



820 OLEOMARGARINE. 

as counsel. Under the instructions of the Illinois Dairy Union Mr. 
Murray sent the following letter to every licensed olemargarine dealer 
in the city of Chicago, which, with further details, appears on page 465 
Senate testimony: 

[OflBce of H. V. Mnrray, attorney at law.] 

Chicago, III., July S9, 1899. 

Dear Sib : I have been employed by the Illinois Dairy Union to prosecute any 
cases of violation of the dairy laws of this State which may result from the arrest of 
any dealer selling oleomargarine when butter is called for. As you probably know, 
a commission, consisting of a food commissioner and eight assistants and inspectors, 
was provided for by the late legislature, whose duty it is to enforce these laws. The 
commissioner has been appointed, and until he has appointed his assistants and gotten 
to work the IlUnois Dairy Union's inspectors will look after the protection of con- 
sumers of butter and see that those who sell them oleomargarine for butter are pros- 
ecuted under the State laws, and also reported to the Internal Revenue Department 
as violators of the internal-revenue laws. I herewith inclose extracts from three 
State laws. These laws are not tied up in the courts, and the oleomargarine manu- 
facturers will not place themselves in the light of protecting those who sell oleomar- 
garine for butter, although they may consistently fight the law forbidding coloring, 
which has not yet been passed upon by the supreme court. 

If you sell oleomargarine this year rest assured that the State food commissioner 
and the Illinois Dairy Union will see that you are not permitted to sell it as butter. 
Respectfully, yours, 

Hugh V. Mxirray, 
Attorney for Illinois Dairy Union. 

This letter should be read carefully. It was the intention of the 
writer to convey clearly to the retailer two things: 

First. That the prosecutions would be for the sale of oleomargarine 
as butter, and not for the sale of oleomargarine as oleomargarine col- 
ored in semblance of butter, as prohibited by a law passed two years 
previous, but at that time tied up in the courts. 

Second. That the prosecutions would be begun under the laws which 
were not tied up in the courts, thereby giving the manufacturers no 
excuse for defending such prosecutions without coming out in the open 
light and defending fraud. 

These letters created consternation in the ranks of the dealers. The 
sale of pure butter increased immensely, and the sale of oleomargarine 
decreased correspondingly. The manufacturers of oleomargarine were 
in desperate straits to save their business, and on August 2 the follow- 
ing letter, printed on page 465, the original of which was displayed 
before this committee, was mailed by William J. Moxley, claiming to 
be the largest maker of oleomargarine in the United States: 

[William J. Moxley, manufacturer of fine butterine, 63 and 66 West Monroe street.] 

Chicago, August S, 1899. 



-, OUy. 



Dear Sir: Our attention has been called to two circulars which have been mailed 
to you — one signed by Hugh V. Murray, an attorney, and the other by Charles Y. 
Knight, editor in chief of a periodical without subscribers named the Chicago Dairy 
Produce. The circular bearing Mr. Knight's name has at its head an imposing lot 
of names, gentlemen whose aim it is to prevent the manufacture and sale of butterine, 
so that the butter trust might be enabled to get from 30 to 40 cents a pound for butter, 
depriving, as they would, a great many of the industrial classes from being able to use 
butter through its excessive price. 

With the hired attorney, who is earning his fee, we have nothing to say, only to 
inform you that these gentlemen are trying to ring in a bluff. You will notice in 
their circulars that by insinuations they would have people believe they represent 
some official authority. The Internal Revenue Department looks after their own 



OLEOMARGARINE. 821 

business and the State after theirs, and should this so-called Dairy Union interfere 
with your business in the way of prosecution as to the State laws, we hereby guar- 
antee you protection to the extent of paying all fines, costs, etc., until the color law 
is decided unconstitutional in the supreme court of the State of Illinois, and will 
further, on receiving complaint, take such action for damages as will make it unpleas- 
ant for some of those who are attempting to interfere with your and our own legiti- 
mate business. 

We were under the impression that the severe censure they received from the 
judges during their filibustering of last year would have been sufiicient for all time, 
but have been informed that to be successful in obtaining money from farmers and 
butter men a few circulars with imposing headlines are required. 

We strongly recommend you to pay no attention to those circulars. We have 
always been in a position to protect our customers from injustice and blackmailers, 
and will be ever at your service should you require our aid. 
EespectfuUy, yours, 

Wm. J. MOXLEY. 

On the following day the following circular was issued by Messrs. 
Braun & Fitts, whose vice-president, Mr. Jelke, has been a constant 
attendant at these hearings, and is printed on page 466: 

Every licensed butterine dealer in Chicago has received circular letters from the 
secretary and attorney for the Illinois Dairy Union, promising all sorts of trouble to 
dealers in butterine (that honest and pure article of food). Well, now, don't you 
believe a word of it; there is a law against blackmailing, and we want now and here 
to go on record to the assertion, as an affidavit, that we shall civilly and criminally 
prosecute any man or party of men interfering unlawfully with the butterine business 
in this or any other State. We know exactly where we stand; we are properly 
advised on the subject, and now we make you a "fair offer:" "Handle our goods as 
you always have; we in turn promise and guarantee full protection against the State 
law (which has been declared unconstitutional) to the extent of paying cost of prose- 
cution, fines, and paying all costs pertaining thereto." In declaring the law uncon- 
stitutional one of the judges stated to the effect "that the butter ring were, in his 
opinion, liable to prosecution to recover damages done an honest industry." Fair 
enough, isn't it? Renew your efforts, and be assured that we will be prepared to 
fight any number of rounds in any kind of a legal fight to the finish. Handle our 
butterine and be safe. 

True to its promise, the Illinois Dairy Union began prosecutions in 
earnest. The arrests were in every instance upon charge of selling 
oleomargarine for butter. 

And as true to their promise these manufacturers sent their attorneys 
and representatives into court to defend these cases upon technical 
grounds. 

The attorney who represented the oleomargarine makers was Roy O. 
West, with Worth E. Cay lor as assistant or trial lawyer, the former 
appearing in court only once or twice. The connection of Mr, Caylor 
with the oleomargarine makers is clearly established on page 462, in 
a reproduction of an extract from a pamphlet issued by Moxley, in 
which he speaks of Mr. Caylor as their attorney in these cases. 

The special representatives of the oleomargarine makers at these 
trials were William Gleeson, for Moxley & Co., and F. M. Lowry, for 
Braun & Fitts, both occupying positions of confidence and trust with 
their respective concerns. These two representatives looked after the 
comforts and convenience of those under arrest and went their bonds. 
The prosecution made its appearance in court nine times, and each 
time the bonds of these defendants were renewed by the representa- 
tives of Moxley and Braun & Fitts. 

The printed record (page 467) will show that Mr. Jelke denied before 
the committee these charges, and stated emphatically that j\Ir. Lowry 
did not go on the bonds of any retailer charged with selling oleomar- 
garine for butter. On page 552 will be found a record of the produc- 



822 OLEOMARGARINE. 

tion before the committee by your orator of the original bonds signed 
by said Lowry for the appearance of some of the most notorious of 
these swindlers in the city of Chicago, as well as the production of 
bonds signed by Moxley's man, Gleeson, the charges against each 
defendant appearing upon the bonds, and reading, "Selling oleomar- 
garine as butter." 

In these cases the facts set forth were never denied. They were 
defended purely upon technical grounds, the claim being set up that 
the statutes under which they were brought had been repealed by 
implication by a later general food act, and were unconstitutional. The 
Illinois Dairy Union expended more than $1,600 in an effort to secure 
a conviction. A justice of the peace took it upon himself to adjudicate 
the question, and decided in favor of the defense upon this complicated 
point, and after that we could do nothing in the lower courts, although 
we carried the matter to the supreme court in mandamus proceedings 
in an effort to compel the issue of warrants under a law that would 
enable us to proceed. The judgment of the supreme court was that 
the issuance of a warrant was a judicial act, and that a judge could not 
be compelled by mandamus to move judicially. These facts are all set 
forth in the testimony before the House committee. 

Their very unique claim of unconstitutionality is set forth on page 
467, which goes to show that they make the same claim about every 
law that is attempted to be passed to regulate the sale of their product, 
i. e. , that it will prove prohibitory. This is from their brief, filed in 
the cases alluded to in the foregoing: 

It is very evident that a man who sells an article can not know the proportions 
that any adulterant enters into the butter, unless he mixes or manufactures it. jMere 
hearsay from the person from whom the seller purchases the article would not be 
evidence of the correct proportions or ingredients, so as to relieve the seller from any 
liability. The labeling by the manufacturer or the mixer of the article would not 
bind the seller with the true knowledge of the constituents of the article sold. 

Manifestly it would be impossible for the retailer or seller to make a chemical 
analysis of every article of this kind that enters his place, because it would make 
such additional expense that it would prohibit the sale of the article. If it would 
prohibit the sale of the article the statute is unconstitutional. 

In explanation of the above it might be stated that the law under 
which these prosecutions were brought also required the stamping 
upon each retail package the ingredients and proportions thereof which 
go to make up the mixture. What they claimed here was utterly 
impossible to do is being done in Ohio every day, samples of which 
stamps were exhibited before this committee by Mr. Schell. 

If further evidence were needed of the backing up of dealers in the 
sale of oleomargarine as butter, a notorious case occurring right here 
in Washington a few years ago might be cited, inasmuch as it is a 
matter of record in the courts and with the Attorney-General. 

Joseph Wilkins was of the firm of Wilkins & Co, , of Washington, 
whose brother, Walter E. Wilkins, comprised the company, the latter 
now being president of the new Standard Butterine Company of this 
city. 

Joseph Wilkins and his clerk, Howard Butler, were, after months of 
surveillance, detected removing the marks of identification and reve- 
nue stamps from a carload of oleomargarine in Philadelphia, the prac- 
tice being to remove the marks in that city in the railroad yards and 
send the goods here to be sold as pure butter. 

Joseph Wilkins and Howard Butler were sentenced to jail, with fines. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 823 

An attempt was made to pardon them. The matter was brought before 
President McBanley, who referred it to Attorney-General Griggs. 
The latter wrote the President as follows, showing up the character of 
such violations, which letter appears between pages 612 and 615 in the 
House testimony: 

The petitioners, Joseph Wilkins and Howard Butler, were convicted of fraudu- 
lently removing labels from packages containing oleomargarine in violation of the act 
of August 2, 1886, and were sentenced on March 17, 1898, as to Wilkins, to imprison- 
ment for six months and to pay a fine of $1,500 and costs, and, as to Butler, to 
imprisonment for four months and to pay a fine of $500 and costs. 

The judgment of the district court was subsequently aflBrmed in the circuit court of 
appeals, to which it was taken by the defendants, and an application subsequently 
made to the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari was denied. Thereupon, in 
November last, the petitioners were committed to serve their sentences of imprison- 
ment. 

The grounds of the application for a pardon as to Joseph Wilkins are that he has 
a wife and child, and that each of the prisoners is of good reputation and standing, 
and has never been convicted of any other crime. They request, in view of the 
humiliation and disgrace already suffered by them, as well as of the heavy fines 
imposed, and in view of their good reputation and standing in the community, and 
of the fact that no revenue has been lost to the Government, that that portion of the 
sentence providing for imprisonment be remitted. 

The records of the oflice of internal revenue show that Wilkins has been a per- 
sistent violator of the oleomargarine laws, and that prior to the present prosecution 
he has escaped punishment by means of money payments in compromise. The 
records show that on December 14, 1893, Wilkins filed a proposition to pay $2,100 
and costs in compromise of all liabilities, civil and criminal, incurred in the First 
district of Illinois, for selling oleomargarine as butter, and by violating various sec- 
tions of the law relating to wholesale dealers in oleomargarine. This ofEer was 
accepted December 26, 1893. 

April 4, 1895, less than a year and a half after the last settlement, Wilkins again 
filed an offer of compromise, agreeing to pay $2,000 in settlement of his liabiUties for 
alleged frauds under the oleomargarine law committed in connection with a firm in 
West Virginia. This offer was also accepted. 

A year later, April 2, 1896, Wilkins was indicted with another in the District of 
Columbia for selling unstamped oleomargarine. On June 20, 1896, he offered to pay 
$1,000 in compromise, but this being rejected the case went to trial and the accused 
was acquitted. There are three separate indictments against him pending now in 
the District of Columbia for selling oleomargarine in unstamped packages. These 
indictments were found January 4, 1897. 

The offense of which the petitioners are now convicted was committed December 
20, 1896, two days after the verdict of acquittal in the trial in the District of Columbia. 
The petitioners were discovered by a revenue agent in the act of scraping off the 
stamps, marks, and brands from packages of oleomargarine. 

In connection with the present case an offer to pay $8,000 and costs in compromise 
was made, but rejected February 23, 1898, and thereupon the case went to trial with 
the result above stated. 

It is obvious that the business in which Wilkins was engaged must have been one 
of great profit, otherwise he could not have afforded to make the very large payments 
in compromise which he did make or offered to make. 

That he was aware of the fraudulent and dishonorable nattire of the business in 
which he was persistently engaged appears from his own statement, made in a letter 
addressed to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue October 31, 1893, from which I 
quote the following: 

"Having a thorough knowledge of the butterine business, and knowing the possi- 
bilities of that business, if worked in certain directions and ways, I determined to 
try it, having the desire to make large gains quick. * * * After I found that 
some of my goods had been seized in Cincinnati, I settled up my business as quickly 
as possible, and did not ship any more. I came to you voluntarily, and I sincerely 
trust you will deal with me as leniently as the law will allow you, promising you 
faithfully that no such thing as this will ever occur again with me, and if I am allowed 
to make a request, I ask that I be allowed to settle without having the western houses 
know anything of my doings, because I know it was very dishonorable in me to do 
as I have done, and if I am allowed to go along in life without the public knowing 
of my misdeeds, then I feel sure that I can make a new start in some way that ia 
entirely honorable. I realize full well that I could have in some way kept away 



824 OLEOMARGARINE, 

from the hands of the law, but to do this would mean the staying away from home 
and relatives, and, above all, the constant strain on my mind, and with the sense 
that I had done a great wrong I could not stand it. Trusting that you will allow me 
to settle immediately, which will allow me to drift back into the channels of straight, 
legitimate business soon, 1 remain." 

Notwithstanding that the authorities were induced to settle with him upon his 
promise of abstention in the future from similar violations of the law, it appears that 
he straightaway resumed his operations, undoubtedly taking courage from the success 
with which he had compromised the first offenses in which he had been discovered. 

It is absolutely clear that for such a persistent violator of the law something more 
than a money penalty was essential. The sentence of imprisonment imposed in this 
case was peremptorily required by the circumstances. Nor can I say that the sentence 
was anything but moderate. It ia less than the average sentence imposed upon per- 
sistent violators of the internal-revenue laws relating to the distillation of spirits, and 
much less than the ordinary sentences imposed for violation of the laws against the 
use of the mails for fraudulent purposes. 

Not only is the dignity of the law to be upheld against such persistent violations, 
but the public is entitled to be protected by the salutary influence of stern punish- 
ment against fraud and deception such as were practiced in this case, by means of 
which the petitioners were enabled to impose upon innocent persons as genuine but- 
ter a counterfeit article which, if sold for what it really was, would have brought 
very much less in the open market. 

I do not think that the sentences should be interfered with. 

Who is this man Wilkins? 

As soon as detected in the act of removing oleomargarine marks at 
Philadelphia, so that his Washington business was no longer profitable, 
being indicted by the Federal grand jury, Wilkins was brought to 
Chicago by Messrs. Braun & Fitts, the largest manufacturers of oleo- 
margarine in the country, and given the responsible position of direct- 
ing the salesmen, which class have for years coached retailers in the 
art of swindling the public. 

Wilkins held this position as confidential man with Braun & Fitts 
during the time his case was being fought in court and the effort being 
made to pardon him, and went directly from their employ to prison at 
Philadelphia. 

During the time when Wilkins's pardon was being most actively 
sought by the influence of the oleomargarine manufacturers two other 
swindles of even as great magnitude, and of the same character, were 
unearthed. Not, however, by the Internal-Revenue Department, but 
by the agricultural department of New York. 

These swindles were gigantic in their proportions. The details were 
excellently set forth in the Times-Herald of Chicago, in its issue of 
Sunday, February 11. The Times-Herald's account of this swindle 
follows: 

Seek fraud in " oleo" — SuspidotLS of prime butter — Revenue agents claim to have un- 
earthed a swindle on the Government — Shipment seized and arrests made — More to 
follow. 

Government officials from three States are investigating what they believe to be the 
largest oleomargarine fraud in the history of the local internal-revenue department. 
The work of the officers has resulted in the arrest of John F. Eooney, who has had a 
preliminary hearing before Commissioner Mason and who is now on bonds of $2,500. 

Rooney is charged with selling oleomargarine as butter. The business was con- 
ducted in the names of the Aurora Produce Company and the Elgin Produce Com- 
pany. Checks produced in evidence upon the preliminary hearing tend to show 
that Rooney and his associates bought as high as $1,000 worth of the product daily 
and shipped it to customers in several States who had purchased it in the belief that 
it was high-grade butter. It is charged that in the three or four months that 
Eooney has been operating he has disposed of between $80,000 and $124,000 worth 
of oleomargarine, upon which he made at least 40 cents on the doUar. Eooney' s 



OLEOMARGARINE. 825 

arrest occurred nearly three weeks ago at the Ceylon and Japan Tea Company's place, 
700 West Forty-seventh street. 

KEVENUE AGENT AT WORK. 

Since Rooney's arrest several of the cleverest special agents in the employ ot the 
Government have been further investigating in the belief that certain manufacturers 
of oleomargarine were back of Rooney. It is also believed that had the scheme 
proved safe the fraudulent dealings would have been increased to a point Umited only 
by the ability to get customers. 

Last November the Agricultural Department learned that large quantities of sus- 
picious butter were being reshipped into eastern New York, and W. H. Butcher, of Troy, 
was detailed to look the matter up. On November 27 a consignment of 623 tubs was 
found in J. B. Wattles' s store in Buffalo. Samples were taken and the consignment 
allowed to go. Agents followed it to Chicago, where the Wabash officials were told 
that the shipment here was a mistake, and that the stuff should have been sent to 
Liverpool. It was reshipped and the Government agents seized it in Detroit. This 
lot is said to have been sold by Edward Marhoffer, of the Elgin Produce Company, 
6242 Halsted street. O. S. Martin, special agent of the internal-revenue department 
for Indiana, was sent to Chicago, and found that large quantities of oleomargarine 
had been shipped to John Schmitz, of Milwaukee. The latter told the agent that a 
man representing the Aurora Produce Company had called to see him and had said 
that his concern had a lot of high-grade butter which they could sell at less than pre- 
vailing market prices. Schmitz had at various times purchased several hundred dol- 
lars' worth from the concern in the beUef that he was buying good creamery butter. 

SCHMITZ PAYS HIS LICENSE. 

Schmitz was a witness before the commissioner and has since paid the Govern- 
ment $480 which is required for a wholesale oleomargarine license. The fact that he 
did not know he was selling oleomargarine did not cut any figure with his being 
liable for the license money. The department here has a list of forty or fifty dealers 
who will have to pay $48 for a retail Ucense for having bought "prime butter" of 
the concern. 

Agent Martin went to Aurora after seeing Schmitz and began looking for the 
Aurora Produce Company. He learned that a man named Rooney had rented a 
box at the post-office with instructions to have placed in it all his mail and that 
addressed to the Aurora Produce Company. Later he had given up the box and 
left instructions to have his mail forwarded to 196 LaSalle street. At this place 
Attorney Maurice Langhouse told the officer that Rooney had asked him to permit 
his mail to come there, and had paid him $10. Every day a boy came in and, plac- 
ing the mail in another envelope, forwarded it to Rooney, at 700 West Forty-seventh 
street. 

The agent's next move was to rent a room opposite the tea company's store. He 
soon discovered that wagons from Braun & Fitts, oleomargarine manufacturers, 
made almost daily deliveries of oleomargarine at the store. There the stamps would 
be removed and Expressman J. W. Foley would take the stuff to various freight 
offices for shipment. 

SEIZUBES AND ABBE8T8. 

When the evidence was conclusive seizures were made and a warrant sworn out 
for Rooney's arrest. It was learned that his brother, Elmer K. Rooney, was in the 
deal, and a telegram was sent to Joliet, where he happened to be selling "butter," 
to cause his arrest. Some one gave him timely warning and he fled. It is said that 
Edward Marhoffer, George E. Brannen, and a man named Casey have also disap- 
peared. 

In connection with Rooney, the officers arrested Patrick F. Butler, who worked at 
the Forty-seventh street place. His arrest was due to the fact that all checks in 
payment for the oleomargarine were made out to AValter F. Butler, and a bank clerk 
identified Patrick F. Butler as the man who drew the money on them. The evi- 
dence was insufficient to connect Butler with the fraud and he was discharged. 

The carload of oleomargarine seized at Detroit is valued at $5,000, and would indi- 
cate that the fraudulent dealings were even more extensive than appears from the 
evidence attained thus far. It is said that the local department is preparing to make 
other arrests in a few days, although the warrants have not been sworn out. W. J. 
Moxley, who sold Rooney small amounts of oleomargarine; John Dadie, and former 
Mayor John P. Hopkins went on Rooney's bond. Officers who have investigated 



826 OLEOMARGARINE. 

the Rooneys' history before the time they came to Chicago claim that they were sup- 
plied with large capital before engaging in the sale of "prime butter." When an 
attempt was made to gain possession of the books of the Aurora Produce Company it 
was learned that Rooney and another man had burned them in the kitchen stove. 

There were a number of very peculiar things about these cases, one 
of which was the ability of these adventurers, with no known finan- 
cial responsibility, to obtain credit for such large amount. Another 
was the fact that the salesman who went into New York and sold the 
"butter" proved to be a traveling salesman for one of these Chicago 
oleomargarine manufacturers, and still another peculiar thing was that 
representatives of the firms of Braun & Fitts and W. J. Moxley, the 
Chicago oleomargarine manufacturers who sold this oleomargarine to 
these swindlers, appeared before Commissioner Mason, and John 
Dadie, of Moxley's concern, went bail for Rooney. 

We desire to call the attention of your honorable body to the fol- 
lowing in the statement of Mr. Schell, page 264: 

I was talking with different members of the firm of French Brothers' Dairy Com- 
pany, at Cincinnati, before I came here. I might say that Mr. Tilden R. French, 
one of the present brothers, has been our county treasurer. He stands high politi- 
cally, socially, and financially. The family have been in the dairy business from a 
"time whence the mind of man runneth not to the contrary." * * * They have 
creameries in Hamilton County and creameries in the other southern counties of the 
State. Mr. Albert French told me very recently that they had over $100,000 invested 
in creameries in Warren County, one of our adjoining counties. 

I want to add here the statements of Tilden R. French and Mr. Albert French, of 
French Brothers, to the effect that they do not recognize olemargarine as a compet- 
itor in their business at all. On the contrary, they commend the manufacture and 
sale of oleomargarine, in that it supplies people who are not able to buy their 
product. 

Thinking this rather a strange position for such a prominent firm 
to take, I telegraphed them the purport of the above statement. In 
reply I received the following telegram, printed on page 473: 

Cincinnati, Ohio, January 9, 1901. 
Secretary National Dairy Union, National Hotel, Washington, D. C: 

Large percentage oleo sold here as butter. Hurts legitimate butter business. We 
want Grout bill passed. 

The French Bkos. Dairy Co. 

And French Bros. Dairy Company are supported in this statement 
by the testimony of ten leading wholesalers in butter at Cincinnati, 
whose letters are published on pages 474, 475, and 476, nearly every 
one of which tell of a fund of one-half cent per pound laid aside to 
defend violators when prosecuted. 

One of these Cincinnati merchants writes: 

Of course the wholesaler, in selling to the retailer, sells oleomargarine for what it 
is; he could not do otherwise. The retailer sells 90 per cent of what he buys for 
butter, and gets butter prices for it. More than 100 retail grocery stores in Cincinnati 
are to-day advertising the best Elgin Creamery at retail for 25 cents, while it is worth 
25^ cents in a jobbing way. The only opportunity in such transactions for profit 
is to substitute oleomargarine for butter, which is being done to a very great extent. 

Another one says: 

It is the retailers who offer it to the unsuspecting public as the genuine butter, and 
this without any interference. We know this to be a fact from transactiona of this 
nature in Cincinnati. 

A third substantiates the others, as follows: 

Dear Sir: We have just seen a telegram that a statement had been made to the 
committee that all oleomargarine was sold as such in CSncinnatL We wish to 



OLEOMARGARINE. 827 

emphatically deny such statement. The wholesale dealers may, as the United States 
Government compels them to, but the retailers sell it any way just to sell it, because 
they are protected by the wholesale dealers, who pay their fines if caught. We 
know it is sold as butter from personal observation. We also know that the retail 
dealer is protected in selling it, as our customers tell us when they take out licenses 
that they have no fear, as the wholesale dealers pay their fines if arrested. If no 
check is put on this fraud or imposition on the consumer, it is only a question of 
time when the dairy interests will be overwhelmed. 

A fourth has this to say: 

The wholesalers guarantee the retailers protection and pay their fines. If the 
Government does not pass the Grout bill, butter will soon be a thing of the past, as 
honest dealers in pure butter can not compete with fraud. Some of the retailers 
make no effort any more to sell for oleo, as the wholesalers pay the fines. There is 
nothing too mean or low for the oleo dealers to do. 

And another says: 

This butterine is sold here by retailers, grocers, market hucksters, and everybody 
else, and is palmed off to the trade for butter. The wholesalers here have told ua 
that they charge one-half cent a pound advance, and lay that money aside to fight 
the food inspectors. Every time a man is arrested, and from 5 to 20 a week are 
arrested for palming off butterine for butter, these wholesale men protect them. 
They come up and pay the fine and the retailer sells it again. 

A sixth writes: 

If I am informed rightly, you want to know if oleo is being sold for butter. It is 
not sold for butter by the wholesale dealers, but the deception practiced by the 
retailers is where the mischief is done. Every now and then a raid is made on these 
dealers. They are arrested, fined $50 and costs, which is paid by the wholesaler who 
furnishes, and in turn he charges one-haH cent extra on the oleo for this protection. 

And a seventh: 

Dear Sir: I learn from some of the members of the produce exchange of our city 
that a committee of oleomargarine naen have reported in Washington that oleomar- 
garine is sold as oleomargarine only in our city, which is false in its entirety. I 
know positively that there is sold daily thousands of pounds of oleomargarine for 
pure butter, and that the food and dairy commissioners are either powerless or are 
indisposed to antagonize. 

While there are some arrests being made, it seems to be on accoxmt of local petty 
jealousies among dealers, and not touching on the main offense. The oleomargarine 
dealers have a corruption fund with which they encourage the retail dealers to sell 
oleomargarine for butter. 

The following extract from the testimony on page 163 gives the esti- 
mate of Hon. J. C. Blackburn, food commissioner of Ohio, of the pro- 
portion of oleomargarine which ultimately goes to the consumer as 
butter in his State: 

Mr. Adams. I would like to ask you what percentage of oleomargarine, in your 
judgment, in the State of Ohio is sold for butter at retail stores, or finally sold upon 
the tables of hotels, restaurants, and boarding houses, as well as to the ordinary con- 
sumer? 

]\Ir. Blackburn. I would have to guess at that, Mr. Adams. My judgment would 
be 75 per cent of it. 

In speaking of the condition which prevailed in Philadelphia a short 
time ago, Mr. Luther H. Kaufl'man, attorney for the pure ))utter pro- 
tective association of that city, said before your honorable committee, 
as shown on page 238: 

We found again, in February of 1899, with this same United States law still in 
force, not a dealer in oleomargarine in the city of Philadelphia but who was selling 
oleomargarine as and for butter; and the detectives went out and paid butter prices 
for it, paying as high as 40 cents a pound for oleomargarine bought as butter. 

I have the cases here. There [exhibiting paper] is the Ust of cases, with the date 
of purchase and the name and address of the party. These are purchases made dur- 



828 OLEOMARGARINE. 

ing that time by this association. There they are, right straight along, page after 
page — more than 500 cases of purchases of oleomargarine in the city of Philadelphia. 
I am going to give you a summary of them. There are in this list more than 500 
cases of purchases of oleomargarine in the city of Philadelphia. The detectives, in 
every single case, without exception, asked for butter; and they got oleomargarine 
at butter prices, without any indication from the seller that it was oleomargarine. 
There you have a fraud directly upon the purchaser. 

Now, let me give you a summary of these cases. How many were marked? There 
are 508 cases here. I have the details there. I am not talking about supposititious 
cases. Every case is there, with the name and date and the result. These detectives 
went into these places, places kept by men who were supposed to be selling oleomar- i 
garine and who had paid revenue taxes. They asked for butter. Five hundred 
and eight purchases were made. Of those 508 purchases, 49 were butter and 459 
were oleomargarine. 

Gentlemen, I have heard a great many theories, but one ounce of fact is worth i 
tons of theories. That is a fact. There was not a single case of oleomargarine sold 
as oleomargarine. Of this large number of purchases there were marked surrepti- 
tiously, marked on the packages inside, marked with the word "Oleomargarine" 
turned down, perhaps 50 cases. Oh, if I were to go on to tell you the trickery, the 
fraud, the schemes resorted to to deceive the purchaser, I could talk to you here 
for two hours. But I will not go into such detail. The simple statement of the mat- 
ter is that every one of these purchases was made as butter, while out of 508 pur- 
chases only 49 were butter and the balance were oleomargarine. i 

* * * No law or regulation can be made to prevent the sale of colored oleomar- 
garine as and for butter. I do not care what your penalties are. Therefore, because 
of the impossibility of selling colored oleomargarine under restrictions, we ask that if 
colored oleomargarine shall be sold at all the manufacturer shall pay 10 cents a pound 
tax upon it, so as to make the expense of the article so much more. 

In relating his experience with oleomargarine, Mr. John J. Habacker, 
one of the delegation of buttermen from Philadelphia, who appeared 
before this committee, said, as shown on page 217: 

Now, I personally went into the butter business in 1878. I stood behind the 
counter and retailed butter to the amount of $35,000 a year, and I have yet the first 
person to come to me and ask me for oleomargarine — that is, a private individual. 
My experience in the business all through is that oleomargarine is a fraud from the 
beginnmg to the end; that it is made in the semblance of butter and is sold for 
butter. 

And the statement which follows, printed on pages 224 and 226, was 
made by Mr. W. F. Drennen, one of the most substantial of Philadel- 
phia's wholesale buttermen, who also appeared here personally: 

We used to handle oleomargarine many years ago. We handled it largely up to 
the time the first law was enacted, and we have handled it pending the decision on 
the constitutionality of our State law. After it became a settled fact that we could 
not handle it without violating the law, we quit it. * * * After being in the 
commission butter business over twenty years I can call to mind only one instance 
in which a consumer ever admitted that he bought it willingly or bought it for what 
it was. That may seem very strange to you, and yet it is true. I repeat that I can 
recall but one instance in all my lifetime where any person admitted that he bought 
it knowingly for what it was because he wanted it on his table. 

Now, then, I think the facts will bear me out in that. As chairman of the executive 
committee of the Pure Butter Association, we were compelled two years ago to enforce 
our State law through the medium of what money we could raise on the street and 
through appointing our own attorney and our own detectives. After having pur- 
chased about 161 samples and having them analyzed, and having those purchases 
recorded in a book where we could have access to them, the question came up: " How 
many purchases were made in which the vender gave them to the purchaser for oleo- 
margarine?" Butter was asked for, of course. Out of 161 cases, one was sold for 
exactly what it was. The 160 were sold for butter and at practically butter prices. 

* * * I have enough knowledge of the oleomargarine business to know that it 
is not sold for what it is; that there is no wholesaler who wants it sold for what it is, 
and that in fact there is no manufacturer who really wants it sold for what it is, for 
the reason that he can make a great deal more out of it and sell a great deal more of 
it through having it sold for butter. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 829 

Now, then, I do not want to forget anything. I came near forgetting a point that 
I wished to make. We formerly sold to one man perhaps $50,000 worth of high- 
grade oleomargarine every year. That man had a rule behind his stalls, where he 
had four cutters, that if one of them ever gave away the fact that oleomargarine was 
being sold in that stall he did it at the peril of his position, and he maintained that 
rule for years. I can think of three gentlemen in Camden who bought it and sold it, 
and they will tell you to-day that a pound never went out of their possession except 
for genuine butter, and they would not dare do it, and they would not do it. They 
sold it all for butter. 

Now those are the facts. I would be glad to be permitted to sell oleomargarine if 
there were any demand for it as such. But 99 per cent of it is sold fraudulently. 
That is absolutely my candid conviction, and it is what I gather from facts that have 
come under my own knowledge. Every dealer to whom we sold oleomargarine would 
tell you that he never could sell it, or would not sell it, except as butter, for the reason 
that he would not want his trade to know he was handling oleo. If he did, the cus- 
tomer would say, "Why don't you let me have it at a reasonable price?" The 
dealer would sell it at a price about a cent below that of fancy butter; hence the 
enormous profit. 

Mr. Samuel Jamison, also of Philadelphia, appeared before the com- 
mittee, and his evidence appears on page 232, Senate testimony, from 
which we take the following: 

We ask for additional legislation because we find that the goods can not be con- 
trolled except at the factory. The minute they leave the factory the deception begins. 
As reputable merchants, merchants of standing, with capital behind us, and with 
prominent locations in the center of a large city, we can not violate these laws. We 
are the first men to be arrested if we do violate them. But we have customers who 
sell these goods at retail. After they get possession of those goods, they remove all 
marks absolutely. They remove the revenue stamp; they scrape the word "oleo- 
margarine" off the boxes. They receive the oleomargarine itself without any marks 
whatever on it. Then they proceed to sell it as butter. * * * 

I doubt very much whether any individual can go to any one of those retail dealers 
who has a Government license to sell oleomargarine and succeed in obtaining oleo- 
margarine if he asks for it. I have repeatedly asked retail dealers who had a Gov- 
ernment license (generally under some assumed name; instead of taking their own 
name, they call themselves some creamery company or other) for oleomargarine. I 
have said to these men, "Are you handling oleomargarine?" "No; I do not sell it." 
Still, we know that they pay for a Government license. We know that they receive 
the goods. We know that they sell to their regular trade, every day, oleomargarine 
for butter. A stranger who comes to one of their places of business and asks for but- 
ter will probably receive butter, because he is an unknown buyer; but to their reg- 
ular trade we find that they sell oleomargarine to this day, in spite of what may 
be called the prohibitory law of the State of Pennsylvania and a national law which 
requires oleomargarine to be marked. We find it simply imiDossible to control the 
sale of oleomargarine as oleomargarine after the goods leave the factory. 

From Baltimore, Mr. S. B. Medairy, of the firm of Bosee, Medairy 
& Co. , and president of the protective association of Baltimore, appeared, 
and made, among others, the following statement, as printed on pages 
440 and 442: 

During that time (two years) , as well as my memory serves me, out of nearly one 
hundred and forty-one cases — I think that was the exact number, although I may be 
mistaken in regard to one or two cases — there was not a single retail sale in the course 
of prosecution but what was sold as and for butter by the storekeeper or the restau- 
rateur, and in many instances we found that the people who were being prosecuted 
were innocent of any intention of violating the law, but had been deceived by the 
vender, who in turn had bought his product from the manufacturer's agent, but had, 
subsequent to its purchase, taken the product from the original package and placed 
it in a basket or a box, a vessel of some kind, and sold it as and for butter. The 
uninitiated, not being able to distinguish one from the other by virtue of its sem- 
blance, bought the same for butter and in turn sold it as such. 

* * * We have yet to have an arrest of a dealer, other than a manufacturer's 
agent, and my statement can be verified upon investigation, wherein anyone, with- 
out exception, inan, woman, or child, sold colored oleomargarine as and for such. 



830 OLEOMARGARINE. 

From Hon. G. L. Flanders, assistant commissioner of agriciilturo 
for the State of New York, we have the following statements, printed 
on pages 121, 135, and 125, respectively: 

In 1878 it appeared in the State of New York that oleomargarine was being sold, 
and sold as butter. It was thought then that the State would try to regulate the 
matter. It passed a statute that the goods might be sold, but should be branded as 
such. That law proved uieffective, and in 1880 the State passed another act provid- 
ing that when sold it should be branded as oleomagarine. That act, although more 
restrictive, proved ineffective; and in 1882 the State passed another law more 
restrictive, and that failed to produce a result, and, finally, in 1884 it passed an act 
providing oleomargarine should not be sold as a substitute for butter. That act was 
declared unconstitutional. * * • * 

For sixteen years I have been watching this work, seeing it go on. There is a gen- 
tleman here representing a large firm in Chicago. They came down into our State 
two or three years ago and attempted to put in oleomargarine. I myself went into 
the city of Cohoes with two other men. We watched for two weeks. We finally 
found that it came in over the railroad in barrels of 10-pound tubs, with canvas over 
the heads of the barrels. We had it watched day and night. I went myself with 
men from house to house inhabited by French families who could not speak a word 
of English. I asked an old woman if she bought it for butter. ' She could not speak 
any English. I got a little girl there to ask the old lady what she bought it for, and 
she said, "For butter." "For pure butter?" I asked. She said, "Yes." I said, 
" What did you pay?" She told me 22 cents, and that was the price of butter. It 
was sold to those people for butter. It has been our experience for sixteen years 
in the State of New York that that is what is done. * * * 

Now, I am not guessing or talking at random, for in 1884 and 1885, when we com 
menced to enforce these laws, you were selling, or those who were in the same busi- 
ness that you are in to-day were selling, in the State of New York 15,000,000 pounds, 
and they told the same story then as glibly as you tell it now — that they wanted to 
sell it for what it was. Our men went into the city of New York, and if they went 
into a store where they were known and called for butter they got butter; but just 
as soon as they put on the garments of 'longshoremen, which they did in a great 
many instances, to see what the facts were, and took a basket upon their arms and 
bought a quarter of a pound of tea and a loaf of bread, they got oleomargarine. 
This is no fanciful dream. It is a fact. 

And from another assistant, Mr. Kracke, having charge of the 
enforcement of the law in Greater New York, we have the following 
statement, on pages 365 and 36 Y: 

It is said here by some of the friends of the bill that 75 per cent of the oleomarga- 
rine sold is sold as and for butter. Now, I rather disagree with them. From my 
experience in New York, and I have had five years' experience there in enforcing the 
law, I rather disagree with that proposition and that statement. Every ounce of it 
that is sold in New York is sold as and for butter. 

Now, from New Jersey these peddlei's with wagons come over and deliver oleo- 
margarine to private houses and boarding houses in this way: 

An agent will come along, calling at the different houses, asking for the mistress of 
the house, and tell her a story about how he can deliver her some nice creamery but- 
ter for a certain price if she will contract with him for a year. Of course that price 
will always be from 5 to 10 cents below the creamery-butter price — 5 cents, as a rule. 
Then, after she has seen the cheapness of the thing, the saving in the price, believing 
this to be genuine butter, she will give the order. Then, a few days later, these 
wagons come over from New Jersey into New York to deliver these goods. They are 
bought for and aa butter. 

On page 367 Mr. Kracke tells of one ingenious method uncovered 
for the fraudulent sale of oleomargarine as butter. 

The method is this: The man has a boy there in the store. Next time you go there 
you will see this boy walking in the place. As the men, about 10 or 11 o'clock in 
the morning, get their orders ready and they ai-e put in the wagon for delivery, this 
boy will be walking up and down, watching the orders. He will have on a very 
large coat. This coat is very heavily lined, and it is interlined and intersewed so 
that it will permit a number of pound prints of oleomargarine to be placed in the 
lining. The boy will go with the wagon, and when it gets to a certain house where 
he wants to deliver oleomargarine with the order, whereas butter has been ordered, 



OLEOMARGARINE. ' 831 

he will take one print or two prints out of the lining of his coat pocket, put it in the 

order, and take it in the house. 

That is an illustration of how they sell oleomargarine for butter, gentlemen. 

Mr. Miller. What do they do on hot days? 

Mr. Kracke. This was not a hot day. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Miller. How many pounds did this boy carry at once? 

Mr. Kracke. He carried 28 pounds. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Now, do you mean to tell the committee that the person to 
whom that oleomargarine was delivered was deceived in the purchase? 

Mr. Kracke. Unquestionably. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Do you know that, or is it simply a question of opinion? 

Mr. Kracke. I know it absolutely, because we went there and asked them, and 
after that they testified to it. Moreover, they paid 28 cents a pound for it. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. lu how many instances did you find that to be true? 

Mr. Kracke. In every instance. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. How many were there? 

Mr. Kracke. What do you mean? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Of how many cases of that kind have you any recollection? 

Mr. Kracke. One thousand. [Laughter.] 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Do you mean prosecutions? 

Mr. Kracke. One thousand prosecutions. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. What was the prosecution for — selling oleomargarine for butter? 

Mr. Kracke. Selling oleomargarine for butter. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Or was it for selling oleomargarine colored? 

Mr. Kracke. Selling colored oleomargarine for butter. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. That was what the prosecution was for? 

Mr. Kracke. That was what the prosecution was for, and there were 1,000 convic- 
tions, too. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. In how long a time? 

Mr. Kracke. In the last three or four years. Do you want me to go back further? 

And on page 450 the following statement from the Hon. S. C. Bas- 
set, president state board of agriculture of Nebraska, who appeared 
before this committee: 

In my own State very few measures before Congress have ever created the interest 
among our farmers that this one does. 

We have been struggling for years to suppress the fraudulent sale of oleomargarine 
as and for butter. By a large majority in the house and with but two dissenting 
votes in the senate we passed in 1895 a law prohibiting the sale of imitation butter 
colored yellow. 

This law is openly violated. Large quantities of oleomargarine of a yellow color 
are sold, and I fully believe 90 per cent of the same is sold to the consumer as and 
for butter. 

******* 

It ought not to be forgotten, but should be kept constantly in mind, that the 
exceedingly large profits which dealers in oleomargarine receive is the reason why its 
sale is so strenuously pushed. Those who divide the profits of this most profitable 
business are comparatively few in number, and the retail dealers, whj are the princi- 
pal violators of the law, receive the lion's share of the profit, considering the amount 
handled. With us a retail dealer makes not to exceed an average of 2 cents per 
pound on butter sold, while the retail dealer in oleomargarine makes a profit of 8 to 
10 cents per pound. 

By State legislation we seem well-nigh powerless to control this fraud, and this is 
why we come to the National Congress, believing that this is the only power which 
can compel the sale of this product on its own merits and for what it is. 

When the Secretary of Agriculture, the Hon. James Wilson, 
appeared before this committee, he was asked and answered a question 
as follows: 

Mr. ScHELL. I would like to ask further, if you know from your own experience or 
from the reports that have come to you of a single case where the consumer haa ever 
been prosecuted because of being defrauded by the dealer. 

Secretary Wilson. I can find plenty of such cases in this very city. * * * 
There is no question about the everyday deception of us people who have to buy 
butter. 



832 OLEOMARGARINE. 

And later, in reply to a question by Senator Money (p. 421), Mr. 
Wilson said: 

Well, you have a perfect right to buy oleomargarine, but I do not want you to 
be deceived and pay 10 cents a pound too much. The poor people are being robbed 
by this deception to the extent of 10 cents a pound; and you and I, who have to 
take butter from second or third hands in this city, are deceived regularly. If you 
will send me samples of the butter you are eating between now and spring, I will tell 
you the percentage of it that is oleomargarine. I will have it analyzed. In fact, we 
nave been analyzing it for members of Congress who have sent samples to us. 

Said President Cleveland, in his message approving the oleomargarine legislation 
of 1886, as shown by evidence before House committee, page 3: 

"Not the least important incident related to this legislation is the defense afforded 
to the consumer against the fraudulent substitution and sale of an imitation for a 
genuine article of food of a very general household use. * * * j venture to say 
that hardly a pound ever entered a poor man's house under its real name and in its 
true character." 

THE COLOR QUESTION. 

The entire question now before Congress is, Shall the General Gov- 
ernment aid, through the Grout bill, the enforcement of the laws of 
the various States which prohibit the manufacture and sale of oleo- 
margarine colored in semblance of butter ? 

It is admitted and expected that colored oleomargarine with a tax 
of 10 cents per pound upon it will have to compete in price with but- 
ter. The intention of the framers of the law is to bring its cost of 
production up to such a figure that there will be no incentive of a 
large profit, which is now the sole cause of the great fraud being per- 
petrated upon the public at the expense of producers of pure butter. 

It is admitted that the producers of butter do in many months of the 
year color their product. But they claim that they have done this 
from time "whence the mind of man runneth not back." To quote 
Senator DoUiver, "The poets speak of butter as yellow," Henry C. 
Pirrung, general manager of the Capital City Dairy Company, Colum- 
bus, Ohio, makers of oleomargarine, in his statement (see p. 188) said: 

On the contrary, in my humble opinion the coloring of butter should be allowed, 
because even the school child who has passed the primary grade will define the color 
of butter as "yellow," and every adult expects at this advanced age to have the 
product served to him "yellow." 

Mr. Rathbone Gardner, attorney for the Oakdale Manufacturing 
Company, oleomargarine makers, of Providence, R. I. , said, as recorded 
on page 33: 

Even before the invention of the great creameries, and before the use of the sub- 
stance which has now been adopted for coloring it, butter has always been artificially 
colored. 

Hon. G. L. Flanders, assistant commissioner of agriculture of New 
York State, is reported, on page 125, as follows: 

Now, how about the question of competition? In the first place, let us no back to 
the color of butter. The natural color of butter, when the cow is living on nature's 
food, is a rich yellow. Butter has been that color so long that the memory of man 
runneth not to the contrary. When these people, back in the seventies, started to 
make oleomargarine what did they do? They undertook to make it look like our 
commodity. Is that all? No. In taste and smell they attempted to make it like 
our commodity, so that every feature would deceive every sense that man could pos- 
sibly apply to the commodity. Were they content with that? No, sir. They came 
into the market and sold it for butter. 

It seems to be settled, therefore, that butter has always been known, 
spoken of, and looked upon as yellow. Therefore the only question 



OLEOMARGARINE. 833 

is, has a new article the right to come in and usurp a characteristic 
absolutely foreign to its natural condition under any circumstance and 
the distinct property of another popular and more expensive article 
for centuries? 

To settle this question, we must inquire, why should not the new 
article assume the cloak and color of the older and more popular and 
expensive? 

The answer, as we claim is shown by the testimony, is that the 
yellow color in oleomargarine makes it look like butter and causes 
thousands to buy it at a butter price, thinking it is butter, or to con- 
sume it as butter when they would reject it if its real character were 
not concealed by the yellow color. The color in butter fools nobody 
into believing it is anything else. 

How do we prove that the yellow color in oleomargarine is used to 
deceive ? 

First, by the common sense of every man who knows he has eaten 
oleomargarine hundreds of times at public houses, because a large 
proportion of them serve it, and not having recognized it. Had it 
not been disguised by the color, he would have known it at the time. 

But to go to the testimony and prove our case by the record. 

On April 5, 1899, William J. Moxley, of Chicago, sent his trade the 
following circular letter, as shown in the House testimony (page 606) : 

[William J. Moxley, manufacturer of fine butterine, 63 and 65 West Monroe street.] 

Chicago, April 5, 1899. 

NOTICE TO THE TRADE. 

Inclosed find a color card, which is as near the color of our butterine as the print- 
er's art can represent. Our aim in sending you this card is to aid you in selecting 
the proper color suitable to your trade. Mistakes are easily made, but hard to remedy. 

In nearly every section of the country there is a difference in the color of butter, 
and even in certain seasons of the year there is a change, as you will have noticed. 
In winter butter is of a lighter color than in summer; in many sections this is the 
result of the difference in feed or pasture. 

We can give you just what you want at all seasons if we know your requirements. 
As an example: No. 1 haa no coloring matter; No. 2 a little coloring, and so on to 
No. 8, which is the highest-colored goods we turn out. Preserve this card, order 
the color you want by number, and we will send you just what you want. 
Yours, truly, 

"W. J. Moxley. 

Now, if Mr. Moxley had not anticipated or intended to suggest that 
his customer should sell this oleomargarine as butter, why should he 
suggest the ordering by color card to correspond with the natural color 
of "butter?" He might have some claim to a desire to furnish a color 
suitable to a locality, but why suggest that " the color of butter is 
lighter in winter than in summer?" Are we to presiune that the taste 
of the consumer changes with the "season?" 

Does not the above circular show that the object of coloring oleomar- 
garine is to imitate butter even to the different seasons, when feed or 
pasture changes its natural color? 

If the intention was not to imitate butter, why mention butter at all ? 

If tastes vary for oleomargarine, why not say, "In nearly every sec- 
tion of the country there is a difference in the color of oleomargarine, 
and even at certain seasons of the year there is a change, as you will 
have noticed. In winter oleomargarine is a lighter color than in sum- 
mjer. In many sections this is the result of the difference in feed or 
pasture." 

But Mr. Gardner, representing the Oakdale Manufacturing Com- 

S. Rep. 2043 53 



834 OLEOMARGARINE. 

pany, oleomargarine makers, admits, we tiiink, that oleomargarine 
must sail under butter's colors, no matter what they are, in the fol- 
lowing (p. 44): 

Mr. Gardner. I say that as long as there is in the market something which people 
want and which they have been accustomed to use you can not sell them something 
which they do not want and which they are not accustomed to use. Do not mis- 
understand me, please. If all butter was left imcolored and if all oleomargarine 
was left uncolored, of course both oleomargarine and butter would sell, and they 
would sell upon the same plane. People would still have something to put on their 
bread, although they could not get what they wanted. 

The following colloquy and statement from pages 204 and 205 will, 
we believe, throw considerable light upon the subject: 

Senator Dolliver. Have you discussed the reason why the product is colored? 
Why do they not put it on the market in its natural condition? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. That has been discussed by others who preceded me, and very 
thoroughly, too. 

Senator Dolliver. If it is in the record, that is all that is necessary. 

Mr. TiLLiNC4HAST. I will say that it is simply conformable to the law of custom and 
taste, one of the strongest laws to run up against. 

Senator Dolliver. Do you think anybody would buy it if it was light or white 
colored? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Ycs, sir; I think it would be sold in very limited quantities. 

Senator Dolliver. I understood from some of your people that they thought if 
they were compelled to color it white it would destroy the market. They have 
written to me to that effect. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Yes, sir; there is no doubt about that. It would entirely destroy 
the industry as an industry. An industry putting out 107,000,000 poimds a year 
would be practically totally destroyed, because nobody would buy white oleomarga- 
rine to put upon their table. 

Senator Dolliver. Is that mere prejudice and custom? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Solely that and nothing more, sir. 

Senator Dolliver. It seems to me you might overcome that prejudice? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. You could not overcome it so long as butter is colored. So long 
as butter is put upon the table yellow, in my judgment, it would be impossible to 
sell white oleo as against colored butter. You can sell white oleo against white 
butter. 

The Acting Chairman. Would it destroy the butter business if butter were not 
colored? 

Senator Dollivee, The great hotels, I notice, are serving white butter. Have you 
noticed that? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Yes, sir. 

Senator Dolliver. Without even salt in it? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Yes, sir. I know that is true in some cases. 

Senator Dolliver. I noticed that in a hotel in New York the other day. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Ycs; that is true, I think, at the Waldorf. 

Senator Dolliver. They do that, perhaps, in order to guarantee their good faith. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. In response to your question, Mr. Chairman, I am of the opinion 
that people would eat butter, that they could not get along without the use of butter, 
and that if all butter was white there would be the same quantity of butter used as 
is used to-day. 

Senator Heitfeld. Then you think if all butter was uncolored you could let vour 
oleo go uncolored? 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Why; certainly. 

Senator Heitfeld. I would suggest a compromise with the dairyman — throw away 
all the color. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. Yes, sir; if they will do that. I noticed the gentlemen on the 
other side laugh when I said that if all butter was white we could sell oleomargarine 
white. 

Senator Heitfeld. Oh, well, you had your laugh yesterday. 

Mr. TiLLiNGHAST. I am going to have it again. I said that if all butter was white 
we could sell oleo white; and that is true. I will tell you why it is true. I am here 
to confess and to state that oleomargarine, notwithstanding it is a distinct product 
knownto science, is a product that is used by people who use it for butter knowing 
that it is oleomargarine, and using the substitute instead of the real article. They 
use it because it is a substitute. You may use the word "imitation" if you please, 
and I will agree with you. It is an imitation of butter; and being an imitation it is 



OLEOMARGARINE. 835 

sold as the imitation, and people buy it because it is an imitation, and they would 
not want it if it was not an imitation. It is an imitation, precisely the same as cotton 
may imitate worsted. People buy it because it is an imitation, and they know what 
they are buying and they know what they are using. Would you pass a law here 
that would destroy the use of all imitations.? Why, it is one of my delightful recol- 
lections to think that for 25 cents I can buy a painting that will imitate the finest 
paintings in the world by the finest masters, and I buy it because it is an imitation. 
It is gratifying to me to know that for 25 cents I can buy a volume of Shakespeare 
that will contain just as good reading matter as the most expensive edition that could 
possibly be put out. Imitations are not to be legislated against. They are proper; 
they are legitimate; they are right; and the people will have them just as long as 
people live. 

So that if oleomargarine imitates butter, as it does, and people buy it because it 
imitates butter, and would not buy it if it did not imitate butter, then unless there 
is some reason other than has been given here, there should be no legislation against 
it. The only reason suggested is that in some instances it is sold for butter. I have 
already stated that that is of too small consequence to be considered by the Congress 
of the United States, because is amounts to so very, very little. 

Here is an honest confession that oleomargarine is an imitation and 
a claim that it must imitate butter to be successfully sold. 

And yet we contend that there is a field for a substitute that is not 
a counterfeit; that oleomargarine can be sold in its natural color if its 
makers wUl spend the time and money to build up a trade and reputa- 
tion for it instead of endeavoring to push it into consumption upon the 
reputation of and demand for butter. 

This, we believe, will be proven by the following statement by Hon. 
H. C. Adams, food commissioner of Wisconsin, on page 432: 

I have here samples of butterine which may interest this committee, and the 
gentlemen upon the other side of the question are invited to inspect them. These 
samples were obtained in obedience to my orders by N. J. Field, of Milwaukee. He 
was instructed by me a week ago last Thursday to go to the stores of Oshkosh, Mil- 
waukee, and Racine, in our State, and purchase samples of uncolored butterine, and 
to write upon those samples the date of purchase; the name of the firm from whom 
they were purchased, and the cost. I now have the pleasure of submitting these 
samples to this cormnittee for their inspection. 

Senator Hansbkough. You say he was instructed to procure samples of uncolored 
butterine? 

Mr. Adams. Yes, sir; of oleomargarine. I would like to say that one or two of 
these samples, possibly more, are slightly colored, but they were purchased for 
uncolored oleomargarine. 

Mr. Jelke. If the chairman will permit me, I would like to make a suggestion 
that these samples be submitted to the Government chemist to find out whether or 
not they contain artificial coloring, and also to report on whether they contain any 
unwholesome ingredient. I do not know where they come from, or anything about it. 

Senator Allen. I think that ought to be done. 

Senator Hansbrough. I shall direct the clerk of the committee to take care of 
these samples after they have been exhibited, and send them to the chemist at the 
Agricultural Department for examination. 

Mr. Jelke. May I suggest that the analysis be made for the purpose of ascertain- 
ing the percentage of butter fats in each one, as well as the color and what kind of 
color. 

Senator Hansbrough. Yes; he will be directed to make a thorough analysis. 

Mr. Adams. I wish to say, gentlemen, that all these samples, with the possible 
exception of this one, were^sold by the dealer in response to a call for uncolored but- 
terine, they claiming that they had received it from the manufacturers as uncolored 
butterine. 

Mr. Jelke. The test will show that. 

Mr. Adams. I now wish to present to the committee and have incorporated in the 
testimony the bill for this. It is as follows: 

William J. Moiley, 
Majtufactuker of Fene Buttkrinb, 66 and 67 W. Monroe Street, 

Chicago, Janiuiry 25, 1900. 
W. R. Wright & Co., 

4845 N. Clark street, Rogers Park, lU. 

Uncolored oleomargarine: 2 / 56 D. 2 pts. 112 13, $14.56. 



836 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Senator Hansbrough. Did all this come under an order for uncolored goods? 

Mr. Adams. These all came under an order from my inspector, Mr. N. J. Field, to 
Jensen & Beck, Racine; Hanley Brothers, Racine; D. C. Adams, Milwaukee; J. 
Linehan, Milwaukee, and Hoenig & Co., Oshkosh. He purchased samples of 
uncolored hutterine for the purpose of demonstrating the fact that some of the grocers 
of our State think they are endeavoring to comply with the law, and some of them 
are endeavoring to comply with the law, and some of them sell oleomargarine 
uncolored. 

******* 

The figures given to me or to my assistant by gentlemen connected with the firms 
which have been cited here as to their sales of what they call uncolored butterine, a 
portion of which is evidently uncolored butterine, and a portion of which is faintly 
colored, possibly, and possibly not — that is to be determined by a chemist — are: 
Jensen & Beck, 3,000 pounds a year; Hanley Brothers, 3,000 poimds a year; D. C. 
Adams, Milwaukee, 19,000 pounds a year; L. Linehan, 5,000 pounds a year, and 
Hoenig & Co., of Oshkosh, 6,000 pounds a year. These are approximate figures. 
Perhaps D. C. Adams, of Milwaukee, who said he sold 60 pounds a day, sells more 
or less than the figures I have given. Sixty pounds a day during six days of the 
week, calling 320 days to the year, would amount to about 19,000 pounds. 

The following, in this connection, is interesting, as printed on page 
531: 

Mr. Jelke. Would you want to eat uncolored oleomargarine on your table? 

Senator Dolliver. No; I have a constitutional prejudice against it, I must confess. 

Mr. Jelke. Would you want to eat white butter? 

Senator Dolliver. Oh, yes; I have eaten it the year round, and in youth I churned 
it. As Senator Allen says, everybody eats white butter on the farm. 

Mr. Jelke. As soon as that butter is shipped to the city it is colored. 

Senator Dolliver. I am talking about my own taste. 

Mr. Schell. The wholesale dealers in Cincinnati have tried to put white oleomar- 
garine on the market, but have reported to me that it was absolutely impossible to 
do it. Mr. Seither, who claims to be, and I believe is, the oldest man in that busi- 
ness in this country, tells me he has tried it from time to time, but it is utterly 
impossible; that the people will not take it. He has not told me the reason why, 
but I think one of the principal reasons is the fact that there is an unwarranted 
sentiment attached to it, an unwarranted prejudice against it, and people do not 
want to put it on their tables for the criticism of their neighbors. You know how a 
neighboring woman will say: "Mrs. Smith uses oleo," etc. 

Senator Allen. Is not this the fact: That the man does not want to put oleomar- 
garine on his table knowingly, because of his natural inclination for butter? 

Mr. Schell: No; I think not. * * * 

Now, as to the fairness of coloring butter and not coloring oleomar- 
garine. There were a number of interesting discussions. The fol- 
lowing is reported on page 127: 

Mr. Mathewson. Would it be a fair proposition to ask the manufacturers of cream- 
ery butter to leave the color out of their butter? 

Mr. Flanders. No, sir; and I will tell you why. In the first place, that is the 
natural color of the butter, if they color it as they ought to color it. Butter is yellow 
when the cows feed upon nature's succulent food. Color in butter is for the purpose 
of uniformity. 

Mr. Mathewson. It brings a little more on the market. 

Mr. Flanders. Not at all. I ate butter in New York City the other day with all 
the flavoring you could ask, and not one bit of coloring and not a bit of salt in it. 
I ate to-day down at the hotel cheese with not one bit of coloring matter in it, and I 
liked it just as well. The truth is that the people, if your commodity is good, can 
be educated to eat it without its coloring matter, and you will not deceive them as 
to the commodity. 

On page 421 Secretary Wilson says: 

There is no difiiculty about having naturally colored butter. It is colored by the 
grass in summer. That is nature's way, and when you imitate nature you are prob- 
ably not going very far wrong; but we do not know enough about milk, any of us 
yet, to be able to form a substitute that will stay on the stomach the same as butter. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 837 

And on page 11 Governor Hoard brings out a point, as follows : 

I had a distinguished member of the other House ask me if butter was not colored 
in winter to make the consumer believe that it was made last June. That gentle- 
man was a student of maxims, not of markets. The cheapest and poorest butter in 
winter is that made last June. The highest-priced butter is that which is not over 
ten days old and faultless in character and flavor. 

A very complete statement was made on page 625, the most inter- 
esting part of which follows: 

Mr. Knight. I will say in that connection that I have been in the butter trade for 
twelve years, and I have never heard that the color of butter was indicative of its 
quality, so far as its wholesomeness is concerned. Senator Dolliver has had experi- 
ence in New York to the effect that at the Waldorf-Astoria they serve you with but- 
ter perfectly white. I was in England for the Agricultural Department investigating 
butter in that country, and they served me there with white butter all the tmie I 
was there, and I never heard anybody complain because it was white. 

Mr. Tompkins. Why do they ever want to have the color in it? 

Mr. Knight. The average natural color of butter is two-thirds normal. You take 
our dairies throughout the United States, and one cold wave or storm wdll change 
the color of the butter. One cold wave that will drive the cows from feeding on the 
green pastures to feeding on hay or any kind of green food will make the butter 
white this week which last week was yellow. That is true of any place. 

The tendency of all commerce is toward uniformity in everything. Butter is put 
up in packages or in tubs. Everybody puts up everything with this idea of uniformity 
in \aew. That is what the public demands. It does not make any difference in 
what shape the packages are, but all the packages must be uniform in order to be 
merchantable. So with butter. Butter must be uniform in packages, uniform in 
body, uniform in the amount of salt, uniform in flavor, uniform in color. The 
weather conditions may be such that one day will make white butter and another 
day will make yellow butter. I tell you that it is necessary that we do some- 
thing to keep the color uniform. When I tell you that, I am telling you what I 
know. I say to-day that it would be better for the butter trade if butter could be 
made white uniformly and all the time, rather than yellow part of the time and white 
part of the time. The consumers would soon become used to that uniformity. But 
we can not accomplish that. In the winter time butter is white all the time if the 
color is kept out of it. If oleomargarine were white, where would our distinction 
be? In this bill we seek a distinction between the two articles. 

If a bill could be passed that would cause the color to be kept out of butter and 
oleomargarine in the winter time, then the oleomargarine men would go to their 
retailers and tell them, "You know there was a law passed at the last Congress which 
practically forbids coloring butter." Where would the value of the law be that 
would bring the two articles down to the same basis as regards color? It is true that 
would be an advantage in the summer time, when butter is cheap, and they have no 
market for oleo to amount to anything then. But when it came to the winter time 
the color might be taken out, and the two articles standing side by side would show 
the same color, and then fraud would be practiced just the same. Every man who 
wanted to sell oleomargarine for butter would convince the consumer that it was 
natural butter, and would tell him that color had been forbidden by law, and that 
butter is white in winter. 

And the following discussion between Senator Money and Secretary 
Wilson is instructive: 

Senator Money. I never know that I have got the genuine article except when I 
go home. 

Secretary Wilson. After Uving a winter in Washington and eating bogus butter 
our taste becomes vitiated. Some of the first-class hotels and first-class restaurants 
here do get first-class butter from reputable dealers, but the majority of them use 
oleomargarine. 

Senator Money. If we are all eating bogus butter and we can not tell it by the 
taste, and we can not tell it by the color, and we can not tell it by the effect, what 
harm has happened to anybody? 

Secretary Wilson. The bogus butter deceives you in your pocketbook. It costs 
you far more than it should. There is where the trouble comes. It costs you too 
much. 

Senator Money. Would I get the fine-grade butter any cheaper if we abolish oleo- 
mai'garine? 



838 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Secretary Wilson. If you abolish the coloring proposition. I would not abolish 
oleomargarine. The manufacture of that is legitimate, but the moment you buy it 
yoUjjire deceived by somebody. We are not the men who select the butter that we 
eat li we board at a hotel or boarding house, and the boarding-house man can 
deceive us, and he does. 

In Twelfth Missouri Appeals appears the following in relation to 
the coloring of oleomargarine to imitate butter: 

The mere fact that experts may pronounce an article intended for human food to 
be harmless does not render it incompetent for the legislature to prohibit the manu- 
facture and sale of the article. The test of the reasonableness of the police regula- 
tion pi'ohibiting the making and vending of a particular article of food is not alone 
whether it is in part unwholesome and injurious. If an article of food is of such a 
character that few persons will eat it, knowing its real character, if at the time it is 
of such a nature that it can be imposed upon the public as an article of food which 
it is not, and yet to which and against which there is no protest, and if in addition to 
this there is probable ground for believing that the only way to prevent the public 
from being defrauded into the purchasing of the counterfeit article for the genuine 
is to prohibit altogether the manufacture and sale of the former, then we think that 
such a prohibition may stand as a reasonable police regulation, although the article 
prohibited is indeed innocuous, and although its production might be found bene- 
ficial to the public if in buying it they could distinguish it from the production of 
which it is an imitation. 

******* 

The manufacturer may brand it with its real name. It may carry that brand with 
it into the hands of the broker and commission merchant and even into the hands 
of the retail grocer, but there it will be taken off and it will be sold to the consumer 
as real butter or it will not be sold at all. The fact that the present state of the 
public taste, the public judgment, or the public prejudice with regard to it is such 
that it can not be sold except by cheating the ultimate purchaser into the belief 
that it is the real butter stamps with fraud the entire business of making and vend- 
ing it and furnishes a justification for the police regulation prohibiting the making 
and vending of it altogether. 

And when asked why color butter in winter and not oleomargarine, 
Secretary Wilson said (page 419): 

I have had that question asked me before and have thought a great deal about it. 
The reply is simply this: The coloring of butter in the winter time deceives nobody. 
The coloring of the fats of commerce to make an imitation deceives everybody. 

THE LIVE-STOCK QUESTION. 

The most active, aggressive opponents of the Grout bill have been 
the live-stock organizations. 

A little idea of the cause for their aggressiveness may be had from 
a review of the statements made before the committee by their repre- 
sentatives, or through them. 

The basis of the opposition of the National Live Stock Association, 
represented by Judge Springer, before the committee, is shown in 
the resolution he presents from his association, which contains the 
following (page 78 printed testimony): 

The "butter fat" of an average beef animal, for the purpose of making oleomarga- 
rine, is worth from $3 to $4 per head more than it was before the advent of oleomar- 
garine, when the same had to be used for tallow; which increased value of the beef 
steer has been added to the market value of the animal, and consequently to the 
profit of the producer. 

To legislate this article of commerce out of existence, as the passage of this law 
would surely do, would compel slaughterers to use this fat for tallow, and depreciate 
the market value of the beef cattle of this country $3 to $4 per head, which would 
entail a loss on the producers of this country of millions of dollars. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 839 

At the conclusion of Judge Springer's argument, as shown on pages 
114 and 115, the following colloquy occurred: 

Mr. Springer. If any gentleman desires to ask questions, I will be very glad to 
answer as I may be able. 

Mr. Knight. You have not stated what the objections of the hve-stock growers are 
to the bill. 

Mr. Springer. Those were stated 

Mr. Knight. In the resolution? 

Mr. Springer. In the memorial which will be printed. 

The Acting Chairman. It will be printed. 

Mr. Springer. I read a portion of it. I have asked the committee to embody it at 
length, but I will briefly state the objections. They object to it because it deprives 
them of a market for one of their products. In other words, the product of beef 
known as caul fat, which amounts in the average beef to about 58 pounds per steer, 
is now or may be manufactured into oleo oil, and if the whole product were so manu- 
factured there would be a large amount — in fact, nearly all of it — used for that pur- 
pose, thus increasing the value of the caul fat in the steer to the amount of the differ- 
ence between oleo oil and tallow. 

Mr. Hoard. Does that include kidney fat? 

Mr. Springer. It includes all that is known as caul fat. I am not an expert as to 
the various fats. 

Mr. Knight. Your objection, then, is not so much to what it will do to the live- 
stock industry as to what it will deprive the live-stock industry of some time in the 
future? 

******* 

Mr. Grout. Are you able to state the number of pounds of oleo oil that was used 
in the production of oleomargarine last year? 

Mr. Springer. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Grout. Will you give it? 

Mr. Flanders. He will publish that statement. 

Mr. Knight. It is 24,400,000 pounds. 

Mr. Springer. The table gives the "quantities and kinds of ingredients used in the 
production of oleomargarine in the United States for the fiscal year ending June 30, 
1899; also the percentage each different ingredient bears to the whole quantity." 
Neutral lard, 31,000,000 pounds; oleo oil, 24,000,000 pounds; cotton-seed oil, 4,357,000 
pounds. 

Mr. Grout. What is the amount we exported? 

IVIr. Springer. We exported 142,000,000 pounds of oleo oil, I think. That is not 
taken into consideration in the amount that was used in this country. 

Mr. Knight. But in the resolution of the live-stock association is it not stated that 
the passage of the Grout bill would mean a damage or loss in value of $3 or $4 a head 
per cattle? 

Mr. Springer. Yes, sir; it is so stated, I think. 

Mr. Knight. How do you figure that, please? 

Senator Heitfeld. Was it not $2 in the statement made here? 

Mr. Knight. From |2 to $4 in some statements. 

Mr. Springer. They say in their memorial: 

"In oleomargarine a very large proportion of the consumers of this country, espe- 
cially the working classes, have a wholesome, nutritious, and satisfactory article of 
diet, which before its advent they were obliged, owing to the high price of butter 
and their limited means, to go without. 

' ' The ' butter fat ' of an average beef animal, for the purpose of making oleomar- 
garine, is worth fi-om $3 to $4 per head more than it was before the advent of oleo- 
margarine, when the same had to be used for tallow, which increased value of the 
beef steer has been added to the market value of the animal, and consequently to the 
profit of the producer. 

"To legislate this article of commerce out of existence, as the passage of this law 
would surely do, would compel slaughterers to use this fat for tallow, and depreciate 
the market value of the beef cattle of this country §3 to $4 per head, which would 
entail a loss on the producers of this country of millions of dollars." 

Mr. Knight. The amount of oleo oil used was 24,000,000 poimds? 

Mr. Springer. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Knight. Valued last year at about $2,000,000? 

Mr. Springer. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Knight. There were 5,000,000 head of cattle slaughtered in this country lasl 
year. 



840 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

Senator Heitfeld. If you took that amount out of the use to which it was formerly 
put, would not that make a difference? 

Mr. Hoard. The Treasury Department shows that there was used of oleo oil in 
oleomargarine produced in this country 24,000,000 pounds. That is a fraction less 
than 5 pounds of fat from each animal. 

Senator Heitfeld. It takes that 5 out of the gross product. 

Mr. HoAED. It is 4.99 poimds to each animal. At their figures it would be worth 
about $1 a pound. 

Mr. Grout. What is the price of it? 

Mr. Hoard. Nine cents. 

Senator Heitfeld. In what way would it? 

Mr. Hoard. Because there are 5,000,000 animals slaughtered and 24,000,000 pounds 
of oleo oil used. Divide one by the other, and it makes 4.99 pounds to each animal; 
45 cents a pound. 

Senator Heitfeld. I do not think that is a fair estimate. 

Mr. Springer. I will make this explanation. 

Mr. Hoard. I am taking the amount that would be used in oleomargarine. 

Senator Heitfeld. But you are figuring the 24,000,000 pounds as the entire output 
from the beef, and the only output that is bringing any money, throwing away the 
other 95 per cent. 

Mr. Hoard. I am figuring as to relationship and the worth of the oleo oil, and it 
does not square with that live-stock statement. 

Mr. Springer. I will answer that. 

Mr. Hoard. It is overestimated. 

Mr. Springer. Mr. Knight, in his statement before the committee of the House 
(pp. 26 and 27 of the House hearing), endeavored to expose the figures used by 
Swift & Co. in regard to this subject. I did not prepare those figures, and I do not 
know who did, but it appears to me from an examination of both of those statements 
that the gentlemen and those who prepared these estimates are both out of the way 
in their estimates upon this subject. In other words, they have, by a loose manner 
of expression, failed to state exactly what the truth is and what the difference would 
be. It seems to me that the proper statement is this: We must go for the amount of 
oleo oil that was consumed in the manufacture of oleomargarine to the Treasury, sta- 
tistics in order to ascertain the exact truth. That does not embrace the amount of 
oleo oil exported, and a great deal more is used for export than is used in this 
country. 

Mr. Knight. What has this to do with the oleo oil that is exported? 

Mr. Springer. Nothing, except that the use of oleo throughout the world has 
created a demand for it, and a portion of that demand is in this coimtry. Now, if 
all of the caul fat in the beeves that were slaughtered during the year had been 
used in the manufacture of oleomargarine in this country it would have amounted 
to the figures stated by Mr. Swift in his circular, which are practically the ones 
stated in the resolution and memorial of the cattle men. 

Mr. Knight. Is there anything in the Swift letter to Congress indicating that it 
was not? 

Mr. Springer. I say that I think he was mistaken in placing it upon that basis; 
but I wish to call the attention of the committee to the fact that it is beyond the 
power of man to tell what would be the loss to the cattle men of this coimtry by 
reason of the destruction of oleomargarine as an article of commerce. 

Mr. Hoard. It is beyond the power of man to tell what the destruction to the 
butter industry is by this business. 

Mr. Springer. You can guess at it. 

Mr. Knight. Now, Judge 

Mr. Springer. Let me finish. You can not tell. Why? There was already 
created, by the amount of oleo oil used in the actual production of oleomargarine in 
this country, a demand for 24,000,000 pounds of their product which would not have 
existed if oleomargarine had not been manufactured in this comitry. To that much 
we will all agree. 

Mr. Hoard. Yes. 

Mr. Springer. There is that much increased demand for their stock. 

Mr. Hoard. With a corresponding destruction on the other side. 

Mr. Springer. Excuse me for one moment. There is that large increase. Now, 
gentlemen, how can you tell what effect that increased demand for the 24,000,000 
pounds had upon the price of all the other products of animal fats? Who can tell 
that? Nobody can tell. But it is my opinion that the pending bill and the restric- 
tive laws in 32 States in this Union will injure the cattle and hog industry to the 
extent of many millions of dollars annually, and that injury will reach the extent 
stated in the memorial of the National Live Stock Association. 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 841 

And on page 118 Judge Springer says: 

While I can not say, and no other man can say, just how much the price of cattle 
would be depreciated by destroying this industry, or how much it would be appre- 
ciated by repealing the restrictive State laws and letting oleomargarine go free, as 
other food products do, yet I know it would depreciate animal fats in the one case, 
and it would appreciate in the other very largely if this article should be left in the 
same condition that other food products are left. 

Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture, answered questions 
as follows, on page 418, upon the subject of damage to live-stock 
interests: 

Senator Allen. Have you inquired into the effect the passage of this bill will have 
upon the value of animals raised for food purposes; not for dairy purposes? 

Secretary Wilson. Very carefully. 

Senator Allen. What will be tbe effect of the passage of this bill on that class of 
animals? 

Secretary Wilson. I tried to reason that in my short paper which I have read. 
There is a little oil furnished by cotton-seed people, and a little by the people who 
grow_ steers; but the old-fashioned steer that had lots of fat in him is not the steer 
that is used to-day. The young beef, under 2 years of age, put into the market and 
prepared for the shambles, is not an animal that produces much body or intestinal 
fat. That is the animal that is wanted to-day. 

The old-fashioned steer that was 3j years old before he got to market had a large 
amount of fat, running up in some cases to 150 and as high as 180 pounds. 

Now, then, the tendency in the South, where they have destroyed the lands by per- 
petual cropping, and the tendency west of the Missouri, in the semidry belt, where 
they are destroying the grazing lands by injudicious overgrazing, is to take greater 
interest in the dairy cow than in the steer, and in the case of settlers who want to 
raise families out west of the one hundredth meridian the interest grows every day 
on behalf of the dairy cow, and with regard to the production of steers east of the 
Missouri River on the farms there is no comparison whatever. The small amount of 
fat from cattle that commerce calls for in making oleomargarine is infinitesimal in 
value compared with the injury that the growth of this bogus industry will inflict 
upon legitimate agriculture that requires a dairy cow. 

And the following is an excerpt from the printed testimony on 
page 425: 

Senator Dollfver. I received a telegram from a cattle dealer in Iowa stating that 
this bill was likely to very greatly damage the value of beef cattle. 

Secretary Wilson. Yes; he does not know what he is talking about, that same 
cattle dealer. 

The following representations are made by the National Live Stock 
Exchange, as shown on page 185: 

The "butter fat" of an average beef animal for the purpose of making butterine ia 
worth $3 per head more than it was before the advent of butterine, when the same 
had to be used for tallow, which increased value of the beef steer has been added to 
the market value of the animal, and consequently to the profit of the producer. 

And by the Kansas City Live Stock Exchage (page 72) : 

That the bill above referred to, if it become a law, will reduce the value, to the 
farmers and raisers of cattle, an average of $4 per head and a corresponding decrease 
in the value of hogs. 

The basis of the Kansas City Commercial Club's opposition to the 
Grout bill is shown on page 62 to be the following: 

This measure, if passed, will build up one industry at the expense of tearing down 
and ruining another industry, and will in effect amount to the giving of a monopoly 
to the industry sought to be benefited by such legislation; that the bill above referred 
to, if it becomes a law, will reduce the value to the farmers and raisers of cattle an 
average of $2 per head and a corresponding decrease in the value of hogs. 



842 OLEOMARGARINE. 

The South St. Paul Live Stock Exchange objects to the measure 
on the following grounds, as shown by resolutions printed on page 57: 

The butter fat of an average beef animal for the purpose of manufacturing oleo- 
margarine is worth from $3 to $4 per head more than before the advent of oleomar- 
garine. This has increased the value of the beef steer, and consequently to the profit 
of the producer. 

To legislate this article 'of commerce out of existence, as the passage of this law 
would surely do, would compel slaughterers to use this fat for tallow and depreciate 
the market value of beef cattle of this country $3 to $4 per head, which would entail 
a loss on the producer of this coimtry of millions and millions of dollars. 

And yet nobody has been able to successfully dispute the statement 
made by Hon. S. C. Bassett, president of the board of agriculture of 
Nebraska, given on page 451, in which he gives facts and figures show- 
ing the fears of the live stock men and their opposition is without 
foundation. The statement follows: 

The National Live Stock Association has adopted resolutions opposing the passage 
of this measure, and a representative of the association has appeared before this com- 
mittee and attempted to show by statistics and otherwise that this proposed law 
would very materially lessen the value of all live stock marketed. 

On December 17 last, by means of the Associated Press dispatches, there was broad- 
casted over the country the following statement, purporting to come from Mr. John 
W. Springer, president of the National Live Stock Association. It is dated at Den- 
ver, Colo., and is as follows: 

"The stockmen of the West are all interested in this bill," said Mr. Springer to-day, 
"and so are all manufacturers. If such a measure as this can become law no indus- 
try in the country is safe. If it should become a law and take effect it means simply 
that the stockmen of the West will lose from $3 to $4 on every ^teer they market. 
We also claim that the only people directly interested in the passage of this law is 
the butter trust." 

A neighbor of mine who annually feeds large numbers of cattle for market, after 
reading this statement, said to me: "If that statement be true I certainly am opposed 
to your Grout bill." 

Gentlemen of the committee, as I understand this matter, this statement is not 
true, and neither by statistics nor otherwise can it be shown to be true. Statistics 
published by the United States Department of Agriculture for the fiscal year ending 
June 30, 1899, show that at 41 packing centers the number of cattle inspected before 
slaughter was 4,654,842. Outside of those inspected by the Department it is esti- 
mated that enough more were slaughtered to make the aggregate number slaughtered 
for the year, 5,000,000 head. 

The report of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States to Congress in 
May last shows that in all the 83,000,000 pounds of oleomargarine manufactured in 
this country last year there were but 24,491,769 poimds of oleo oil used. This at 9 
cents per pound has a value of $2,204,259, which sum divided among the 5,000,000 
head of cattle who produced this oleo oil makes an average of 44 cente per head. 

In some cases this product is priced at 10 cents per pound, but I think that is unjust 
from a producer's standpoint, for the reason that at 10 cents a pound oleo oil is a 
manufactured product into which labor, etc., goes, and on which profit is realized, 
but the man who markets the cattle does not receive 10 cents a pound for it, and I 
have used the figure 9 cents, which, in my judgment, is a proper estimate. No one 
believes or for a moment seriously contends that if this oleo product used in the 
manufacture of oleomargarine could not be so used it would be a total loss, and lessen 
by the sum of 44 cents the average amount received by the owners of cattle for each 
animal sold for slaughter. But suppose it needs be sold at the price of other fats— 5 
cents per poimd — it would mean a mere nominal loss of 20 cents on each animal sold 
for slaughter, which sum every owner of live stock well knows is hardly given a 
thought when his stock is being disposed of for slaughter at packing centers. 

Mr. Bassett also showed (p. 452) that of the 43,891,814 head of cat- 
tle owned in this country 28,825,933 were owned in the States pro- 
hibiting the sale of yellow oleomargarine, while but 15,065,881 were 
owned where its sale is permitted. 

And in closing Mr. Bassett said (p. 453): 

I do not wish to discredit the National Live Stock Association before this commit- 
tee, but in its appearance here it does not represent either the wishes or sentiments of 



OLEOMARGARINE. 843 

the very large majority of the farmers and stock raisers of my State. It undoubt- 
edly does represent the sentiment of the packers, commission men, owners of live 
stock on the ranges, and like interests, but it does not represent the sentiment of 
our fanners and dairymen who are by far the largest raisers and owners of live stock. 

When I say "owners of live stock on ranges," I have reference to that class of 
men who own large interests in live stock. 

Senator Allen. Large herds? 

Mr. Bassett. Large herds, yes; and those men do not do much in a dairy way. I 
have reference to men who own comparatively small herds of cattle. 

In view of the statement made by Judge Springer, on page 114, 
which would lead one to believe that 58 pounds of oleo oil came out of 
every steer, as there was that amount of caul fat therein, attention is 
called to the following discussion, which appears on page 559: 

Mr. Knight. Now, there is another matter that has been in question here. Mr. 
Miller made the statement to you that some 40 or 50 pounds of oleo oil came from the 
caul I'at of a steer. I have here Iowa Agricultural Bulletin No. 20, showing the weight 
of 18 fatted steers fed at that station, and the amount of caul fat therein, as taken 
out by Swift & Co., of Chicago, and reported to Director James Wilson, now Secre- 
tary of Agriculture. That bulletin shows that the average amount of caul fat in 
steers weighing on an average 1,508 pounds was 37.66 pounds. The statement made 
before the Agricultural Committee of the Senate 

Senator Allen. That is a pretty good steer. 

Mr. Knight. The statement made before the Senate Committee on Agriculture in 
1886 by Elmer E. Washburn, a live-stock dealer in Chicago, showed that from 148,893 
head of cattle slaughtered in that city by one of the largest packing concerns there 
was an average of 61.5 pounds of fat in those animals used in oleo oil, and that those 
61.5 pounds made 28.1 pounds of oleo oil, which goes to prove that there is less than 
1 pound of oleo oil to 2 pounds of fat. 

The oleomargarine people, in all of their claims before this committee and in other 
places, have stated that the fat used from the steer or cattle was only the finest and 
choicest caul fat; and Mr. Miller made the statement to you that if they used any 
other it would be tallowy. 

According to this report of Secretary Wilson, there are on an average but 37.66 
pounds of caul fat to the steer of 1,508 pounds, and it is well known that cattle that 
are marketed will not average over 1,200 pounds. That would be a heavy average, 
would it not? 

Senator Allen. I should think it would be a full average, at least. 

Mr. Knight. Under those circumstances, I think you can go to the bottom of the 
thing and find that they can not make more than 15 pounds of oleo oil from the caul 
fat of the average animal. Counting 15 pounds to the average animal, and counting 
5,000,000 cattle slaughtered last year, thev have recourse to caul fat for the making 
of but 75,000,000 pounds of oleo oil. there were 142,000,000 pounds of oleo oil 
exported, and 24,400,000 pounds used in oleomargarine, a total, I think, of over 
166,000,000 pounds, with a capacity of but 75,000,000 pounds of oleo oil from caul fat. 

Senator Dolliver. I supposed they used all the fat. 

Mr. Knight. They must do it in order to get out everything, I should say. Now, 
those are simply statistics, gentlemen. 

Senator Dolliver. Would that lift them out entirely? 

Mr. Knight. Not at 28 pounds to the head; no, sir. 

Senator Allen. Many of these animals, as I understand, are calves and other ani- 
mals that have not much fat in them. 

Mr. Knight. On an average, according to Mr. Washburn's statement, they get 28.1 
pounds of oleo oil from each animal. 

Mr. Miller. That was one special lot? 

Mr. Knight. Oh, no. One hundred and forty-seven thousand head. 

Senator Money. Whose report is that? 

]\Ir. Knight. That is the report of Elmer E. Washburn, a live-stock dealer of Chi- 
cago, who appeared on behalf of the oleomargarine makers. It is in that record. 

Which we claim disproves the theory that oleo oil is made wholly 
from the "caul fat" of the steer. 

THE COTTON-SEED OIL OPPOSITION. 

The protests of the cotton-seed-oil pressors against the Grout biU 
have been second only to the expressions of the cattlemen. The 



844 OLEOMARGARINE. 

basis of their opposition may be best understood from the following, 
taken from page 667 of the House testimony, Mr. Fred Oliver repre- 
senting a committee from about 400 oil mills in the South: 

Mr. Oliver. About $40,000,000 was paid to the farmers for seed; about $15,000,000 
for the transportation of the seed in and products out; about $10,000,000 for labor. 
In this country there is used probably 150,000 barrels, of 50 gallons each, of butter 
oil in manufacturing oleomargarine — at least aboveboard. How much there is used 
secretly I do not know. 

Mr. Haugen. What part of it is cotton-seed oil? 

Mr. Oliver. About 150,000 barrels of cotton-seed oil, of 50 gallons each, goes into 
the oleomargarine through the large manufacturers that are now being taxed and 
living up to the regulations. 

Mr. Haugen. About how much is this worth? 

Mr. Oliver. About 40 cents a gallon, of 7^ pounds to the gallon. 

Mr. Neville. Have you figured out the number of pounds so that you know? 

Mr. Oliver. No; it is only from what is published and the amount of taxes paid 
on oleomargarine. Oleomargarine contains from 25 to 40 per cent of cotton-seed oil, 
depending upon the weather and the season of the year it is made. 

It appears from the above that these cotton-seed-oil people were led 
to believe that 55,250,000 pounds of their oil were used in the 83,000,000 
pounds of oleomargarine made the previous year, as that is the weight 
of 150,000 barrels, of 50 gallons each. He stated, as shown by the 
record, that oleomargarine contained from 25 to 40 per cent of cotton- 
seed oil. 

Secretary Gage's report, quoted a number of times before this com- 
mittee, shows that, instead of there being 55,250,000 pounds of cotton- 
seed oil used in the 83,000,000 pounds of oleomargarine, there were less 
than 9,000,000 pounds; that instead of the quantity used in oleomar- 
garine being from 25 to 40 per cent, as represented to the pressers of 
cotton seed, it was only about 10 per cent. 

Efforts to pin the representatives of the cotton-seed oil pressers down 
to some definite statement before this committee have been futile, as 
the record will show. The point has been evaded through one subter- 
fuge or another, and the following discussion or colloquy is a good 
example of the futility of attempts to get any intelligent statement 
from those interested, and is found on pages 520 and 521 : 

Mr. Tompkins. With reference to communications from farmers, I want to say 
that I have not the slightest doubt that the farmers, who are very much interested 
in this subject, up to the present time do not know about it, and those who produce 
the cotton seed and are interested in the cotton seed that goes into the cotton-seed oil 
mills do not know about it. If it is a question of getting communications from 
farmers, I have not the slightest doubt that at least 50 per cent of the farmers could 
be got to petition against the bill, which will depreciate their interest not less than 
$2 a ton on 2,000,000 tons of seed. 

On the subject of the interests that are affected we have some testimony that was 
given before the House committee on the subject of the cattle interests, that since 
the fall of 1895 there has been a depression in the value of live stock to the extent 
of $62,000,000. I have not the slightest doubt that the passage of the bill would 
affect the farmers' cotton-seed interests to the extent of at least $2 a ton on all the 
seed that they sell. 

Mr. Knight. Will you yield to a question? 

Mr. Tompkins. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Knight. How do you figure it out? 

Mr. Tompkins. By taking the quantity of oil off the market where it is sold at 
present; it will depreciate the value of the whole amount of cotton-seed oil, because 
the surplus product is what controls prices, not the whole quantity. 

Mr. Knight. What is the quantity of oil? 

Mr. Tompkins. The quantity of oil is from 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 barrels. It is 
difiBcult to state the amount exactly. 

Mr. Knight. What is that quantity? 

Mr. Tompkins. It is from 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 barrels of oH that is produced. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 845 

Mr. Knight. You do not grasp my question. That is what I have been trying to 
get at in the cotton-seed business. What do you consider to be the relative value of 
the production of oleo in this country to cotton-seed oil? 

Mr. Tompkins. I consider the finest pressed oil about 5 cents a gallon. 

Mr. Knight. That is not the question at all. What is your market for cotton-seed 
oil to these manufacturers? How much do you market? 

Mr. Tompkins. We have their testimony for that. I think they can give you a 
more accurate estimate of it than I can, probably. 

Mr. Knight. Is it not true that the Internal-Revenue Commissioner shows that 
you sold to them last year less than $500,000 worth of that oil? 

Mr. Tompkins. I could not answer that question. 

INIr. Knight. Well, it is a fact. I think the committee will accept my statement, 
bec^ause this is a matter of record. 

Mr. Tompkins. But that may not be any measure at all of the quantity of oil that 
goes into the product, because it may have gone through several other channels. 
We know that they use cotton-seed oil to the extent of 10 to 30 per cent and that it 
furnishes a large market for it. 

Mr. Knight. Do you not know how much they actually use? 

Mr. Tompkins. According to their testimony, I say. 

Mr. Knight. Do you not know how much, exactly, they use according to their 
own testimony? 

Mr. Tompkins. That testimony stands for itself. 

Mr. Knight. What I want to get at is, what is the value of the product? Accord- 
ing to the Secretary of the Treasury it was about 8,800,000 pounds, as I understand. 

Mr. Tompkins. It is not a question of the value of that. It is a question of what 
will be the cause of destroying that market and limiting the sale of cotton-seed oil 
in the markets that are left. 

Mr. Knight. I want to ask you this question: You claim here, as I understand, 
that the loss of a market of a half million dollars' worth of cotton-seed oil would 
lower the value of your product to the extent of $2,000,000. 

Mr. Tompkins. In a differential market it might easily. 

Mr. Knight. Then, why would it not be a good investment to burn up a half mil- 
lion dollars' worth and thus advance the price $2,000,000? 

Mr. Tompkins. We are not in the business of burning up. Each man would have 
to burn his own oil, and you can not bring about a situation of that kind. It might 
bring about the same result if you did. No individual man is going to burn his own 
product, and I doubt if the law would permit a combination to do it. That is not 
the question at issue. 

Failing to secure any satisfactory explanation the following state- 
ment was made at the suggestion of Senator Allen, as shown on page 
4:8f . The representatives of the oil mills were present, one of them 
having just concluded, and they made no objection or criticisms fur- 
ther than recorded, Mr. Miller being a representative of the Armour 
Packing Company, of Kansas City, Mo. The statement and discussion 
follows: 

Mr. Knight. It was stated by Senator Allen that probably I would want to answer 
something that the gentleman preceding me has said in regard to cotton-seed oil. 

From his figures I gather that the value of the cotton production of this country is 
$475,000,000. From figures presented by other people here I take it that the value 
of the cotton-seed-oil industry is $50,000,000, making a total of $525,000,000. Of those 
$525,000,000 in value of the cotton and cotton-oil product, the oleomargarine people of 
this coimtry use less than one-half of $1,000,000 worth. The amount of cotton-seed 
oil used in the manufacture of oleomargarine in this country, in proportion to the 
product of oleomargarine, basing it upon the figures of the cotton-seed-oil people 
themselves, is about two-thirds of 1 per cent. So that we can not see, gentlemen, 
any great harm that can accrue to the manufacturers of cotton-seed oil as a result of 
this legislation, even if it would (as they claim) crush out the industry entirely, 
which we deny. 

Mr. Miller. I would like to call the attention of the committee to the statement 
made by Mr. Culbertson, representing the Paris Cotton Oil Company, of Paris, Tex. 
That statement was to the effect that the amount of oil made for the manufacture of 
oleomargarine was 25 per cent of the total amount of oil made. 

Mr. Knight. I do not know what Mr. Culbertson said, but I do know that the 
Secretary of the Treasury has reported that in the 83,000,000 pounds of oleomarga- 
riae made ki this country last year there were less than 9,000,000 pounds of cotton-seed 



846 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

oil. I can not give you in pounds the amount of cotton-seed oil produced; I am 
only giving it in dollars, as shown by this report, which does not give it in pounds. 
So that that statement will hardly stand the test of reason, when it is seen that the 
value of all of the cotton-seed oil is 150,000,000 yearly and there is only |500,000 
worth used in the oleomargarine made in this country, as 25 per cent of the 
$50, 000, 000 would be $12, 500, 000. 

Mr. Miller. You are not taking into consideration the amount exported? 

Mr. Knight. Do we make into oleomargarine in this country the cotton-seed oil 
that is exported? 

Mr. Miller. What would be the effect upon the e:^ort trade if you should place 
a ban on the oil used in this country? 

Mr. Knight. I want to speak in connection with this matter of "placing a ban" 
on the oil in this country. When this bill was up for consideration in 1886, the cry 
was, ' ' If you place a 2-cent stamp of disapproval on oleomargarine, you will place a 
ban on the article, so that nobody in the United States will use it." But the min- 
ute the tax was placed on oleomargarine its manufacturers began to call it an indorse- 
ment by the Government of oleomargarine; and the matter has been carried into 
the courts, and it has been claimed that this taxation gave the Government's stamp 
of approval to oleomargarine. 

Now, if 2 cents a pound tax will give you the Government's stamp of approval, a 
tax of 10 cents a pound will give you five times that much approval. [Laughter.] 

Upon the question of policy of the South opposing the Grout bill 
and thereby crippling the dairy interests, Secretary Wilson discussed 
the matter as follows (p. 427) : 

Secretary Wilson. There is no possible direction in which the South can renovate 
its worn-out lands so fast aa to feed that cotton seed to stock. It is the finest feed on 
earth. 

Senator Money. I know that. I am a farmer. I raise cotton. 

Secretary Wilson. And you can not do it without the dairy cow. 

Senator Money. I raise cows, too. 

Secretary Wilson. The dairy cow is the only instrumentality. You can not do it 
by commercial fertilizers, because it will not put the humus in the soil. 

Senator Money. You are right about that. 
******* 

A 10,000,000-bale crop of cotton gives 5,000,000 tons of seed. Two hundred and 
twenty-five million gallons of oil from this seed may be sold without injury to the 
soil upon which the plant grows, but the residue should not be exported. The sale 
from the land of this nitrogenous by-product results in shorter crops and ultimate 
sterility, which, however, may be arrested by encouraging dairying and feeding for 
meats. 

A great deal having been said by the makers of oleomargarine about 
the use of strong acids in the so-called renovation of old butter, it will 
be interesting to note that practically all oleomargarine contains an 
oil that has been refined by one of the most powerful chemicals in use. 
The following is from page 348: 

Mr. Knight. Will you pardon a question? 

Mr. Culberson. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Knight. Are you a refiner of cotton-seed oil? 

Mr. Culberson. We have refineries at our plants; yes, sir. 

Mr. Knight. Do you use any chemicals in refining cotton-seed oil? 

Mr. Culberson. There is no way to refine it other than by chemicals 

Mr. Knight. What chemical is used? 

Mr. Culberson. Various. 

Mr. Knight. What is the principal one? 

Mr. Culberson. The same chemicals that have been used ever since cotton-seed 
oil was refined. 

Mr. Knight. I am not a cotton-oil man, so I do not know what those are, and I do 
not think the committee does. 

Mr. Culberson. We use caustic soda in diluted form. We furthermore have our 
own processes by which when the oil is finished it is perfectly neutral. There is 
absolutely no sign of chemical or of coloring matter. 

Mr. Knight. You can refine cotton-seed oil and make it absolutely white — make 
what they caU a winter oil? 



OLEOMARGARINE. 847 

Mr. Culberson. Yes; tnat can be done. 

Mr. Knight. Do you think it is possible that any of that caustic soda will be left 
in the oil after the refining? 

Mr. Culberson. It is possible, but not for butter-oil purposes. 

Mr. Knight. Then in all of the oleomargarine that we eat we eat an oil that has 
been through a process of refinement by caustic soda or with caustic soda? 

Mr. Culberson. Not necessarily. 

Mr. Knight. Well, some other chemical equally strong. 

Mr. Culberson. Not necessarily. There are other processes. I tell you what we use. 

HEALTHFULNESS OF OLEOIVIARGARINE. 

This is a subject upon which "doctors disag^ree," and which, while 
we have always and do now claim is absolutely immaterial when the 
evil we seek to remedj^ is fraud, yet we do not shrink from the discus- 
sion of the proposition. 

Dr. Wiley said before the House Committee on Agriculture, as 
printed on page 772 of the House report: 

From a chemical study of the composition of butter, it is reasonable to infer that it 
requires less effort on the part of the vital organs to ferment the butter, and that is 
the reason why I say that I believe butter is a more digestible substance, more easily 
digested, more quickly digested than oleomargarine. 

Speaking from a practical standpoint, Secretary Wilson said, as 
printed on page 417: 

There is an impression abroad that the oleomargarine industrv is as legitimate and 
praiseworthy as making butter from the cow. As far as the making of oleo oil, to be 
sold as such, is concerned there is no controversy, but that the mixture of ingredi- 
ents that compose oleomargarine is as healthy as the butter from milk of the cow 
nobody who has inquired into both can believe. The flavor of butter, a prime ele- 
ment in palatability and digestibility, comes from bacteria universally present when- 
ever milk is exposed to the atmosphere. Fine butter has a fine flavor, one of its 
principal characteristics. Bacteria feed upon casein, an element not found in vege- 
table fats nor in the tallow of animals. The imitation of butter known as oleomar- 
garine is washed in milk in order that some of the casein may be present as the basis 
of the flavor. The imitation, in as far as it varies from genuine butter, lacks both the 
flavor that comes from a full complement of casein and the digestibility natural to the 
cow's product. It is well known that the scalding of milk kills the bacterial growth, 
after which it will keep longer, but its digestibility is greatly, impaired. Butter for 
immediate consumption is but slightly worked, so that the leaving within it of a con- 
siderable amount of casein will grow bacteria and develop flavor. If it is to be con- 
sumed in a week it is worked over more, and if within two weeks still more. If it ia 
to be kept for months the buttermilk with the casein is thoroughly worked out, 
unless it is to be put in cold storage and kept at a temperature at which bacteria will 
not multiply. 

Milk contains a ferment that changes casein into a digestible nutrient. The imita- 
tion of butter made by the chemist is a mixture of fats that should be sold for what 
it is. It is not as palatable nor as digestible nor as grateful to the human system. 
The digestible juices flow freely. When palatable food is eaten, the mouth waters. 
Oils and fats as such have their uses, but the coloring of them deceives the people 
and induces a consumption as liberal as with butter, which, while not so injurious to 
people in full vigor as to children and invalids, is nevertheless undoubtedly harmful. 
The yellow coloring of butter in winter, when it has a light shade, if green cured 
hay or roots are not used, deceives nobody. The yellow coloring of a mixture of fats 
is with intent to deceive. 

The present law is not well enforced; it is evidently difficult of enforcement. The 
effacement of marks and brands is easily done. The greatest sufferers are the poorer 
classes and consimaers who have not the opportunity to select their food. If there 
were no coloring there would be no fraud. The most intelligent are deceived, how- 
ever, with good imitations, and from careful inquiry I am satisfied that most of us 
are using the bogus product at greatly increased expense over the price of the oils of 
commerce, and with danger to health from the less digestible and less palatable 
imitation. 



848 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

And on page 585 of the House report will be found the following, 
submitted by Hon. W. D. Hoord: 

Is oleomargarinea healthful food? There is no way to determine this question 
except by actual trial; not for a day, a week, or a month, but for several successive 
months, and not with strong, robust men with plenty of outdoor exercise. 

Chemistry can not answer. For example, the chemist will tell you that he finds 
the same elements in swamp peat that are found in the grasses and hays that are fed 
to our cows, and in approximately the same proportion. And the chemist is at a 
loss to determine from the standpoint of his science why cattle should not feed on 
swamp peat. Chemistry can not determine whether any particular substance is 
poisonous or not. It must take a stomach to do that. 

There is no credible evidence to show that oleomargarine is innocuous; no evi- 
dence to show that when eaten continuously in place of butter it is not harmful. 
But there are reports in great abundance to the effect that oleomargarine is harmful. 

Mr. Edmund Hill, a member of the Somerset County council, England, reports 
that the great bulk of oleomargarine, or "margarin," as it is called there, is eaten 
in public institutions, convents, schools, etc. At the Wells Asylum, with which he is 
connected, the inmates receive oleomargarine. In the asylums of Dorset, Wells, and 
Hants — the adjoining counties — butter is furnished, and the death rate at Wells is 30 
per cent higher. At the Taunton Hospital there were 11 deaths in thirteen months. 
Oleomargarine was substituted, and in nine months the deaths rose to 22. 

This accords with the experience in France, where its use in hospitals is forbidden. 
In the United States, in institutions for the blind and for girls, it has been noticed 
that the use of oleomargarine lowered the vitality of the inmates very perceptibly. 

Hon. G. L. Flanders, assistant commissioner of agriculture of New 
York, throws some light upon this question on page 129: 

I now turn to the report made by Dr. R. D. Clark upon the heaitniuniess of oleo- 
margarine. He is a chemist and medical man of twenty years' standing, and I want 
to say here and now that our opinion in the State of New York, after having given this 
subject a great deal of study and thought and after having obtained the very l)est advice 
we could get, is that a chemist is not, by virtue of his chemical knowledge, a com- 
petent man to tell about the healthfulness of food products. A chemist's province 
is to take a commodity and take it apart, and tell what is in it. It is no part of his 
work to tell what effect that article produces upon the human system. That is a 
physiological question. Dr. Clark, a physician, says, relative to the healthfulness of 
oleomargarine: 

" We now come to the all-important aspect of the subject, Is artificial butter a 
wholesome article of food? We answer it in the negative, on the following grounds: 

"First. On account of its indigestibility. 

"Second. On account of its insolubility when made from animal fats. 

" Third. On account of its liability to carry germs of disease into the human system. 

"Fourth. On account of the probability of its containing, when made under certain 
patents, unhealthy ingredients." 

A full report of Dr. Clark's statement is contained on pages 129, 130, 
131, and 132 of the Senate testimony. 

But this is a question the discussion of which would occupy volumes, 
with no possibility, apparently, of an agreement of authorities, except 
that the chemist appears to be on the side of oleomargarine and the 
physician on the side of pure butter. 

AS TO GOVERNMENT INSPECTION. 

As producers bearing a large share of the burdens of taxation for 
the support of the Government, we feel it no more than just that the 
impression which the makers of oleomargarine seek to convey, that 
their product has the stamp of approval of the Government and that 
its purity is certified to by the Internal-Revenue Department, should 
be dispelled. 

We desire to call your attention to the statements of various wit- 
nesses upon this subject, which statements convey a wrong impression, 



OLEOMARGARINE. 849 

as also shown by the records. Rathbone Gardner, representing the 
Oakdale Manufacturing Company, of Providence, R. I., said on pages 
18 and 19: 

As I have said, I believe it is the one substance which is, as no other substance 
possibly can be under existing laws, certified by the Government of the United States 
to be absolutely pure. * * * It seems unnecessary to argue this point. I pre- 
sume the members of this committee know the conditions under which oleomargarine 
is produced — that there has to be a regular formula; that there is a chemist main- 
tained at the expense of the Government who examines samples; that representatives 
of the Internal-Revenue Department stand in the doorway of every oleo manufactory; 
that they know exactly what comes into the building and what goes out of the building. 

And on page 37 entered into the following discussion: 

Mr. Gardner. To see what ingredients go into oleomargarine. The manufacturer 
is required to make a monthly statement, under oath, of every pound of ingredient 
he uses in the manufacture. It is the duty of the inspector or the deputy inspector, 
as I understand it, to verify that report and under oath to say that the manufacturer's 
statement is correct or incorrect. 

Mr. Hoard. Do you believe that the manufacturer always states the truth con- 
cerning the ingredients of olemargarine? 

Mr. Gardner. Yes, sir; the manufacturers of which I know anything. That is 
my belief; it is not worth much one way or the other. 

In his testimony on page 111 Judge Springer, representing the 
National Live Stock Association, said: 

Let me call your attention to several statements made by gentlemen at that time. 
You will hardly believe that such things could have been. There were several bills 
pending, and the Hatch bill was finally passed. It provides for placing a tax of 2 
cents a pound upon oleomargarine, and for a general inspection, through the Depart- 
ments of the Government, of every part of the article manufactured, so that when 
you see oleomargarine manufactured in this country you see an article that the oflicers 
of the Government have inspected from its inception to the time it passes away from 
the factory in the original packages. They certify to its condition. 

Mr. Hoard. You mean that the law provides for the inspection? 

Mr. Springer. Yes, I do. 

Mr. Flanders. That it may be done. 

Mr. Springer. It provides for it. 

Mr. Hoard. It may be done. 

Mr. Springer. It provides for it. 

Mr. Hoard. You do not assert that it is done? 

Mr. Springer. No, sir; I do not assert as to whether or not anybody performs his 
duty, but the law presumes that every oflScer of the Government does his duty, and 
until the contrary is shown I assume that they have done their duty. The law 
assumes that everybody is honest, and especially does the law assume that the oflicers 
of the Government and of the States do their duty. I hope they do. If they do not, 
they ought to be taught to do it. 

On page 262 the following wiU be found in the remarks of Mr. 
Charles E. Schell, representing the Cincinnati Butterine Company, 
et al. : 

Again, the factories must be ready at all times for Government inspection. The 
local people, it will perhaps be claimed, could be provided against. They would 
know them, and perhaps would know of their coming. Fellow-citizens of the same 
town are not apt to take undue advantages, possibly; but the Government, the rev- 
enue officers, have their secret agents who go about from time to time, and the manu- 
facturers know not the day nor the hour when they are gomg to appear. They must 
be ready at all times. 

And on page 149 the following discussion, Mr. Pirrung being the 
manager of a butterine concern at Columbus, Ohio: 

Mr. Knight. Another thing. In speaking of the inspection of the Government in 
the oleo factories, do you mean to infer that the Government does inspect the oleo 
factories? 

Mr. Pirrung. Most decidedly. 

S. Rep. 2043 54 



850 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Mr. Knight. Do thej^ make chemical analyses of the oleomargarine right along? 

Mr. PiRRUNG. Yes, sir; the Bm-eau of Chemistry of the Agricultural Department 
does that for them. 

Mr. Knight. How many factories are there in the United States? 

Mr. PiRRUNG. I think about twenty-five or thirty. 

Mr. Knight. And about how many inspections do they make of the products you 
turn out? 

Mr. PiRRUNG. I can not state for other manufacturers, but perhaps they come to 
us five or six times a year. They do not only require samples from the factories for 
the inspection; they go all over the United States, or States where our product or 
any other manufactured product is sold, and take up samples unknown to us. 

Mr. Knight. Do they analyze them? 

Mr. PiRRUNG. Yes. 

Mr. Knight. That is done among the retailers? 

Mr. PiRRUNG. Yes; I presume so, and among wholesalers as well. 

Mr. Knight. There are about 10,000 retailers in the country, according to the last 
report. 

Mr. PiRRUNG. I do not know. You are better posted on that than I am. 

Mr. Knight. What is the penalty if anything is found in your product that is not 
wholesome? 

Mr. PiRRUNG. I have always understood the Government would be compelled 
to close up our factory. 

Mr. Knight. You are not acquainted with the law very well, then, are you? 

Mr. PiRRUNG. I thought I was. 

Mr. Clark. They would not only close it up, but would confiscate it. 

Mr. Knight. They would confiscate the goods that they find. 

Mr. PiRRUNG. They will close up our factory. If you will read the law, you will 
post yourself. 

On page 493 will be found the following statement made before the 
committee by your orator: 

Now let me show you another case. These people have said a good deal to your 
committee down here about the inspection of the Internal-Revenue Department, and 
about how they are compelled to report every ingredient, and that they are compelled 
to do this that, and the other. 

As a matter of fact, the present oleomargarine law can not compel them to do any- 
thing that they do not want to do. All that they need to do is to hide behind their 
constitutional right and claim that the evidence called for will incriminate them. 

Here is a case which is entitled "In re Kinney, collector of internal revenue." 
The heading is "Examination of books." 

" W. F. Kinney, collector of internal revenue, district of Connecticut, issued a sum- 
mons, under section 3173, Revised Statutes, against the Oakdale Manufacturing 
Company, a corporation engaged in the manufacture of oleomargarine. The parties 
refused to comply with the summons, and the collector petitioned the United States 
district judge for an attachment against F. M. Mathewson, president of the company, 
directed to the United States marshal of the district, commanding him to arrest said 
Frank M. Mathewson and bring him before the judge to show cause why he should 
not be adjudged in contempt and punished according to law, as provided by section 
3175, Revised Statutes." 

In this connection it may be said that this talk about these people being compelled 
to make a return of the materials and products is all bosh. They can not be made 
to do it if they do not want to. They make the return if they wish, and if they do 
not wish they will not do it, and they do not have to, according to this decision. 

The decision of the judge was adverse to the collector. He held that — 

"The provisions of Revised Statutes, section 3173, authorizing a collector of internal 
revenue to summon before him for examination any person charged by the law with 
the duty of making returns of objects subject to tax, do not apply to persons required 
under the oleomargarine law to make returns of materials and products. Such pro- 
visions relate only to objects of taxation upon which the tax is collected by the 
method of return and assessment, and not to those upon which the tax is required to 
be paid by a stamp; and a collector has no power under section 3173 to compel a 
person to ajipear and testify to the correctness of the returns made under the oleo- 
margarine law." (102 Fed. Rep., 468.) 

It will be noted that the above is the concern represented by Mr. 
Gardner. 
Your committee can hardly believe men engaged in a business in 



OLEOMARGARINE. 851 

which they have thousands of dollars invested can be so ignorant of 
the law as to unintentionally make such statements. 

But in order to fully settle this matter we refer to the testimony of 
the honorable Secretary of the Treasury, upon pages 564 and 565: 

The Acting Chairman. Your revenue agents, Mr. Secretary, are expected to visit 
these factories and to take observations with respect to the quality of the ingredients 
constituting oleomargarine, are they not? 

Secretary Gage. Yes, sir. 

The Acting Chairman. What are their opportunities for observation in that 
direction? 

Secretary Gage. Oh, they are ample in these large establishments. They are all 
open to our agents. 

Senator Bate. Have you scientific inspectors to investigate what the component 
parts of this product are? 

Secretary Gage. No; I do not think we have. We put it to the test frequently, 
however. We get samples and have analyses made of the product. That is to say, 
we have done so in the past; I do not know what we are doing just at this moment. 

Senator Allen. Your agents, however, are not all experts in the examination of 
oleomargarine, are they? 

Secretary Gage. Oh, no — no. 

Senator 'Allen. So that they might be imposed upon, as well as the ordinary 
intelligent citizen? 

Secretary Gage. Very easily. 

Senator Allen. They might walk into a place and call for butter, and oleomarga- 
rine might be handed to them as butter; and unless they took it to some person 
competent to make an analysis of it, they might not know the difference? 

Secretary Gage. That is quite true. 

Senator Bate. Do you keep agents at any of these large establishments? 

Secretary Gage. I do not think we do keep any regular watch on them. 
******* 

Senator Allen. Then you do not keep such agents in these large establishments 
which manufacture oleomargarine? 
Secretary Gage. No. 
******* 

Senator Allen. The only thing with which you are concerned is the tax? 

Secretary Gage. That is the main thing, of course. 

Senator Money. The remark you have just made, Mr. Secretary, suggests this ques- 
tion: You say the greater the tax the greater the incentive to fraud. The same rule 
would apply here, would it not? 

Secretary Gage. Undoubtedly. 

The Acting Chairman. Do the instructions of your Department, Mr. Secretary, 
require the agents who visit these manufactories to report to you with respect to the 
purity of the ingredients used? 

Secretary Gage. No; I do not think so. 

And to show the utter absurdity of this claim of inspection your 
attention is called to the following statement of your orator on 
page 499: 

There are in the United States over 9,500 dealers, I believe, and 30 manufacturers 
of oleomargarine. The report of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue for the year 
1900, which I hold here, shows that during the year 1900 the chemical department 
of that bureau made 177 analyses of oleomargarine. You can figure the proportion 
177 bears to nearly 10,000. That will show you how many times a year they get 
around to these retailers and inspect their goods, and inspect the wholesalers, and 
inspect the factories. 

AS TO POLICY. 

The dairymen are not asking paternal protection for the sole pur- 
pose of fostering their great and important industry. They only ask 
the Government to use its strong arm to protect them against an 
illegitimate fraud which has proven itself to be beyond the reach of 
State laws. 

But in the evidence a number of points have been brought out which 
are worthy of consideration by your committee. 



852 OLEOMARGARINE. 

Along this line Secretary Wilson says, on page 415: 

The dairy cow is the most valuable agent of the producer, and her milk is one of 
nature's perfect rations. She gives profitable employment to all who care for her or 
her products. She gathers her food from the fields without intervening help in 
summer, and turns cheap forage into high selling products in winter. The grasses 
that grow for her in her pasture return humus to worn-out lands, enabling them to 
retain moisture and resist droughts, in addition to inviting nitrogen from the atmos- 
phere through the agency of the legumes upon which she grazes. She is the mother 
of the steer that manufactures beef from grasses, grains, and the by-products of the 
mills. 

******* 

The farmer who kee|)S a herd of dairy cows returns through the herd to the soil 
all the crops he gathers from it, except the products of skill that take little plant 
food from the soil. The lint of cotton and the fine flour of wheat are among our 
leading exports, and take little from the soil ; the fats of the cow and the plants take 
nothing whatever. The cow and her calf are prime necessities in reclaiming worn- 
out land. The cotton-growing States that have reduced fertility by too much crop- 
ping can bring back the strtmgth of the soil by growing the grazing plants and feed- 
ing the meal of cotton-seed to the dairy cow and her calf, but the farmers of no part 
of our country can afford to keep cows for the sole purpose of raising calves, except 
free commoners on the public domains, whose privileges are being contracted to 
such an extent by injudicious grazing that every year fewer cattle are found on the 
ranges of the semiarid States. 

The meats to feed our people in future must come, in large measure, from the high- 
priced farms east of the one hundredth meridian of west longitude. The feeding steers 
will be bred on those farms from the dairy cows that are now and will become more 
and more a necessity. 

Hon. John Hamilton, secretary of agriculture for Pennsylvania, 
is reported as follows, on pages 157 and 158: 

Careful examination should be made into the effect which this will have upon the 
dairy industry of the Commonwealth, which has now become one of the leading and 
most profitable branches of our agriculture. If, upon examination, it is found that 
oleomargarine will to any considerable degree drive out the dairy interests from the 
markets of the Commonwealth, it would seem to be only wise public policy to first 
make sure that the industry that is to replace this branch of our agriculture shall do 
more for the Commonwealth in the way of substantial and permanent support than 
the important occupation that it proposes to supplant. 

The admitting of oleomargarine in competition with the dairy products of the State 
endangers a great industry that is now a part of our system of agriculture more widely 
distributed than any other. We have now about 1,100,000 cows in Pennsylvania. 
Their product is about 90,000,000 to 100,000,000 pounds of butter per year, and 
according to the census of 1890 the milk product was 437,525,349 gallons. These 
cows are distributed among 211,412 farmers' families, consisting of over 1,000,000 
persons, or about one-fifth of our entire population. The income of the farming 
people of Pennsylvania last year from butter alone amounted to between eighteen 
and twenty millions of dollars; and the milk product, at 8 cents per gallon, amounted 
to $35,000,000 more. This vast sum is a new product each year, adding this much to 
the actual wealth of the State, and is distributed all through the Commonwealth, 
going to the support of overl,000,000 people, enabling them to maintain themselves in 
comparative comfort. The loss of such a sum as this by the agricultural people of 
the State would be a calamity, particularly because much of the material that is 
used in the feeding of these dairy cows would, if the industry were destroyed, be 
left on the farmers' hands valueless. 

And on page 134 will be found the following from Hon. G. L. Flan- 
ders, assistant commissioner of agriculture of New York State: 

Do yon know that in the great State of New York there are 1,600,000 cows? Do 
you know we have 250,000 persons engaged in farm work? And yet you seek to come 
into our market and drive us out and ruin that industry. Is there anything fair about 
that? We ask you to stand up like men and sell your commodity for what it is. Then 
if you can compete with us we will stand it like men. Not many years ago we were in 
the meat market. We raised cattle in New York and sold them for meat. We sold 
cereals. The Genesee and Rochester valleys were great wheat fields. Then the wheat 



OLEOMARGARINE. 853 

fields of the Mississippi Valley were opened up, cultivated by machinery. Then 
South America opened up her wheat fields and produced grain at 37 cents a bushel 
on shipboard, Australia opened up her wheat fields, and now Russia is opening up 
Siberia to the production of the cereals. We are driven entirely out of the cereals 
market. We have been driven out of the meat market, and there has not been one 
word of complaint. It was done among men in open competition; but we do com- 
plain when you take all that is left and seek to do it by fraud. I can not conceive 
how any man who has had any experience anywhere that gives him a knowledge of 
ethics can sustain the man who has placed upon the market a commodity looking, 
smelling, and tasting like another, as that other, and then say when we ask him to 
stop it that we are trying to down a healthy competition. It is not competition. It 
is downright robbery. 

And from Hon. W. D, Hoard, president of the National Dairy Union, 
the foUovf'ing on page 413: 

This law is demanded in the interest of a broad public policj', for the protection 
of legitimate industry against illegitimate counterfeiting and fraud. Compare the 
policy pursued by the United States with that of Canada. The Dominion government 
guards the purity and honesty of her dairy products to the extent of absolute prohi- 
bition of any adulteration or counterfeiting of the same. As a result her export of 
cheese to England alone has grown in twenty years from $3,000,000 to $20,000,000, 
while ours has declined nearly the same amount, because we did not place the strong 
hand of the law on the adulterated product, filled cheese, until we had lost the con- 
fidence of the foreign consumer. 

The fears of the dairymen from the encroachment of the oleomar- 

§arine fraud find good voice in the following extract from Judge 
pringer's statement on page 91: 

The total production of oleomargarine in the United States for the year ending 
June 30, 1900, was 107,045,028 pounds. This was a consumption of only 1.4 pounds 
per capita. Without repressive laws in any of the States the consumption might have 
been as gi'eat per capita as in Rhode Island. This would have increased the demand 
for oleomargarine for consumption in the United States per annum to over 600,000,000 
pounds. It is nof surprising, in view of these facts, that the friends of the pending 
bill desire the enactment of the first section, which will place oleomargarine under 
the repressive laws of 32 States in the Union, with a fair prospect of securing equally 
oppressive legislation in the remaining 13 States. 

As the dairj^men's market for butter in this country only amounts to 
about 800,000,000 pounds outside of the producer, who consumes 
700,000,000 pounds of the 1,500,000,000 pounds of butter produced, it 
would seem that conditions do warrant their present alarm. 

EVIDENCE INTRODUCED UNDER FALSE PRETENSES. 

We deem it our duty to call the attention of the committee to the 
evidence of Francis W. Lestrade, of New York City, who appeared 
before this committee in the interests of oleomargarine. 

The record (p. 164) shows that he introduced himself as follows: 

Mr. Lestrade. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I wish to state on 
the outstart that it is seldom I am called upon to speak in public. 

The Chairman. You are interested in the manufacture, are you, or are you acting 
as counsel? 

Mr. Lestrade. No; I was about to say that I am nothing more than a practical 
everyday butterman. I have been in business for twenty years, and what I say 
before you is entirely from a practical standpoint, not a theoretical standpoint, and 
not from any scientific point of view, but from what has come under my observation 
as a butterman ever since I was a boy. 

I am a member of the firm of Lestrade Brothers, New York City. I am an owner 
of and interested in dairy farms, both in the West and in the East. I am also inter- 
ested in cows. I am also interested in three different creameries. I am also, and 
this is our chief business in the city, an exporter, a packer of butter and cheese to 
the hot countries as well as to the Continent, but mostly to the hot countries. Our 



854 OLEOMARGARINE. 

business extends over all the hot countries — that is, the tropical climates, consisting of 
the West Indies, the East Indies, South Africa, China, South America, and even now 
into the Philippine Islands. 

So what I have to say is entirely in my own interest, and more particularly as an 
exporter of the genuine butter that goes out of this country to foreign chmates. 

And to further impress upon the committee the cause of his interest 
in the bill he stated on page 177, as shown by the discussion in the 
record: 

The question may arise in your minds, gentlemen, why am I opposed to this bill, 
as all my interests — my money, what little I have, or the greater part of it — are in 
butter. It is merely this: That, as I have stated, oleomargarine has been a friend to 
butter; has made us dairymen, farmers, creamery men, make better butter. The 
second reason is that the dairymen throughout the United States are getting a good 
profit on their butter. We are making money. My creameries are making money. 
I do not know of any creameries that are not making money. We are making from 
10 to 50 per cent. Legitimately we are making from 10 to 20 per cent; speculatively 
we are making a great deal more. * * * 

I do not want the sale of oleomargarine prohibited. I want it for a balance, so to 
speak, to keep wild speculation down. I can not afford as a creamery man — a man 
interested in butter — to put myself in the position, if I can help it, of allowing specu- 
lators to come in and manipulate butter. It is bad enough now as it is; but wipe out 
oleo, which you will if you put this 10-cent prohibitory tax on, and there is not a 
man in the country could do anything in regard to steady prices. They can no 
more sell oleomargarine white than you could sell butter white. I have made white 
butter up Ln small quantities, and the only people who take white butter are our 
friends the Israelites, and they only take it in small quantities. 

On page 369 appears the following from Assistant Commissioner of 
Agriculture Kracke, of the Metropolitan district of New York: 

Mr. Keacke. There is one other point to which I want briefly to call attention, 
and that is the fact that there appeared before this committee last week a man from 
New York who stated that he was a commission merchant and a dealer in butter. 
In making his statement he took up an interview of mine in a New York paper and 
attempted to distort it so as to have me say something that I did not say. I refer to 
Mr. Lestrade, who came here and made a statement before the committee. I wish 
now to ask the committee if Mr. Lestrade told the committee that he was an oleo- 
margarine manufacturer? 

The record will here show that an attempt was made to ascertain 
what representations Mr. Lestrade made as to his interest in the mat- 
ter, but the notes not having been transcribed it was not possible to 
review the proceedings. Because of this lack of facility at the time, 
we believe we are warranted by the condition to state that investiga- 
tion shows that Mr. Lestrade is one of the proprietors of the Goshen 
Manufacturing Company, makers of oleomargarine. Providence, E,. I. 
The following appears on page 369 of the record, however: 

Mr. Knight. Have you ever had any trouble, Mr. Kracke, with any Providence 
concern shipping stuff in through Jersey City? 

Mr. Kracke. Well, there was trouble with this particular one — Lestrade Brothers. 

The difficulty referred to was the fining of Mr. Lestrade's concern 
for violations of the New York oleomargarine law. 

Before bringing the matter to the attention of your committee, we 
have carefully searched the record and in no place find the admission 
of Mr. Lestrade that he is a manufacturer of oleomargarine. 

labor's opposition. 

Members of the committee present at the hearings when representa- 
tives of labor organizations appeared are well prepared to judge of the 
force of the opposition they represent. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 855 

Your orator will briefly call attention to his statement on pages 471 
and 472, wherein it is shown that organized labor in Chicago, in 1897, 
severely condemned the yellow oleomargarine fraud. The following 
is a portion of that statement: 

In 1897 we had before the legislature of the State of Illinois a law which sought to 
prohibit the coloring of oleomargarine in the semblance of butter, known as the 
Fuller bill, which I was looking after at the time, and which passed the legislature 
finally. I went to the Federation of Labor of the city of Chicago and called on ita 
legislative committee. I called those gentlemen together and I told them the con- 
dition of things in Chicago. I showed them what we were attempting to accomplish, 
and asked their cooperation in the matter. I asked them if they could not give the 
indorsement of the Federation of Labor. They said they did not think there was 
any doubt but what they could. I now want to read you from the Chicago Federa- 
tionist, a labor paper, of the date of April 9, 1897: 

WORKINGMEN INDORSE IT — ANTICOLOR BILL APPROVED BY THE CHICAGO FEDERATION 
OP LABOR — COLORED OLEOMARGARINE CONDEMNED AS A FRAUD — A RESOLUTION PASSED 

AT LAST Sunday's meeting indorsing the fuller bill is unanimous — labor is 

AGAINST THE FRAUD. 

The defenders of the colored oleomargarine fraud have had their last prop knocked 
from under arguments. 

For years they have pleaded for protection of oleomargarine "in behalf of the 
workingman." Oleomargarme was christened "the poor man's butter" by those 
who were aiding manufacturers in making millions off the same "poor man." 

The anticolor bill was brought before the Chicago Federation of Labor by the 
legislative committee of that body Sunday, April 4, by Chairman Williams, who has 
claimed that large quantities of oleomargarine were being dealt out in the city by 
retailers to those who called for butter and paid for butter. This fraud was made 
possible, he stated, because of the fact that the substitute was made in perfect sem- 
blance of butter, and the workingman was the chief victim. He explained that the 
only remedy for this fraud was the enactment of a law which would make it possible 
for buyer and consumer to distinguish the compound whenever he saw it. 

Only one delegate in the entire body objected to the indorsement of the measure, 
and after he thoroughly understood the question he moved to make the vote for its 
adoption unanimous, which was done. 

The sentiment expressed by the different delegates to the Federation at the close of 
the meeting was that, should a petition be circulated among the army of workingmen 
of Chicago calling for the passage of the Fuller anticolor law, it would meet with no 
opposition. 

Then the resolution which was passed at that time, and which I have in my pos- 
session, in the city of Chicago reads as follows: 

Chicago, April 4, 1897. 
Charles Y. Knight, 

Secretary Dairy Union. 
Dear Sir: At a meeting of the Chicago Federation, held on the 4th instant, that 
body unanimously indorsed the Fuller bill, and requested all subordinate bodies to 
use their utmost to secure its passage. 

Very truly, Victor B. Williams, 

Chairman Legislative Committee, Chicago Federation of Labor. 

The fact that not a single delegate in that meeting cared enough 
about the color in oleomargarine or oleomargarine itself to oppose the 
passage of the resolution we consider pretty good evidence that few 
workingmen know when they are buying oleomargarine if they con- 
sume it, and do not care for the color if they do buy it. 

That there is no great demand for oleomargarine, and as evidence 
that it is forced upon the public instead of being demanded by the peo- 
ple, we submit the following from the evidence of Isaac W. Cleaver, 



856 OLEOMARGARINE. 

of Philadelphia (p. 221), manager of the 63 stores of the Acme Tea 
Company, of that city. Mr. Cleaver said: 

We are in no way interested in the manufacture of butter; only in the sale of it. 
If we could sell oleomargarine legally and there were a demand for it, we would 
just as lief sell it as we would butter. 

With reference to whether or not there is a demand for it, I have only this to say: 
We have a printed slip, with questions on the slip which must be answered every 
week by every manager in each of our stores. One of those questions is this: "Has 
there been anything asked for during the week that we do not keep? If so, what?" 
We have yet, from all those 63 stores, to have an inquiry for oleomargkrine or but- 
terine. Consequently, we are convinced that the masses of the people in Philadel- 
phia do not want oleomargarine or they would ask for it. 

And Mr. Cleaver further testified that they sold to the masses, their 
stores being what are known as "cut-rate" or cheap stores. 

CONSTITUTIONALITY AND AIM OF THE 10-OENT TAX. 

There is of course a prejudice against the use of the internal-revenue 
tax for protective purposes, particularly when it is argued that the 
purpose is to entirely prohibit the manufacture and sale of the article 
taxed. In this case we claim that the tax is being employed only for 
the purpose of turning into the United States Treasury that portion of 
the profits upon a counterfeit article which may furnish an incentive 
for the vender thereof to practice fraud upon the public. 

We contend and believe that we have established the fact through 
the testimony of food commissioners and others who are in best posi- 
tion to judge that at least 76 per cent, if not more, of the oleomarga- 
rine produced goes to the consumer as butter and at practically butter 
prices. The evidence (p. 470) shows one case of where the manufac- 
turer advised the dealer that a brand of oleomargarine quoted at 18 
cents per pound should retail at 25 to 30 cents. General experience is 
that when oleomargaine is sold as butter it is sold just a trifle under 
butter prices as a bait to draw custom, and in twenty-five such cases 
reported by the Massachusetts food commissioner in a statement filed 
with this committee it was shown that the average price of such oleo- 
margarine sold as butter during the year was 22i cents per pound. A 
prospectus of the Standard Butterine Company, of Washington, filed 
with this committee shows that the average finished product minus the 
present 2-cent tax costs the producer 6.92 cents per pound. Add 10 
cents to this as the tax under the Grout bill and the cost is brought 
up to 16.92 cents per pound. At an average price of 22^ cents the 
retailer and manufacturer would have left between them a profit of 
6.58 cents, and could still sell the product at the same price to the 
consumer he is now paying for it. This is about the profit made by 
the manufacturer and retailer of butter. 

Under these circumstances, can it be said the 10-cent tax is a tax 
that will destroy? If so, how? 

Only in this way : These goods, now sold at 22^ cents, are sold as 
butter. This is forbidden by the State laws. The State laws of 32 
leading States also forbid the sale of oleomargarine colored in sem- 
blance of butter. The present profit of 13.58 cents per pound on 
oleomargarine (costing, with the 2-cent tax, 8.92 cents per pound) 
when sold as butter at 22^ cents is what causes its sale as such. The 
additional 8 cents will stop that fraudulent sale, of course, by taking 
away 8 cents of the profit in the transaction and bringing the business 
down to a basis where the dealer will, because of the normal profit 



I 



OLEOMAEGAEINE. 857 

only, be as willing to sell butter to those who call for it as he will 
oleomargarine. He will not take the chance of prosecutions under 
the State laws unless there is some incentive. 

Therefore the 10-cent tax will act merely as an agent to destroy 
that fraudulent incentive. A very small proportion of the people who 
really know what they are buying will be put to any greater expense 
in their purchases, because they are few who knowingly buy the 
article, compared with those who are defrauded. 

And in the case of hotels and restaurants, the public gets absolutely 
no benefit from the economy of their proprietors in foisting a coun- 
terfeit upon their guests. Whatever saving there is in the matter 
goes absolutely into the pockets of the proprietors, while the guest 
pays the same price he always did for his entertainment, and the dairy- 
man loses the market for that trade, which in the aggregate is enormous 
throughout the United States. 

In this way we believe that the 10-cent tax will not destroy any 
legitimate business, but only that part of the traffic which is fraudu- 
lent. On the other hand, the reduction of the tax from 2 cents to 
one-fourth cent upon the uncolored article will give the makers an 
opportunity to furnish those who really desire the article for nourish- 
ment and economy's sake oleomargarine at a much lower price. 

But, even should it be considered that the tax would destroy to a 
large extent the production and sale of colored oleomargarine, what 
do the authorities say of the use of the taxing power in such cases'^ 

Chief Justice Marshall, in the case of McCulloch v. Maryland, said: 

That the power to tax involves the power to destroy; that the power to destroj' 
may defeat and render useless the power to create; that then' is a plain repugnance 
in conferring on one Government a power to control the constitutional measures of 
another, which other, with respect to those very measures, is declared to be supreme 
over that which exerts the control, are propositions not to be denied. 

Justice Story, in his work on the Constitution (Book 1, pp. 677, 
678), says: 

Nothing is more clear from the history of nations than the fact that the taxing 
power is very often applied for other purposes than revenue. It is often applied as 
a virtual prohibition; sometimes to banish a noxious article of consumption, some- 
times as a suppression of particular employments. 

Justice Woodburv, in the case of Pierce et al. v. New Hampshire 
(5 Wheat., 608), said: 

But I go further on this point than some of the courts and wish to meet the case 
in front and in its worst bearings. If, as in the view of some, these license laws are 
in the nature of partial or entire prohibitions to seU certain articles as being danger- 
ous to public health and morals, it does not seem to me that their conflict with the 
Constitution would by any means be clear. Taking for granted that the real design 
in passing them is the avowed one (prohibition), they would appear entirely defen- 
sible as a matter of right thoughj^rohibiting sales. 

In Walker's Science of Wealth this rule of taxation is also general: 

The heaviest taxes should be imposed upon those commodities the consumption of 
which is especially prejudicial to the interests of the people. 

Desty, in his work on Taxation, says: 

One purpose of taxation sometimes is to discourage a business, and perhaps put it 
out of existence, and it is taxed without any idea of protection attending the burden. 

The authorities are very clear on all these points, and particularly 
on the right of Congress to use its discretion in the amount of tax 
levied upon any article. 



858 OLEOMAKGAELNE. 

Cooley on Taxation (p. 5) says: 

Everything to which the legislative power extends may be the subject of taxation, 
whether it be person or property, or possession, franchise or privilege, or occupation 
or right. Nothing but express constitutional limitation upon legislative authority 
can exclude anything to which the authority extends from the grasp of the tax- 
ing power if the legislature in its discretion shall at any time select it for revenue 
purposes. 

And not only is the power unlimited in its reach as to subjects, but in its very 
nature it acknowledges no limit, and may be carried to any extent which the Gov- 
ernment may find expedient. It may, therefore, be employed again and again upon 
the same subjects, even to the extent of exhaustion and destruction, and may thus 
become in its exercise a power to destroy. If the power be threatened with abuse, 
security must be found in the responsibility of the legislature which imposes the tax 
to the constituency who are to pay it. The judiciary can not afford redress against 
oppressive taxation, so long as the legislature in imposing it shall keep within the 
limits of legislative authority and violates no express provision of the Constitution. 
The necessity for imposing it addresses itself to the legislative discretion, and it is or 
may be an urgent necessity which will admit of no property or other conflicting 
right in the citizen while it remains unsatisfied. 

The Supreme Court, in McCuUoch v. Maryland (4 Wheat., 428), says: 

It is admitted that the power of taxing the people and their property is essential 
to the very existence of the Government and may be legitimately exercised to the 
utmost extent to which the Government may choose to carry it. The people give to 
their Government the right of taxing themselves and their property; and as the 
exigencies of the Government can not be limited, they prescribe no limits to the 
exercise of this right, resting confidently on the interest of the legislator and on the 
influence of the constituents over their representatives to guard them against its 
abuse. 

In 8 Wall., 548, is reported the opinion in the Veazie bank case 
wherein the court was appealed to in an effort to have the 10 per cent 
tax on State bank circulation set aside. In this case the court's rea- 
soning was: 

It is insisted, however, that the tax in the case before us is excessive, and so 
excessive as to indicate a purpose to destroy the franchise of the bank, and it is 
therefore beyond the constitutional power of Congress. 

The first answer to this is that the judiciary can not prescribe to the legislative 
departments of the Government limitations upon its acknowledged powers. The 
power to tax may be exercised oppressively upon persons, but the responsibility of 
the legislature is not to the courts, but to the people by whom its members are elected. 
So if a particular tax bears heavily upon a corporation, or a class of corporations, it 
can not for that reason only be pronounced contrary to the Constitution. 

In 3 Gill., 28, is quoted the following: 

* * * We are not driven to the perplexing inquiry so unfit for the judicial 
department. What degree of taxation is the legitimate use and what degree may 
amount to abuse of power? 

And further along, on page 28: 

On the contrary, when the Supreme Court has been required to speak upon this 
subject they have discountenanced the notion of implied restriction. 

And from 9 Wall., 41 to 45: 

It is true that the power of Congress to tax is a very extensive power. It is given 
in the Constitution with only one exception and with only two qualifications. Con- 
gress can not tax exports and it must impose direct taxes by rule of uniformity. 
Thus limited, and thus only, it reaches every subject, and may be exercised at 
discretion. 

We reiterate, the 10-cent tax is only directed at fraud and that 
quality of an article already condemned by the people, who, through 
their State legislatures, have made every possible effort to suppress it. 
And it seems to us that if there ever was an excuse for the use of the 






OLEOMAEGAEINE. 859 

taxing power to promote the welfare of the people through the turn- 
ing into the Treasury profits which are now an incentive to defraud, 
we have it here, particularly when the very use of the taxing power 
in the original law of 1886 is and has for years been used as a basis 
for the defeat of the enforcement of the laws of the various States, 
through the standing such taxation has given oleomargarine as an 
article of interstate commerce. 

A BEIEF ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF H. R. 3717, KNOWN AS THE GROUT 

BILL. 

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the Senate Committee on Agricul- 
ture: If one will read the reports of decisions from the United States 
Supreme Court, which constitute the controlling law of our country 
upon the subjects therein reviewed, he will notice that the question 
most frequently discussed, and up to this time never settled, is. What 
constitutes a valid exercise of the police power by the several States? 
And the necessity for the legislation contained in this bill, familiarly 
called the Grout bill, lies in the fact that notwithstanding the police 
features contained in nineteen sections of the act of 1886, known also 
as the national oleomargarine law, policing by the several States, the 
District of Columbia, and the Territories must continue so long as 
oleomargarine is manufactured as at present and transported from 
State to State, if the welfare of the dairy is to be considered and the 
people protected from fraud, actual or potential. 

What can the States, Territories, and District of Columbia do, how- 
ever, in this regard and in this direction but strike down the retailers, 
unless Congress limits the ejffect of the commerce clause of the Consti- 
tution, as provided for in section 1 of this bill, in view of the diversity 
of opinion of the several justices of the Supreme Court ? It is rather 
the rule now than the exception, when a case involving interstate com- 
merce and police power is before the Supreme Court, to see the jus- 
tices disagree and a dissenting opinion filed. Examine Liesy v. Hardin, 
135 U. S., 107 and 125; Plumley v. Mass., 155 U. S., 462 and 480; Geer 
V. Conn., 161 U. S., 521, 535, and 542; Schollenberger v. Penna., 171 
U. S. , 6 and 25, and you will no longer marvel that judges of the United 
States district courts entertain varying opinions, nor that the appellate 
courts of the States are not in harmony on such questions. (In re 
Scheitlin (Missouri), Jan. 8, 1900; in re Brundage (Minn.), Jan. 12, 
1896, Fed. Rep., 963.) 

Therefore, in order that there may be a uniform system of laws reg- 
ulating traffic in oleomargarine, and that force and effect may be given 
to the enactments of thirty -two States, as weU as others that may pass 
such laws later on, and to carry out the views of Justice Harlan, as 
expressed on pages 467 and 468, 155 U. S. — the Plumley case — your 
favorable report is requested. 

I quote from Justice Harlan's opinion in the Plumley case: 

It will be observed that the statute of Massachusetts, which is alleged to be repug- 
nant to the commerce clause of the Constitution, does not prohibit the manufacture 
or sale of all oleomargarine, but only such as is colored in imitation of yellow butter 
produced from pure, unadulterated milk or cream of such milk. If free from color- 
ation or ingredient that "causes it to look like butter," the right to sell it "in a sep- 
arate and distinct form, and in such manner as will advise the consumer of its real 
character," is neither restricted nor prohibited. * * * The statute seeks to sup- 
press false pretenses and to promote fair dealing in the sale of an article of food. It 
compels the sale of oleomargarine for what it really is, by preventing its sale for what 



860 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

it is not. * * * Does the freedom of commerce among the States demand a recog- 
nition of the right to practice a deception upon the public in the sale of any articles, 
even those that may have become the subject of trade in different parts of the 
country? 

The Grout bill in its proviso affords the same privilege to dealers in 
oleomargarine that the statute of Massachusetts afforded, and only 
gives vitality and power to laws of the same liberality of construction. 

The substitute bill, known as the Wadsworth or the minority bill, is 
the old attempt at regulating presented in a different form; all of the 
safeguards against deception and fraud can be broken down with the 
same ease that other regulating laws have been violated; protection 
can only come by taking away the color, or if the manufacturer sees 
fit to pay the 10-cent tax for the privilege of imitating yellow butter, 
then the difference in price being greatly reduced the inducement to 
defraud is considerably lessened. The true delight from eating butter 
comes to the palate, not the eye, and pure butter by any other color 
than yellow would taste as sweet. Why does this not hold true of 
oleomargarine ? 

James Hewes, 
President Produce Exchange^ 
Vice-President National Dairy Union. 



BRIEF OF TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION TO THE GROUT BILL 

(H. R. 3717). 



[By Mr. Springer.] 

[The figures refer to pages of the Hearings of the House Committee on Agriculture and the Senate 
Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. H. H. will stand for House Hearings and S. H. for Senate 
Hearings.] 

Oleomargarine as a food product is wholesome, palatable, and nutritious: S. H., 17, 
18, 19, 25, 48, 49, 65, 70, 72, 96, 97, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 261, 262, 337-338, 351, 397, 
514. H. H. , 694, 703, 713, 716. 

Expert opinions of oleomargarines: S. H.,85, 86. H. H., 694, 712, 713, 714, 717, 720, 
721, 765, 766, 767, 768, 769, 770, 771, 772, 773, 774, 775, 776, 777, 778, 782, 783, 791, 
797, 809, 810, 811. 

Ingredients of oleomargarine are farm products, and no unwholesome articles are 
used: S. H., 41, 54, 55, 56, 88, 202. H. H., 753-758 (Commissioner Wilson's Inves- 
tigation), 706, 713, 714, 716, 720, 721, 800, 801. 

The bill would destroy oleomargarine industry: S. H., 14, 37, 38, 39, 65, 174, 271, 274, 
303, 352, 353, 358, 382, 391, 509. H. H., 750, 784, 792, 793. 

Grout bill is unconstitutional: S. H., 93-107 (Mr. Springer's argument). S. H., 392- 
411 (argument of Mr. Henry E. Davis, of Washington, D. C, attorney for the 
Standard Butterine Company). 

Consumption of oleomargarine in the States: S. H., 90-91, 415 (Secretary Wilson's 
remarks) . 

Oleomargarine is a proper subject of interstate and foreign commerce, and its manu- 
facture is a lawful pursuit: S. H., 95, 96, 97, 98, 396. 

Grout bill not a revenue measure: S. H.,16, 17,43,106,561 (Secretary Gage's state- 
ment). 

Coloring matter is used both in making butter and in manufacturing oleomargarine 
for the purpose of catering to the tastes of consumers: S. H., 22, 33, 39, 40, 44, 69, 
262, 263, 272, 309, 310, 316, 335, 336, 347, 355. H. H., 704, 705, 708, 709, 714, 763, 
779, 793, 794. 

Live-stock interests injuriously affected: S. H., 60,61, 62, 63, 66-67,68, 71, 72, 77-78, 
79, 80-116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 182, 183. H. H., 653, 654, 655-660, 661, 673, 674, 
675, 676, 677, 678, 679, 680, 681, 682, 683, 732, 733, 734, 735, 739, 740, 741, 742, 743, 
744, 745, 747, 748, 749, 788, 789, 790, 799. 

Cotton-seed oil industry injured: S. H., 314,315,316,318,320,321,322,323,324,325, 
326, 327, 343, 344, 345, 346, 347, 483, 484, 485, 486, 487. H. H., 663, 604, 665, 666, 
692, 693, 694, 695, 723, 724, 725, 726, 727, 728, 729, 730, 731, 732, 736, 737, 738. 

Labor organizations opposed to bill: S. H., 307, 308, 309, 310, 311, 312, 314, 319, 320, 
350, 351, 352, 353, 354, 357, 359, 360, 361, 362, 504, 505, 506, 507, 508, 509, 510. 
H.H.,706. 

Alleged frauds in selling oleomargarine for butter: S. H., 19, 20, 27, 28, 29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 
40, 201, 202. 270, 274, 275, 292, 297, 301, 302, 383, 387, 562, 563, 564, 565. H. H., 704, 
705, 717, 750, 751, 752, 753, 754, 755, 756, 757, 758, 759, 761. 

Process butter: S. H., 22, 29, 30, 31, 39, 108, 109, 266, 267, 338 (Professor Alvord'a 
views), 339, 387, 388, 389, .390, 518. H. H., 719, 722, 723. 

Butter interests not injured by competition with oleomargarine: S. H., 114, 171, 172, 
173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 179, 180, 202, 203, 215, 216, 264, 268, 304, 308, 337, 523. 
H. H., 716,784,785,790,791. 

Substitute bill: S. H., 305, 398, 366, 568,569 (statement of Mr. Wadsworth, chairman 
of House Committee on Agriculture). H. H., 750, 759. 

Substitute bill would reduce fraudulent sales of oleomargarine for butter to an infini- 
tesimal amount. (Testimony of Secretary Gage) :S. H., 565,566,567. H. H.,274. 

Argument of Hon. John S. Williams, of Mississippi. Reference is made to the able 
argument of Hon. John S. Williams, M. C, from Mississippi, in opposition to the 
Grout bill before the House Committee on Agriculture, May 26, 1900. 

861 



862 OLEOMAKGARINE. 

PETITIONS AGAINST PASSAGE OP THE GROUT BILL. 

National Live Stock Association: S. H., 78, 79, 80. H. H., 657. 

South St. Paul Live Stock Exchange: S. H., 56, 57. 

Texas Cotton-Seed Crushers' Association: S. H., 58, 59. 

Sioux City Live Stock Exchange: S. H., 60. 

Cotton oil superintendents from South and North Carolina: S. H., 60. 

Kansas City (Kans.) Mercantile Club: S.H.,61,62. 

Kansas City (Mo.) Commercial Club: S. H.,62,63. 

Kansas City Live Stock Exchange: S. H., 71, 72. 

National Live Stock Exchange, Chicago: S. H., 185, 186. 

Holland Butterine Company, of Pittsburg, Pa.: S. H., 199. 

Cattle Raisers' Association of Texas: H. H., 653, 654. 

The South St. Joseph Live Stock Exchange, South St. Joseph, Mo.: H. H., 654,655. 

The South Omaha Live Stock Exchange: H. H., 739, 741, 742. 

Merchants of Kansas City, Mo.: H. H., 502. 



REVIEW OF THE EVIDENCE PRESENTED BEFORE THE HOUSE 
AND SENATE AGRICULTURAL COMMITTEES ON H. R. 3717. 

[Prepared by Charles E. Schell, at the request of the Senate committee.] 

The Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, 

United States Senate^ Washington, D. O. 

Gentlemen: In response to a request by members of your body that 
I furnish a brief resume of the evidence presented by the friends and 
the opponents of the Grout bill I will endeavor so to do, speaking, 
however, only for my own clients. In the beginning, allow me to state 
that in my opinion the full enormity and infamy of the bill in question 
can not be comprehended properly by any member of this committee 
without carefully reading everything that has been offered on both 
sides, and I would earnestly urge that this be done. There has been 
but little repetition, and the principal part of that has been in the 
memorials from live stock and cotton growers associations whose inter- 
ests are sufficiently large that a little repetition as a means of more 
fully impressing the importance of their claims would not be amiss. 

In calling attention to the estimates of probable loss to the live stock 
and cotton-seed oil interests should this bill become a law, I wish to 
remind the committee of what appeared during the hearings to the 
effect that some of the estimates of losses took into consideration only 
the actual net loss by reason of the destruction of the local oleomar- 
garine industry; others computed the loss by taking into consideration 
the total output for the purpose of manufacture of oleomargarine, 
both at home and abroad; while others, and perhaps the most accurate 
computations, were based upon the loss that would accrue from lack 
of a home market and by reason of the effect upon the general market 
and the export trade by reason of the official condemnation which would 
be placed upon the various products and would necessarily affect, if 
not entirely destroy, the export trade. As was fully shown before 
the committee the actual loss can not be estimated by merely taking 
the difference between the price of the materials for the purpose of 
manufacturing oleomargarine and the price of the same materials 
still retained in their original uses. Their return to former uses 
would necessarily reduce the existing price of the materials still so 
used, and the effect of a total destruction of one market for a product, 
however small that market might be, compared with the entire out- 
put, would be more vast than the most expert board of trade manipu- 
lator could estimate. However, the estimates from the various sec- 
tions as a result of different experiences and different evidences suffi- 
ciently coincide that a fairly accurate idea can be established as to the 
minimum loss even if no one can estimate the total loss that this leg- 
islation would bring about. 

In the interests of cotton-seed oil we first have Fred Oliver, begin- 
ning at page 81 of the hearing before the House committee, and I earn- 

863 



864 OLEOMAKGAKINE. 

estly recommend the reading of the entire statement, especially that 
part in which he estimates an annual loss of $65,000,000 to his people 
and to the elemental wealth of the country should this bill become a 
law. His statements and estimates are sustained by numerous others 
who appeared before this committee and the House committee for the 
cotton industry, and all of whom produce additional interesting points 
showing their individual reasons why their industry should not be leg- 
islated against. Especially was a strong point made by Mr. Ready, 
of Arkansas, who states, at page 149 of the House Hearings, that in 
Helena they have four oil mills, with an investment of about $700,000, 
and which four mills support 800 people. I would especially ask the 
committee to read in full the argument of Judge Aldredge, at page 109 
of the House hearings, in which he presents plain facts and dry statis- 
tics in a very interesting manner; and also the statements of Mr. Con- 
ley, at page 322 of the Senate hearings. 

The tirst presentation of the cattle growers' interests was by Mr. 
Cowan, of Fort Worth, Tex. (House Hearings, p. TO, et seq.), whose 
particular client, The Texas Cattle Raisers' Association, showed a 
membership of 1,200 cattlemen and a property interest of $100,000,000, 
but who also represented other identical interests, all of whom figured 
a probable loss in the value of their cattle of from $3 to $4 per head. 
He was followed by Mr. Tomlinson, representing the Chicago Live 
Stock Exchange, who agreed with him as to the loss of from $3 to $4 
per head on cattle. There were others before both committees who 
shared these views. However, the statement most in detail on this 
branch of the subject was by Mr. John McCoy (House Hearings, p. 
93), who figures the result of the passage of this bill as a net annual 
loss to the farmers and stock raisers of the country of $62,950,434. 
Mr. McCoy's estimates are very conservative and were to a limited 
degree explained before this committee at pages 64 to 72 of the Senate 
committee hearings. At page 68, Senate Hearings, he read from an 
agricultural paper to show the increase in the value of milch cows, of 
milk, of butter, and of cheese. 

Mr. J. A. Hake, of South Omaha, Nebr. (House Hearings, p. 167), 
makes a computation slightly varying, but substantially the same as 
the others, and setting out the local conditions; also showing, from 
statistics taken from the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Agri- 
cultural Department, that for the ten years ending June 30, 1899, the 
butter industry had increased more rapidly than had the butterine 
industry. Mr. Thompson, president of the Live Stock Exchange of 
Chicago (Senate Hearings, p. 182), figured the loss on each head of 
cattle as the result of the passage of this bill at $3.42, and sustains the 
statements and computations of his predecessors before both commit- 
tees. Judge Springer presented to your committee (Senate Hearings, 
p. 78) the memorial of the National Live Stock Association, which 
estimates a loss of from $3 to $4 per head on the cattle of the country 
as a result of the proposed class legislation. He has compiled numer- 
ous statistics and has very ably treated all the legal phases of the ques- 
tion. The argument of Henry E. Davis, at page 392, is also a very 
able presentation from a legal standpoint. 

The statement of Col. John S. Hobbs, editor of the National Pro- 
visioner, of New York and Chicago (House Hearings, p. 130), is full of 
information on this subject, and especially his detailed statement of 
the workings of a butterine factory, at page 138. 



OLEOMAKGAEINE. 865 

The statement of Professor Wiley (House Hearings, p. 186) will be 
read with interest by any member wishing to fully inform himself as 
to the chemistry of the article, and the statements of Internal Rev- 
enue Commissioner Wilson (House Hearings, p. 167 et seq.) should 
have great weight in deciding this question. At page 168 he specific- 
ally recommends a regulation similar to that incorporated in the 
Wadsworth substitute bill, and at page 182 considers it will meet the 
requirements of preventing fraud "in the fullest possible way." He 
commends the article as at present manufactured and the dealers gen- 
erally as giving his department no particular trouble. At page 168 
he pronounces the 10-cent tax prohibitive and thinks it would defeat 
the end of deriving any revenue from it. 

The most important of the oleomargarine manufacturers have been 
before you, either personally or by counsel, and tell the same story in 
a slightly different manner. They unite in claiming cleanliness and 
wholesomeness in their product, in obeying the laws, in inviting a full 
investigation of their every act, and in offering their assistance in pass- 
ing and enforcing any law which will reduce the fraud to a minimum, 
in denying the charges that they connive at the alleged fraud of the 
retailer or that they defend him for selling oleomargarine for butter, 
and in insisting that it is utterly impossible to market uncolored oleo- 
margarine, and that to be compelled to abandon the use of color would 
mean the total destruction of the industry and an abandonment of their 
plants. A strong presentation of the case, from both a practical and 
legal standpoint, was made by Mr. Gardner early in the hearing before 
this committee, and I would earnestly recommend that his article be 
given a second reading before taking the committee vote on this 
subject. 

MERITS AND DEMERITS OF THE BILL ACCORDING TO THE TESTIMONY. 

Now, as to the merits of the respective sides from the evidence 
produced. 

Briefly stated, the friends of the bill base their claim on — 

Alleged public sentiment in its favor. 

Alleged fraud in competition and on consumers. 

Threatened absolute destruction of the dairy industry. 

Failure of state legislation. 

Nonenforcement of existing revenue laws governing retailers. 

The opponents of the bill deny all this, and claim that the bill is — 

1. Dishonest in name and in purpose. 

2. Class legislation. 

3. An exercise of police power. 

4. Destruction by taxation. 

5. Confiscation of propert}^ without due process of law. 

6. Delegation of control of interstate commerce. 

And the bill is dishonest in that it is not what it purports to be nor 
what its friends claim for it. They admit that under the guise of a 
revenue measure it is an exercise of police power for the alleged pur- 
pose of preventing fraud and regulating competition. But the testi- 
mony shows that it is for the actual purpose of destroying one industry 
in the interest of another. 

It is class legislation of the most vicious kind. That it is unconsti- 
tutional is not disputed, but they depend upon the unwillingness of 
S. Rep. 2043 55 



866 OLEOMAEGARINE. 

the courts to inquire into the motive of an exercise of the taxing 
power. 

First, regarding their claim of a united public sentiment, I will 
request the committee to exercise those means of knowledge which 
Senator Dolliver says the uiembers possess to a larger degree than any- 
one else and ascertain to what extent the various communications with 
which the Senators have been favored have been actually good-faith 
representations of the senders, and to what extent they have been the 
results of requests emanating from lobbyists or from dairy and cream- 
ery journals, whose means of support consist largely in selling gold 
bricks to their subscribers and who create discontent among the farmers 
and then get employed to correct the evils at whatever contribution 
they can levy, from 50 cents up. (House Hearings, p, 62.) 

I will also call attention to the analysis of the authorized representa- 
tion of record of the gentlemen standing most prominently before the 
committee as favoring this measure, as shown at pages 279, 282, 283, 
and 304 of the hearings before the Senate committee. Also, to some of 
the means by which these various letters have been brouglit about, as 
sho^ n in the statements at page 198 of the House hearings. Also, to 
the statement of Mr. Knight, on pages 44 and 45 of the House Hear- 
ings and pages 472, 473, and 519 of the Senate Hearings, in which he 
told how he obtained indorsements from Cincinnati butter men, and 
how he had aimed to get the labor organizations arrayed on his side 
of the question, and after having promises from some of the members 
of a certain labor union his first notification of the results of his 
efforts was a resolution in which the said union had opposed the pas- 
sage of the bill. This ball set rolling by himself, so far as there is 
any record, without any other incentive than the fact that the »ubject 
was before Congress, has been the means of the protest of hundreds 
of thousands of laboring men all over the country, the representatives 
of some of whom appeared personally (Senate Hearings, pp. 307, 310, 
350, and 508) and in other instances your committee has been memo- 
rialized, and in numerous instances of which I know no steps have 
been taken other than to merely pass condemnatory resolutions. The 
workingmen as a class, as well as every consumer of whom there is 
any evidence in the record, are unanimous against the passage of this 
bill. I asked repeatedly during the hearings if any case had ever 
been brought on complaint of a consumer, but no case was cited nor 
was a single protest from a consumer presented. 

The allegations of fraud in the sale of the product have been sweep- 
ing. According to Governor Hoard, "The business is based from 
manufacture to sale on wrong and illegitimate methods." The dealer 
is accused of selling practically all of the oleomargarine he handles for 
butter to a long-suffering public; the manufacturer and wholesaler are 
accused of furnishing to him all sorts of encouragement and financial 
backing in carrying out his fraudulent undertaking; but the only testi- 
mony that is worth a moment's consideration that has been offered in 
connection with this wholesale claim of fraud was the evidence from 
Philadelphia, which would probably have stood the test of investiga- 
tion, but which was brought about by the peculiar condition of the 
Pennsylvania laws and the Philadelphia situation. The few cases from 
Chicago wherein retailers did not compl}^ as closely as they should 
with the revenue provisions were no evidence of the true condition of 
things in Chicago. The charges were confined to one section and 



OLEOMARGAKINE. 867 

largely to one Broadwcll. Nobody disputes but what there are some 
wicked people in the retail oleomargarine business the same as in any- 
thing else, but the}^ are the exceptions to prove the rule that the 
majority of the retailers are conducting the business as it ought to be 
conducted. 

The only attempt to specify any manufacturers or wholesalers who 
are said to be aiding the retailers in any fraudulent sales of oleomar- 
garine are allegations wherein Mr. Knight claimed that some employee 
of Braun & Fitts and of Moxle_v & Co. gave bond and aided in the 
defense of certain alleged violations of the law. It Avas promptly 
denied by Mr. Jelke on behalf of Braun & Fitts that this man had any 
authorit}^ from his firm to do other than protect their customers when 
they were prosecuted for violations of what were deemed to be, or of 
what were in some instances judicially held to be, unconstitutional laws; 
that it was a part of the business of this employee to keep in touch 
with everything connected with the trade, including prosecutions, and 
doubtless he was present, but if said emplo3'ee exerted himself in 
behalf of a dealer guilty of selling oleomargarine for butter, that it 
was against express instructions of the firm of Braun & Fitts, and 
that he was further of the opinion that Mr. Moxley did not counte- 
nance such proceedings. Mr. Knight also produced some correspond- 
ence of the two firms which he claimed amounted to an agreement to 
furnish assistance in violating the laws, but which the representatives 
of the firms insist were merely an assurance that they would defend 
against any unwarranted interference under invalid laws by the ofii- 
cers and the attorne3^s of the National Dairy Union. (Senate Hearings, 
p. 465; House Hearings, p. 38.) And it seems the factories were 
right, since, according to Mr. Knight's own statement, the suits failed. 
(House Plearings, p. 40.) And it seems that his nameless clerk, who 
had worked in nearly all the stores and was ready to betray his 
employers, was not able to furnish a case that would stand a legal test 
(p. 461). 

The Ohio commissioner impliedl}^ accused the Columbus company of 
a wholesale defense of retail dealers, but in reply to a question from 
Senator Foster as to whether or not they defended cases where the 
retailers were selling oleomargarine for butter he stated that his 
impression was that they did, but he could not recall one particular 
instance of that kind. (Senate Hearings, p. 163.) Except general 
accusations, there is nothing in the record charging any of the other 
24 manufacturers of oleomargarine or any of the 400 wholesalers of 
defending any retailer for selling oleomargarine for butter. Mr. 
Flanders, who was very free in most of his accusations, was careful 
not to even make these accusations against the manufacturers. He 
started at the top of page 126 of the Senate Hearings to make a 
wholesale accusation as to what the manufacturers did all over the 
country; then he modified the statement and confined it to New York; 
then he called attention to that statement, saying: ""Mind you how I 
put it — that we are told by parties who have been approached that 
they offered to indemnify them." They failed to produce a single 
man who has ever been indemnified or who has been offered to be 
indemnified by either a factory or wholesaler of oleomargarine. 

Gentlemen, they have failed in their proof of any fraud at all on 
the part of manufacturer or wholesaler and have shown an amount of 
fraud on the part of the retailers as small as could be expected to exist, 



868 OLBOMAEGAEIISrE. 

considering the immense number and the fact that these same dealers 
have been assailed regardless of their business integrity or otherwise, 
while, on the contrary, it appears from the records (House Hearings, 
pp. 108, 169, 199, 211, and 229, and Senate Hearings, pp. 280, 292, 
298, etc.) that oleomargarine is sold for exactly what it is in almost 
every instance. Nor have they produced a single consumer who com- 
plains of having been swindled in purchasing oleomargarine for butter. 
On the contrary (Senate Hearings, p. 20), it was stated that three- 
fourths of the entire product of one factory went direct to the con- 
sumer, and at page 381 I presented a list of 1,083 names of consumers 
who buy direct from one factory and who wish to continue so to do 
and protest most vigorously against the passage of this bill. Secretary 
Gage (Senate Hearings, p. 563) also told you in part of their experience 
with a cheese plant whose owner purchased the milk from the farmers 
in his vicinity and who in turn, as the agent of these farmers, pur- 
chased from an oleomargarine factory the butter substitute which these 
same farmers use on their tables. The workingmen (as consumers) 
appeal to you to leave the colored production within their reach. 
(Senate Hearings, pp. 307, 310, 350, 608, and 568.) 

On the subject of threatened absolute destruction of the dairy indus- 
try I wish to call your attention to the fact that they have not intro- 
duced any evidence to show that the industry is in any danger, but 
that the evidence throughout the record is to the effect that the growth 
of the dairy industry has been even more rapid in the last ten years 
than the growth of the oleomargarine industry. (House Hearings, 
p. 158; Senate Hearings, pp. 439-440). I call attention to the statement 
of Mr. Lestrade before the Senate committee at pages 166 and 171 as to 
the growth in quality and quantity of the butter industry, and his further 
statement, at page 216, that the butter men were making better profits 
than ever before. Also to the statement of Mr. Kimball, at page 55 
of the House Hearings, to the effect that butter was then 2 cents per 
p'Dund higher than formerly; to the statement of Mr. Thomas Sharp- 
less (Senate Hearings, p. 228) that he still received 35 cents per pound 
for his entire output, and that his neighbors received from 25 cents 
up; and to the statement of C. H. Royce (p. 379), who gets 50 cents 
per pound for his butter; and particularly to the statement of Gov- 
ernor Hoard, quoted by Representative Bailey, at page 64 of the House 
Hearings, to the effect that the dairy industry has made more rapid 
strides than any other industry in the country; and to page 439, 
where Mr. Jelke asks Mr. Adams, "Is not your industry more pros- 
perous now than it ever was before?" Mr. Adams. "Yes, sir." 

Regarding their claim that State legislation is a failure, we must say 
again that they have not proven their claim. On the contrary, as 
appears from the evidence, the " oleomargarine or butter " laws are 
capable of enforcement and are enforced in every State, so far as is 
shown by the record. It is also shown that the color laws are strictly 
enforced in New York, in Iowa, in Wisconsin, and also in Pennsyl- 
vania, in so far as any effort has been made to enforce them. It also 
appears of record that the color laws are much more difficult to enforce 
than the other provisions of the law; that they are utterly unfair and 
consequently unpopular. And it stands to reason that so long as a 
man accused of a crime has the right of trial by jury and that crime 
is merely selling other men what they want, for what it is, and col- 
ored as they want it, and those other men sit in judgment, it will be 



OLEOMAEGARINE. 869 

extremely difficult to enforce any such laws as these. And, gentle- 
men, the Grout bill can't deprive a man of the right to trial by jury. 

Their charges against the revenue agents have been pronounced 
false by the agents themselves and their superiors in office. They 
claim that the revenue department will not enforce a law unless the 
collection of revenue be the incentive. While that cowardly charge 
against the revenue department is not to be considered, yet the Wads- 
worth substitute bill offers this additional incentive to the revenue 
collector to enforce retail regulations. 

This, gentlemen, we take to be a fair analysis of the alleged strong 
points of the case attempted to be made in favor of the Grout bill. Now, 
we beg to call your attention briefly to what we term the weak points of 
the bill, or some of the reasons why not only the bill, but its friends, 
should hear the voice of condemnation, and that in no uncertain terms, 
from the members of the committee. I refer to the utter and abso- 
lute dishonesty of the measure itself, to the dishonest attitude that 
has been taken before this committee regarding the bill and its true 
purport, and to the fact that although attempting to conceal the full 
iniquity of their purpose they have yet had the audacity and unpar- 
alleled insolence to ask this committee to be a party to an act of dis- 
honesty so base that it would make a black stain on the darkest walls 
of perdition. 

Gentlemen, they have not been fair and open with you in this matter. 
They come here under the alleged authority of millions of producers 
and consumers, and with the false battle cry of "fraud." On demand 
they fail to produce even a forged power of attorney from more than 
30,000 people. Their alleged constituency wilted away like a blighted 
flower, but they still strained their utmost efforts to keep the alleged 
fraud in the foreground, and directly and persistently evaded the 
questions asked by members of this and the House committee in an 
effort to get at their real motives and purposes. (See an example in 
Senator Money's efforts, pp. 488, et seq.) 

At the bottom of page 2 of the House hearings Governor Hoard says: 

That with the tax of 10 cents per pound on the counterfeit substitute we beheve 
the temptation for unjust profits, deceptive sale, dishonorable and dangerous con- 
spiring against law, and fraudulent competition with an honest industry will be 
greatly modified. 

At page 10 of the House Hearings Mr. Knight says: 

All we ask is that the people be protected in the right to choose between the two 
articles. 

In the Senate hearings, at page 6, Senator Allen asks Mr. Grout: 
"Suppose that it is apparent on the face of this bill that the motive 
for imposing this tax is to destroy the thing taxed? " Mr. Grout: "We 
deny this. We say that is not the motive." And at the bottom of the 
page General Grout savs further: 

But let me say it is not the purpose here to tax it out of existence. The object of 
this second section is to prevent the sale of oleomargarine as butter, to prevent a 
fraud. * * * No; instead of destroying, it encourages the manufacture of the 
honest article. All that it seeks to destroy is the fraud that is perpetrated when it 
is colored like butter. 

At page 179 of the House hearings Representative Haugen, a friend 
of the bill, says to Commissioner Wilson : 

Yes; but under the bill the paying of the 10-cent tax would permit the manu- 
facturers to color their product and make it an imitation of butter, and then it would 
cost only 18 cents per pound. * * * 



870 OLEOMAKGARINK, 

At page 81 of the Senate hearings Mr. Adams feels called upon to 
deny the only record of his statement before the House committee, to 
the eifect that he wanted to drive the oleomargarine manufacturer out 
of the business. And Mr. Knight at the same time disputed the 
authenticity of the letter purporting to have been written by him to 
the Virginia dairymen, and which was to the same general effect. 
Your committee will recall — and it is in evidence at pages 220, 234, 235, 
248, 252, 253, and 254 — the efforts to get the Philadelphia delegation 
on record as to whether they wanted a total destruction of the industry 
or merely wanted oleomargarine kept on its own side of the fence. 
The delegates all evidently had views of their own, but their attorney 
insisted on talking for them, and in the end Mr. Grout insisted on tell- 
ing him what to say, and he said it. There is nothing more true in the 
Bible, however, than that "from the fullness of the heart the mouth 
speaketh." And because of this failing of the human mind, rather 
than from any intention on the part of the friends of this bill, we have 
the gentlemen on record. 

At page 4 of the House Hearings Governor Hoard says: "The 
whole proposition is in a nutshell — force out the color or semblance to 
butter and you put a stop to its being imposed upon the consumer for 
butter." He does not say raise the price of the colored article, but 
"force out the color." At page 62 of the House Hearings Mr. 
Knight says: "1 do not believe that there is any necessity for the col- 
ored oleomargarine being sold." At page 69 of the House Hearings 
Mr. Hewes, whom the- committee will remember, says: "The 10-cent 
tax is with the view of prohibiting all manufacture of oleomargarine 
yellow unless they want to pay the penalty. It is to tax that yellow 
color." And Mr. Adams, in his correction of the minority report 
(Senate Hearings, p. 81), says: 

He simply stated * * * that we had no purpose to stop the manufacture and sale 
of oleomargarine, but simply of the colored imitation — counterfeit product. 

Mr. Grout keeps himself well in reserve on the subject of crowding 
out any recognized product, but at the top of page 9 of the Senate 
Hearings he becomes warmed up to his subject and says: "But if you 
will put this 10-cent tax on it and stop all coloring like butter, the 
game will then be up." This same expression, which seems to be an 
outlet for his pent-up feelings, was again delivered with great orator- 
ical effect before your honorable committee on the last day of your 
regular hearings on this subject, and at which hearing, as appears 
(Senate Hearings, pp. 579, 580) of record, Mr. Grout was asked 
directly, and failed to answer, how, under his bill, the factories could 
supply their export trade or their orders from consumers who wanted 
the colored oleomargarine and were willing to pay the extra 10 cents 
per pound, when their return to the Government would be a sworn 
plea of guilty to the violation of a State law and would put them 
immediately in the grasp of the State officers in thirty-two States of 
the Union. A letter from Mr. Blackburn, quoted at page 354, says: 
" We should stand together in a fight to a finish against oleomargarine." 

Mr. Hamilton, of Pennsylvania, on page 152 of the Senate hearings, 
quotes with approval from the governor's message, which says: 

1 am much gratified at the prospects of the early passage in Congress of the Grout 
bill; for if this bill becomes a law, it will greatly aid in the suppression of the oleo- 
margarine traffic. 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 87 1 

Not illegal traffic, but "oleomargarine traffic." Gentlemen, through- 
out the record, from the various expressions of those who have been 
heard in favor of the passage of this bill, creeps to the surface the 
sentiment that it is not the suppression of fraud. It is not the protec- 
tion of the consumer. It is not a question of mere regulation of com- 
petition between rival industries. It is not a question of insufficiency 
of State legislation. It is not a question of nonenf orcement of existing 
revenue laws. It is not a question of threatened absolute destruction 
of the dairy industry. But it is a question of systematic organized 
effort to legislate out of existence the manufacture of oleomargarine. 
Not, as some of the friends of the bill reluctantly or unguardedl}^ admit, 
the driving out of the manufacture of the colored product, because 
they all know, and the manufacturers all know and have testihed, either 
personally or by counsel, before your committee that the uncolored 
article, is absolutely unmarketable. (Senate hearings, pp. 37, 39, 47, 
204, 531, 568, etc.) And the same thing is admittedly true with regard 
to butter. In vain we ask : ' ' Why should one product have a monopoly 
on color?" The answers would apply equally as well in defending a 
law regulating the color of a man's clothes or a maiden's cheeks accord- 
ing to their respective stations in life. 

These men have laid their lines well by working on the credulity of 
the farmer, b}^ taking advantage of the lack of any resistance, organ- 
ized or otherwise, on the part of the oleomargarine industry, and they 
have passed prohibitory laws in thirty-two different States, laws neces- 
sarily unpopular, and, as to their unfair features, hard to enforce. 
And now they come before Congress asking that a bill be passed by 
which the manufacturer of oleomargarine is crushed, not by the con- 
flict of laws, but b}^ the coming together of the State and national laws. 

They come before you reeking with dishonesty of purpose and with 
every claim supported by glaring falsehoods. And, attempting to con- 
ceal what they can of their duplicity, they still say: "Gentlemen, we 
want this law. We concede that we can not get it under its proper 
classification, but if you will impose upon the people and on the 
Supreme Court by giving us this law under the guise of a revenue 
measure, the future butter trust and the dairy publications will rise 
up and call you blest." And they do not hesitate to make you parties 
of record to this fraud which they want perpetrated. 

At page 2 of the House hearings Governor Hoard sa5^s: "In plain 
words this is repressive taxation." At page 11 of the hearings before 
this committee he says: "The Federal Government is limited in its 
constitutional power. It has no right to enact prohibition. It has no 
police power. These things you are as well aware of as I am." At 
page 7 of the Senate hearings General Grout says: " I do not think it 
[the one- fourth-cent revenue] ought to be less, for it ought to be large 
enough to cover the cost of policing the business." And, in reply to 
the question as to whether or not the subject is one of police regula- 
tion in the State: "Yes, but we have got a regulation here in this 
second section which transcends police regulations; and if the Senator 
will allow me a moment, I will make it plain to him." Senator Allen: 
"Can you do that?" General Grout: "Oh, yes, sir; in the way we 
propose to do it here, as 1 believe." He does not proceed to tell the 
way, but the way is to cover up the motive by giving the act a revenue 
cloak. 



872 OLEOMAEGAKINE. 

At page 65 of the House hearings Mr. Hewes says: 

And so it went on until the year 1886, when we appeared here for the purpose of 
having Congress exercise its police regulations, and of course we could only get to 
Congress and ask for a revenue measure, and, as the late lamented Mr. Dingley said 
to me only a year or two ago: " Mr. Hewes, you know well enough that that was a 
ruse of yours to get this thing into Congress under the head of a police measure by 
drawing the revenue to the Government; " but we knew what we were talking about. 

And at page 69 he says: "We [the butter men] said [to the Govern- 
ment] * * * we will give you a million and a half dollars of reve- 
nue, and we ask you simply to act as policemen." At page 109 of the 
Senate hearings, referring to a fraud mentioned by Judge Springer, 
Mr. Flanders says: "It is not a proper subject of the police power. 
We are invoking the Police power." At page 6 of the House Hearings 
Mr. Knight saj^s: 

The matter of legislating against the counterfeit article, however, was found to be 
a complex proposition for Congress because of the constitutional restriction, which 
prevents the Congress of the United States exercising police powers except for the 
protection of its revenue receipts, interstate commerce, and other matters absolutely 
within the limits of the Constitution. * * * 

The markings of the "wolf" appear very much in evidence regard- 
less of his "sheep's clothing." 

On the Wadsworth substitute bill, allow me to say, from the stand- 
point of an attorney who for years has been aiding the manufacturers 
and wholesalers in keeping oleomargarine on the market for what it is, 
what I have already said at your hearing, that 1 agree with Commis- 
sioner Wilson and others who have testified that it will reduce the 
possibility of fraud to a minimum. 

And as to the Grout bill, I repeat what 1 have heretofore said, that 
it places a premium on fraud. It does not prevent the sale of oleo- 
margarine for butter. Every rogue in the business can greatly increase 
his profits and be safer than at present. And I believe the law was 
drawn partly for that purpose. The coloring by the retailer is one 
way and an easy one, and there is no law to prevent, but it is crude. 
There are other and better ways and they will be used. But, gentle- 
men, prevent it by preventing this useless and iniquitous law from 
becoming a blot on the statute books of this great country. 

This is a history-making age, and as you value justice and your 
records as legislators do not allow an otherwise fairly clean chapter 
to be marred by the actual taking of the worst backward step with 
which this country has been threatened since it first placed a premium 
on freedom in all the word implies. 

I had intended to submit a brief on the law applying to this subject, 
but to do it justice it would be necessary to begin with the constitu- 
tional debates and review all decisions on delegation of power, enlarg- 
ing of power, police power, taxing power, and interstate commerce, 
and how far a supreme court will allow a dishonest or a misguided 
Congress to impose on the people (under proper headings) improper 
laws. 

And again, this committee needs no enlightenment on whether or not 
this is a lawful measure. Every member knows it is not, every Con- 
gressman knows it is not, every advocate of the bill knows it is not, and 
friend and foe alike concede that only as a revenue measure would it 
stand a constitutional test for a minute. 

I can not leave this question without mentioning the methods of 
intimidation that have pervaded the pressing of this bill, from the 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 873 

inciting of telegrams and letters, so strongly denounced by Senator 
Allen (p. M), to more open threats of punishment at the polls. 

Governor Hoard's main effort was in parading his alleged millions of 
dairymen, and, at page 414, he boldly says: 

The Government has the power in this way to discourage wrongdoing and encour- 
age honest industry, and the people will hold it responsible for the exercise of that 
power when the opportunity comes, as in the present case. 

And the gentlemen of the committee who were present will recall 
how Mr. Knight and Mr. Flanders showed their harmless fangs in an 
imitation gloat over an alleged falling off of the majority of Congress- 
man Wadsworth when Judge Springer read an attack made by Mr. 
Knight on him because he had the moral courage to "face floods of 
petitions " and do as his conscience dictated. Judge Springer read a 
letter from Mr. Knight to a Mr. Hubbard, of Mr. Wadsworth's dis- 
trict. I quote from the letter as appears at page 83 of the Senate 
hearings : 

Well, if you have ever been in court and observed a lawyer defending a criminal, 
you can understand how he fought for the oleomargarine makers. He was the most 
active opponent we had in Congress. He spent more time lobbying against our 
bill than even the acknowledged agent of the oleomargarine makers — Lorimer, of 
Chicago — to whose tender mercies Wadsworth consigned the Grout bill when it was 
referred to his committee, that it might be smothered. 

* * * * * * * 

While no oleomargarine is made in his State, he has conceived a great affection for 
the kind of oleomargarine that is an exact counterfeit of butter, forbidden by New 
York, and which defrauds the public everywhere, and the only kind we are seeking 
to suppress. 

Wadsworth's friends in Congress were amazed at hia attitude in this matter. His 
conduct was unprecedented. No Congressman representing a Northern agricultural 
district has ever been known to take such an aggressive stand against the farmers of 
his district in face ot such floods of petitions, and no support whatever from his own 
people in his position. 

Wadsworth, with his bill, is the most dangerous enemy the dairymen have in the 
world. As chairman of the agricultural committee he has certain prestige. If he 
is returned to Congress by the votes of the farmers of his district, thereby winning 
their approval of his course, it will be bad for us. His reelection, unless with a greatly 
reduced majority, will be a victory for the stock yards and oleomargarine fraud of 
Chicago and a death knell to the farmers' influence in Congress. 

You who were present will recall the menacing manner of Mr. 
Knight and Mr. Flanders during the conversation which followed and 
inwnich Mr. Knight interrupted with the question, "Judge Springer, 
do you know how far he ran behind his ticket?" Judge Springer — 
"1 do not." Mr. Knight— "I do." Mr. Springer— '' He got votes 
enough, however, to give him a majority of about 9,000 in his district." 
Mr. Flanders— "The official returns of the State of New York have 
not been printed, but the returns in the agricultiu-al papers in the State 
of New York show that he ran 2,000 behind." 

Gentlemen, when Mr. Wadsworth came before you (p. 159) to state 
that he did not run behind his ticket, but had an increased majority, 
and that the farmers of his district at least approved of the Wadsworth 
substitute bill the representatives of those same prevaricating agricul- 
tural papers had nothing to say. 

Gentlemen, it is not the oleomargarine industry alone that is here on 
trial. You are arraigned before the bar of the people. A few men, 
well organized and backed only by a manufactured public sentiment, 
are saying to vou, "Violate your oaths, trample your consciences and 
the Constitutfou under foot, give us what we ask and in the language 



874 OLEOMARGARINE. 

we ii'ik it, change not one word, or we, the dairymen, will hold you 
responsible. Some dishonest dealer in a doubtful district of Chicao-o 
has sold oleomargarine for butter, and you must even up the score by 
giving the nation a discriminating law under the guise of a revenue 
measure." 

On the other side — on the side of right and justice and your con- 
sciences — is a larger number of all classes and conditions, making no 
threats, asking no favors, but simply, quietly, and unostentatiously 
asking to be left to the enjoyment of the rights given them by God 
and guaranteed by the Constitution. These people are not organized, 
their protests have been made politely by letter and by resolution and 
sent to this committee; and some have found their way into the record 
and some have not. 

Gentlemen, we have of record one instance of the extent of the power 
of this "united dairy sentiment." The constituency of Congressman 
Wadsworth approved of his attitude and his bill; and so does every 
fair-minded man of whatever walk in life. But the Grout bill can not 
bid for the stamp of public approval. It is dishonest on its face, and 
its viciousness is apparent to all. It is so plain " that he who runs may 
read," and "a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein." 
The people, including the dairymen, know it for what it is, and they 
know the actual sentiment on the subject, and their judgment is sus- 
pended awaiting your action, and to see whether or not you can be 
forced into line by the scarecrow of alleged public sentiment, wielded 
by a few dairy publishers and lobbyists. 

Gentlemen, I have spoken plainly, but truly, and the importance of 
the subject and the truth of my assertions are my only excuses, if 
excuses are necessary. 



OUTLINE OF STATEMENTS AND INDEX. 



Explanation. — Owing to the great volume of the testimony taken at these hear- 
ings the committee felt that the salient points were likely to be buried beyond the 
reach of the average investigator in the mass of evidence presented. 

At the suggestion of those interested condensed summaries and indexes were 
requested of each side in order that the important points might be brought out. 

The Outline of Testimony and Index which follow were prepared by Charles Y. 
Knight, secretary of the National Dairy Union, representing the dairymen before 
the committee, and while they are conceded by the opposition to be fairly compiled, 
presenting the strong points adduced on each side, it was requested by the opposi- 
tion that the authorship be stated herein in order that the investigator might fully 
understand the matter, the claim being that no matter how fair-minded he might be 
the compiler of an index could not fully put his interest in the case in the back- 
ground. It was thought necessary to have the index compiled by some one thor- 
oughly familiar with the importance of each point, in order that the reference might 
reveal the entire strength of both sides. 

Adams, Hon.H. C, food commissioner of Wisconsin — For bill — Grout bill aims at 
fraud — Denmark eats white oleo, 431 — Proof that oleomargarine can be. sold 
uncolored, 433 — Why State laws were passed, 435 — Legal view of right to color 
oleomargarine, 436 — Protection against State laws guaranteed, 439 — Profits in 
manufacture of oleomargarine, 442 — How State laws are evaded in Wisconsin, 
443 — All food commissioners for Grout bill, 445 — Extent of cattlemen's interest, 
445 — Ashamed to buy oleomargarine in its own name, 446 — Resolutions of Com- 
mission Merchants' League, 447 — Question of healthfulness not germane, 448 — 
Use of the taxing power, 448. 

Bassett, Hon. S. C, president State board agriculture of Nebraska — For bill — Few 
measures created so much interest among farmers — State laws openly violated in 
Nebraska — Fraud induced by large profits, 450 — Facts misrepresented to cattle 
growers — Facts about value of oleomargarine to growers of cattle, 451 — Majority 
of cattle owned in States with anticolor laws — Grout bill only measxlre that can 
protect consumers, 453. 

Blackburn, Hon. Joseph E., food commissioner of Ohio — For bill — Why State laws 
are not enforced — Money spent in prosecutions, 161 — Difficulty in jury trials — 
Banqueting jurors — INIanufacturers' guarantee of protection to retailers, 162 — How 
justice is defeated — Seventy-five per cent of oleomargarine sold as butter in Ohio — 
Will require national legislation to stamp out fraud, 163. 

Bond, Henry, manufacturer cotton-seed oil, Chattanooga, Tenn. — Against bill — 
Number cotton-seed-oil mills in Tennessee — Amount cotton-seed-oil used in oleo- 
margarine in this country, 324 — Estimated damage to cotton -seed-oil interests by 
passage of Grout bill — Manufacture of cotton-seed oil, 325 — Amount used in com- 
pound lard, 326 — Amount made from ton of seed, 327 — State laws in South, 328 — 
Violations in Tennessee, 329. 

Cleaver, Isaac W., manager Acme Tea Company, Philadelphia — For the bill — 
Beaten by our competitors who resort to fraud, 220 — No demand for oleomarga- 
rine at our 63 stores, 221. 

CoNLEY, J. B., Greenville, Miss., representing Cotton-Seed Crushers' Association — 
Against the bill — Effect of passage of bill on cotton-seed oil — Number of cotton- 
seed-oil mills, 322 — Estimated loss per gallon — An entering wedge — Unfair that 
oleomargarine makers should not be permitted to color, 323. 

CuLBERTsoN, J. J., Dallas, Tex., treasurer Continental Cotton Oil Company, of New 
York — Against the bill — Government stamp of approval on oleomargarine — Right 
of use of color in, 346 — Color of cotton-seed oil, 347 — Use of caustic soda in refin- 
ing cotton-seed oil, 348. 

Davis, Henry E., attorney for Standard Butterine Company, Washington — Against 
the bill — Right of States to tax, 392 — Right of Congress to delegate power to 
States, 393 — Healthfulness of oleomargarine recognized by Supreme Court, 396 — 

875 



876 OLEOMAEGAKINE- 

Why Grout bill is unwise and unjust, 399 — Oleomargarine not an imitation of 
butter — The one purpose of the Grout bill, 401 — Color made by cotton-seed oil, 
402 — Testimony of chemist as to natural color, 403 — Oleomargarine colored for 
same reasons as butter, 405 — Artificial color invented by oleomargarine makers, 
406 — Why State laws are not repealed, 406 — Curious story of labor federations, 
407 — Can not stop traffic in colored oleomargarine, 407 — Collection of the tax, 
408— The color question, 409. 

Davis, Isaac W., president Philadelphia Produce Exchange — For the bill — Grout 
bill most effective method of stopping the fraud, 230 — Wadsworth bill no good 
for hotels or restaurants, 231. 

Dillon, J. J. , editor Rural New Yorker — For the bill — How bill is looked upon by 
farmers, 373 — The color question, 374 — Why color is reprehensible in oleomar- 
garine, 374 — Attempt to compel sale of colored oleomargarine as such in New 
York State, 376 — Wadsworth bill able work of makers of oleomargarine, 376 — 
Fraud admitted at the boarding houses, 377 — Fraud in Paterson, N. J., 377 — 
Object of coloring is to sell as butter and at butter prices, 377 — Facilities for 
making all butter country can consume, 379. 

DoLAN, Patrick, president United Mineworkera Association — Against the bill — Is 
white oleomargarine good enough for the workingman, 307 — Supply and prices 
of butter, 307 — National law unjust, 308 — People know what they are buying, 
308 — Pride of the poor, 309 — Why disreputable to purchase oleomargarine, 309 — 
Butter is never white, 310. 

Drennen, W. F. , Philadelphia butter merchant — For the bill — Why I favor Grout 
bill, 224 — Oleomargarine largely sold as butter — Amount sold as butter, 224 — 
No wholesaler wants it sold for what it is, 225 — Average buyer doesn't want 
oleomargarine, 225 — Work of irresponsible dealers, 225 — Wadsworth bill the 
worst thing we could have, 226 — Sale of $50,000 per year as butter by one 
retailer, 226 — Sellers' guarantee of protection, 226— What renovated butter is 
made of, 226. 

Edson, E. D., Philadelphia butter merchant — For the bill — Dealers admit they must 
sell oleomargarine as butter, 222 — How it is disposed of, 223. 

Flanders, Hon. G. L., assistant commissioner of agriculture of New York — For the 
bill — Oleomargarine thrives upon fraud — Consumer a big element in this fight — 
Oleomargarine sold as butter — History of laws of New York State, 121 — Fraud on 
large scale — Testing of laws, 122 — Question of interstate commerce, 123 — Why 
right was given Congress to regulate interstate commerce, 124 — Police powers 
under State laws — The Plumley decision, 124 — Butter imitated — Fraudulent sale 
of oleomargarine in New York, 125 — Ten-cent tax would stop fraud — Why color 
butter? — Healthfulness of oleomargarine, 127 — Paraffin in oleomargarine, 128 — 
Dr. Clark's statement as to healtlifulness, 129-136 — Comparative digestibility of 
oleomargarine and butter, 144 — Patents for making oleomargarine, 129 — Horse 
oil used in oleomargarine — New York's dairy interest, 134 — Sold as butter, 135. 

Gage, Hon. Lyman J., Secretary of Treasury — Called upon by committee for infor- 
mation — Objection to Grout bill, 561 — Revenue on oleomargarine well collected, 
562 — Percentage of loss of revenue, 562 — Offenses against national laws, 562 — 
Where information of violations comes from, 563 — Visit of inspectors to factories, 
564 — No scientific inspectors to investigate — No revenue agents in factories, 564 — 
Government agents do not report on purity of ingredients used, 564 — Force 
inadequate for enforcement in places, 565 — Opinion of Wadsworth bill, 566 — 
Difference between offenses under present law and Wadsworth bill, 566. 

Gardner, Rath bone, attorney for Oakdale Manufacturing Company, Providence, 
R. I, — Against the bill — Believe bill will destroy oleomargarine industry — Meas- 
vu*e not honest, 15 — Constitutionality not questioned, 15 — Congress no right to 
prevent fraud through taxation — Oppressive State laws would be made effective, 
16 — Rhode Island permits sale of colored oleomargarine, 16 — Imitates butter 
with every ingredient, 17 — Color given oleomargarine by ingredients — Inspection 
by Government, 18 — Healthfulness of oleomargarine — Fraudulent sales of oleo- 
margarine — Evidence of Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 19 — Oleomargarine 
as butter— Oleomargarine sold to consumers, 20 — Price of oleomargarine, 21 — 
Natural color of oleomargarine — Renovated butter, 22 — Food effects on butter, 
22 — Inspection by Government, 25 — Purity of oleomargarine, 26 — Fraudulent 
sales, 27 — Condition in Massachusetts, 28 — More of renovated or process butter, 
29 — Repeal State laws, 33 — Color not butter's trade-mark, 33 — Butter always 
colored, 34 — Present kind of color originated by oleomargarine makers, 35 — 
Doesn't compete with butter of higher grade, 35 — Quality of butter made, 36 — 
Use of paraffin — Intended to destroy industry, 37 — Purpose of State laws shown, 
38— Oleomargarine can't pay 10-cent tax, 38 — Cost of renovated butter — Uncol- 



OLEOMAKGAEINE. 877 

ored oleomargarine can not be sold, 39 — Color not to resemble butter — Attention 
called to renovated-butter bill, 40 — Interest of cattlemen in oleomargarine, 41 — ■ 
What is neutral lard? 41 — Precise wording of Grout bill, 42. 

Grosvenoe, Hon. E. O., food commissioner of Michigan — For bill — Letter filed, 447. 

Grout, Hon. W. W., For bill — Explanation of bill, 3— Discussion of Wilson interstate- 
commerce law — Original-package decision, 4^Explanation of 10-cent tax — Man- 
ufacturers of oleomargarine and fraud — Constitutionality of tax, 5 — Profits in sale 
of oleomargarine, 7 — Difference between coloring oleomargarine and butter, 8 — 
Wads worth-bill scheme of Wm. Lorimer — Does not protect consumer at table, 
570 — Butter at Delmonico's white, 573 — Cost of oleomargarine, 574. 

Habecker, John J., Philadelphia butter merchant — For the bill — Few people buy 
oleomargarine knowingly — History of oleomargarine's imitations of the various 
grades of butter, 217 — Oleomargarine business is fraud all through, 218 — Why 
oleomargarine is not sold honestly, 219. 

Hamilton, Hon. John, secretary of agriculture of Pennsylvania — For the bill — 
Indorsements of Grout bill — Pennsylvania is pledged to it — Difficulties of enforce- 
ment of State laws, 152 — The constitutional question — Do the States know what 
they want? 153 — Bill is constitutional, 154— Healthfulness of oleomargarine, 
155 — Digestibility, 156 — How dairy interests would be affected with oleomarga- 
rine, 157 — Evidence of fraud corroborated by every food commissioner — Grout 
bill will overcome all diflSculties, 160. 

Hewes, James, president Produce Exchange of Baltimore — For the bill — Serving 
oleomargarine at hotel or restaurant a legal sale, 457. 

Hoard, Hon. W. D., president National Dairy Union — For the bill — Purpose of 
bill — Difference between coloring oleomargarine and butter — Coloring winter 
butter, 11 — Canada forbids manufacture and sale of oleomargarine in any form — 
Grout bill needed for promotion of honesty, 113. 

Jamison, Samuel, Philadelphia butter merchant — For the bill — Difficulty of enforc- 
ing State laws, 231 — We are not the police power, 232 — Oleomargarine is not sold 
as such, 232 — Grout bill will relieve great expense, 233 — Wholesale dealers asked 
to enter fictitious names, 234 — Highest prices butter white, 235 — No law will stop 
fraud while oleomargarine is colored, 235. 

Jelke, John F., of Braun & Fitts, manufacturers of oleomargarine, Chicago — Against 
the bill — No objection to legislation for identification — What 10-cent tax would 
make it cost — Importance of color to palatableness, 382 — Butter prices kept down 
by oleo, 382 — Consumption of oleomargarine in England — Retail dealers the prin- 
cipal violators — Oleomargarine will stand on its own merits, 383 — Advertising 
oleomargarine, 384 — Branding of oleomargarine, 386 — Amount of oleomargarine 
fraudulently sold, 387 — Processes for renovating butter, 387 — Advertisement of 
butter color, 388 — Internal-Revenue Department should investigate renovated 
butter — Advocate Wads worth bill, 390 — Extract from Cleveland' s message — Don' t 
rob oleomargarine of one of its first qualities, 391. 

Kaufmann, Luther F., attorney for Pennsylvania Pure Butter Protective Associa- 
tion — For the bill — History of laws of Pennsylvania, 236 — Attempts to secure 
enforcement of national law — Fraud rampant in Philadelphia, 237— Every dealer 
selling oleomargarine as butter — Incentive for fraud, 238 — Concealing of original 
packages, 239 — Wadsworth bill vastly more damaging than any legislation Con- 
gress could enact, 240 — Dairymen not interfering with oleo, but vice versa, 240 — 
Healthfulness question in doubt — Transmission of tuberculosis through oleo oil, 
241 — Germs not killed in raw materials — Opinions of chemists v. physicians, 
242 — Temptation to sell for butter when colored, 243— Should laws be violated 
while in dispute, 244 — No law ever passed that oleo people did not claim un- 
constitutional — Viciousness of Wadsworth bill, 245 — Where oleomargarine is 
sold — Fraud in name of seller of oleomargarine, 246 — Tricks to evade law, 247 — 
Why Grout bill should be passed, 248 — Why not sell butter white, 248 — Cost of 
oleomargarine, 249 — Who represents the farmers, 250 — Have live-stock men ever 
heard other side? 250 — Prices of butter, 252. 

Knight, Chas. Y., secretary National Dairy Union — For the bill — Grocer's clerk's 
statement of fraud in Chicago — Oleomargarine sold as butter in eight out of 
ten places — Production and exhibition of swindling sign, 461 — Manufacturers' 
connection with fraud — Production of photograph of store front where butter is 
advertised and oleomargarine sold exclusively, 462 — How the Illinois food 
department was beaten — Amount of oleomargarine produced in Chicago — Num- 
ber of retail dealers in the United States — Number of retail dealers in Chicago- 
Amount illegally sold — Fraud shown in concealed marks — Fraudulent use of 
brand of butter, 463 — Using colored wrapper to conceal marks, 464 — Attempt 
to enforce State laws in Illmois — Fraud defended by manufacturers, 565 — Guar- 



878 OLEOMARGAEINE. 

anty of protection by William J. Moxley and Braun & Fitts in case of prose 
cation for fraud, 466 — Defending sellers of oleomargarine for butter, 467 — 
W. J. Moxley' s defense of seller of illicitly made oleomargarine — Cost of 
attempts to enforce State laws — Oleomargarine makers still defending violators 
who sell oleomargarine for butter, 468 — Profit in sale of oleomargarine — ^Seventy- 
five per cent of oleomargarine sold as butter in Chicago — Difficulty of enforce- 
ment of State laws, 469 — Revocation of charter of Capital City Dairy 
Company in Ohio for violations of State laws, 469 — Oleomargarine at 30 cents a 
pound, 470 — Offer of |7,500 in settlement of cases prosecuted by Government 
for fraud, 471 — Indictments against president of Standard Butterine Company, 
of Washington, for fraud — Source of labor resolutions, 471 — Colored oleo- 
margarine condemned by Chicago Federation of Labor by unanimous vote, 
472— Fraud in Cincinnati, 473 — Large percentage sold as butter, 473 — Protec- 
tion of retailers at Cincinnati, 474 — Letters from Cincinnati telling of frauds, 
474 and 475 — "Push sale of oleomargarine and build up reputation for good 
butter," 477 — Amount of color in 1,000,000 pounds of oleomargarine — Amount 
in 1,000,000 pounds of butter, 479— Color of butter 75 per cent natural, 480— 
Prices of butter — Receipts of butter, 481 — Receipts of butter in New York 
since 1890, 481 — Cause of advance in 1899, 482 — Value of cotton crop — Value of 
products or cotton-seed oil in the United States — Proportion used in oleomar- 
garine made in this country, 487 — Why tax uncolored oleomargarine? — What 
renovated butter is made from, 489 — No objection to red color in oleomargarine, 
490 — Makers sympathize with fraudulent dealers — "Covering-up dealers" — 
The Aurora Produce Company swindle, 491 — Refusal of manufacturers to show 
books— Refusal of manufacturers to make returns — Makers of oleomargarine 
swear inspection of books would furnish evidence that would incriminate 
them, 493 — Fraud shown Collector Coyne by Chicago Record, 495 — Why all 
butter men don't sell oleomargarine, 497 — Difficulty of securing evidence against 
illicit venders, 498 — Scheme by which oleomargarine is sold as butter with little 
chance of detection, 498 — Why Grout bill will protect, 499 — About Government 
"inspection" of oleomargarine — Number of analyses made by Government last 
year, 499 — What is renovated butter made of, 534 — No acids used in renovated 
butter, 534 — Process of manufacture, 534 — Quantity made compared with whole 
volume of butter produced in United States, 536 — Why anticolor laws are not appli- 
cable to process butter — Where process butter is made, 537 — How sale of butter is 
damaged by oleomargarine, 530 — Chemists can't distinguish renovated butter — 
Bacteria in butter, 538 — Original bonds produced showing connection of Braun & 
Fitts and William J. Moxley with defense of sellers of oleomargarine as butter, 552 — 
Amount of oleomargarine made by two concerns openly defending fraud, 553 — Let- 
ter from Cincinnati relating to resolutions, 554 — Butter board's estimate of amount 
of fraud in Chicago, 555 — Oleomargarine the cause of demoralized butter market, 
555 — Map showing States which have prohibited sale of oleomargarine colored 
in imitation of butter, 557 — Agricultural Department chart showing values of 
butter for ten years, 558 — Evidence of amount of caul fat and oleo oil therefrom 
in steer, 559. 

Kracke, F. J. H., assistant commissioner of agriculture of New York — For the bill — 
How oleomargarine is sold by peddlers in New York City, 365 — How handi- 
capped, 366 — State law regardmg boarding houses— Scheme for defrauding, 367 — 
One thousand convictions for selling oleomargarine as butter, 368 — Amount 
of oleomargarine sold in New York State, 369 — Sales of oleomargarine outside the 
State just as damaging to the producer, 372 — Cost of enforcing State laws, 370. 

Lestrade, Francis W., butter dealer and manufacturer of oleomargarine — Against 
the bill — How farm butter is made and shipped — What labels comprise — Imita- 
tion creamery — Creamery butter — Process butter, 165 — Oleomargarine no detii- 
ment to butter, 166 — Quality of butter compared with years ago, 167 — Quick 
production of butter, 168 — Prices of butter, 172 — Corner in butter, 174 — Trade of 
1900, 175 — Exports of, 176 — Not 30,000 pounds uncolored oleomargarine sold in 
United States, 178 — Australian industry, 179 — More about butter prices, 215 — 
Butter trust, 216. 

McCoy, John C, representing Kansas City Live Stock Exchange — Against the bill — 
Healthfulness of oleo, 64 — Grout bill aims at life of industry — Cost of butter to 
the people, 65 — Organization of the creamery interests — Amount of caul fat — 
Live-s*ock statistics for Kansas Citj^, 66 — Loss to live-stock interest if bill should 
pass — How price of cows would be affected by Grout bill, 67 — Value of cows — 
Value of hogs and loss on, 68 — Tax paid by oleomargarine — Cattle interests only 
asked protection once, 70 — Resolutions of Kansas City Live Stock Exchange, 71. 

McNamee, J. F., vice-president and chairman of legislative committee Columbus 
Trades and Labor Assemby, Columbus, Ohio — Against the bill — Labor dis- 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 879 

cussed — Want to perpetuate employment of men making: oleomargarine, 351 — 
If oleomargarine is suppressed butter will be high, 352 — Grout l)ill means 
destruction of industry — Establishes a precedent, 353 — Use of oleomargarine 
prosecutions for political purposes, 354 — Always accustomed to eating butter yel- 
low, 355 — Oleomargarine's keeping qualities', 357 — Why not eat all oleomar- 
garine white, 358^-Eating oleomargarine no disgrace, 359 — Resolutions of Chi- 
cago Federation of Labor against, 360 — Resolutions Horseshoers' Union, 361 — 
Resolutions of decorators of Cleveland, 362 — Credentials from organization, 
504 — Reprisal against labor threatened, 505 — Would make butter 55 or 60 cents, 
507 — Resolutions Cleveland Building Trades Council, 508 — Senator Allen's expe- 
rience, 509 — Fooling the old lady, 510 — Amount caul fat — Temperature raw 
materials of oleomargarine heated to — Method of making oleo oil — Stearin in 
all oils — Paraffin from petroleum, 510 — Number cattle slaughtered in United 
States — Amount lard used in oleomargarine — Amount cotton-seed oil — Percentage 
ingredients in oleomargarine — Cotton-seed oil not a necessary ingredient, 511 — 
Distinguishing oleomargarine from butter — Melting point of oleomargarine and 
butter, 512 — Clarifying point of oleomargarine, 513. 

Medairy, Summerfield B., president Baltimore Pure Butter Protective Association — 
For the bill — Fraud in Baltimore — All oleomargarine was sold as butter, 440 — 
Why Grout bill is wanted, 441. 

Miller, W. E., representing Armour & Co., Kansas City — Against the bill — Invest- 
ment in oleomargarine business — Color of oleomargarine — Can't pay 10-centtax, 
47 — Digestive experiments, 48 — New York butter receipts, 50 — Butter market 
conditions, 51 — Senator Warner Miller's remarks, 52 — Political methods of 
National Dairy Union, 52— Percentage of butter — Coloring used — Fats used, 
54 — Paraffin in oleomargarine, 55 — Oleo oil, how made, 56— Petition of South 
St. Paul stockmen, 57 — Resolution of Cotton Oil Crushers' Association, 58 — Oleo- 
margarine, exports of, 59 — Resolutions of Sioux City Live Stock Exchange, 60 — 
Resolutions, Kansas City Commercial Club, 61 — Resolutions, Kansas City Mer- 
cantile Club, 62 — Attempt to defeat Hon. James A. Tawney, 63 — How packers 
elected Congressman Cowherd, 64. 

Noble, T. B., food commissioner of Connecticut — Letter indorsing Grout bill, 447. 

Norton, B. P., food commissioner of Iowa — Letter indorsing Grout bill, 447. 

NoRKis, E. B., president New York State Grange, and representing National Grange — 
For the bill — Statement filed, 412 — National Grange wants Grout bill — New York 
State Grange wants the Grout bill — People are being forced to use oleomargarine 
against their inclinations and desires. 

Paul, George E., oleomargarine dealer, Philadelphia — Against the bill — Difference in 
color of butter — Quality of butter, 540 — When oleomargarine was introduced, 
54i — Laws of Pennsylvania, 542 — History of prosecutions in Pennsylvania, 542 — 
"Persecution" under State laws, 544 — If oleomargarine were driven out cream- 
ery system would suffer, 546 — If nonsensical State laws were repealed — Propor- 
tion of un colored oleo — Consumer won't buy uncolored butter any more, 547 — 
Prices of butter, 548 — Oleomargarine never quoted in open market, 548 — Propor- 
tion of labor idle in rural districts, 550 — Oleomargarine sells best when butter is 
high — What is a good price for butter, 551. 

Person, William, of Ammon & Person, Jersey City, N, J., dealers in oleomargarine — 
Against the bill — Legal machinery of New Jersey — Labels used on oleomargarine 
in New Jersey — Price of butter, 331 — Decrease in number of cattle, 332 — Price of 
cows, 333 — Ability of cows in this country to produce milk, 334 — How is yellow 
oleomargarine sold in New Jersey, 334 — Color of butter, 335 — Decisions of New 
Jersey courts — Oleomargarine without any color would look like lard, 336 — Manu- 
facture of oleomargarine in Holland — Benefit of oleomargarine to the farmer, 
337 — Major Alvord's letter on renovated butter, 338 — Receipts of butter in New 
York — Agreement on distinct color proposed, 339 — Color made in oleomargarine 
by mixture of fats, 340 — Color in oleomargarine can't be made in oleomargarine 
by mixture of fats, 340 — Color of cotton-seed oil a little green, 341 — How State 
laws are evaded by oleomargarine dealers, 343. 

Pierce, John, representing the Amalgamated Steel Workers' Association — Against 
the bill — Price of oleomargarine — Pride in the homes of workingmen, 311 — Don't 
want oleomargarine uncolored because it doesn't look like butter — Oleomargarine 
sold as butter, 312 — "I never eat any oleomargarine; I don't have to," 313. 

Peters, E. S., president Cotton Growers' Association, Calvert, Tex. — Against the 
bill — Acreage of cotton — Value per bale, 483 — Value of cotton seed, 484 — Put 
renovated butter in oval packages, 486 — Letter from Cotton Growers' Protective 
Association of Georgia, 487. 

PiRRUNG, Henry C, manager Capital City Dairy Company, Columbus, Ohio — Maker 
of oleomargarine — Against the bill — Natural butter, 186 — How oleomargarine is 



880 OLEOMARGARINE 

made — Composition of, 187 — Coloring of butter twenty-five years ago — Color 
deceives in butter, 188 — The pink laws — Forbidding of coloring in oleomarga- 
rine, 189 — Decision in pink-law case, 190 — ^Justice Peckham quoted on color, 190 — 
Healthfulness as referred to in Plumley v. Commonwealth, 191 — Prices of butter, 
colored and uncolored, 192 — Why not prohibit oleomargarine altogether if not 
healthful, 193 — Definition of adulteration — Who asks this protection, 193 — Pal- 
atability should be encouraged, 194 — Inspection of oleomargarine by Govern- 
ment, 194 — How sold in District of Columbia, 195 — How oleomargarine is marked 
under new rulings, 196 — Experience of Congressmen in District, 196. 

EoGERS, W. A., representing board of trade of Watertown, N. Y. — For the bill — State- 
ment filed, 412 — Why the Grout bill is favored. 

RoYCE, C. H., manager Morton farm, New York — For the bill — Dairymen have the 
right to the use of the yellow color, 379. 

ScHELL, Charles E., representing the Ohio Butterine Company, of Cincinnati, Jacob 
Dold Butterine Company, Kansas City, Mo., and Union Dairy Company, Cleve- 
land, Ohio — Against the bill — Discrimination condemned, 255 — Oleomargarine 
and butter almost identical, 257 — Natural color of oleomargarine and butter, 
259 — Nutritive qualities of oleomargarine, 260 — Used in majority of Soldiers' 
Homes, 261 — Oleomargarine is butter — Opposes adulterations, 261 — Factories 
must be ready for Government inspection — Both oleomargarine and butter are 
colored, 262 — Amount of color in butter — Color requirements of various mar- 
kets — Creamery butter, 263 — Tilden R. and Albert French, of French Brothers 
Dairy Company, quoted, 264 — How some butter is made, 265 — Oleomargarine 
doesn't imitate butter, 266 — Milk and cream used in oleomargarine — Use of acids 
in renovated butter, 267 — Packing stock; — Talk of a trust — Oleomargarine adver- 
tised by retailers, 269 — What makes difference in price of various grades of oleo, 
269 — Retailer must be fair, 270 — Best way of making butter, 271 — Opponents of 
Grout bill — Destruction of industry — Can't taste be cultivated for oleomargarine 
without color, 271 — Effect of color upon the palate, 272 — All farm products 
enhanced in value— Pride of poor man, 273 — Commissioner Wilson quoted, 274 — 
Dr. Wiley's statements, 277 — "United dairy sentiment" questioned — Con- 
sumers buy direct — Conspiracy denied, 280 — Where State laws are enforced, 
281 — Legal side, 282 — Officers of National Dairy Union, 282 — Why not select 
another color, 284 — Why oleomargarine makers acquiesced in State legislation, 
286 — Supreme court decisions, 287 — Attitude of General Grout, 289 — Enforce- 
ment in Ohio, 290 — The bill's avowed purpose and its real purpose, 291 — Have 
they really proven any amount of fraud, 291 — How oleomargarine is sold, 292 — 
Federal regulations, 293 — Ohio pure-food law, 294 — Present law sufficient. Grout 
bill prohibitive, 295 — Number of retail oleomargarine dealers in Ohio — Instruc- 
tions to dealers, 296 — Notifying hotel and restaurant guests, 297 — Oleomargarine 
not sold for butter, 301 — Manufacturers do not defend fraud, 302 — Effect of 
Grout bill — Evasions of friends of bill, 303 — Difference between Wadsworth sub- 
stitute and present law, 305 — Grout bill only reduces tax — Fails as a revenue 
measure — Summing up, 306 — List consumers offered, 381 — Telegrams offered, 568. 

Sharpless, Joseph C, Chester County, Pa., farmer — For the bill — From standpoint 
of farmer — Use of his brand by oleomargarine maker, 220. 

Sharpless, Thomas, Chester County, Pa., farmer — For the bill — Healthfulness not 
the question — We color butter — Depreciation of lands in value —Butter sold at 35 
cents, 228 — Experience with fraud in Pittsburg — What milk biings for butter 
making, 229. 

Spkinger, Hon. W. M., representing National Live Stock Association- -Against the 
bill — List of live-stock associations — Values of live stock — Resolutions of Fort 
Worth convention, 77 — Speech of J. S. Hobbs, 79 — Prices of butter — Vote on 
resolution, 80 — Statement denounced as false, 81 — Claim letter to be forgery — 
Oleomargarine combine, 82 — Bribery of merchants denied and affirmed, 83 — Elec- 
tion of Wadsworth, 84-— Report of committee of manufacturers — Healthfulness 
of oleomargarine — Legality of color, 85 — Production of oleomargarine, 87 — Ingre- 
dients, 88 — Where colored article is prohibited, 89 — Amount of oleomargarine 
consumed in each State, 90 — Per capita consumption of, 91 — What will become 
of cow, 92 — Legal aspects of color, 93 — Interstate-commerce question from legal 
standpoint, 97 — Police powers of States, 103 — Legality of taxation, 104 — Discus- 
sion of Wilson Act, 105, 106, 107 — Constitutional restrictions, 106 — State laws will 
have force, 108 — Attempt to tax compound lard, 108 — Renovated butter, 109 — 
Why not protect woolgrowers from shoddy, 110 — Inspection of oleomargarine 
factories — Discussion of Hatch bill. 111 — Amount caul fat used, 114 — Value of 
fat to cattle industry — Ingredients of oleomargarine, 115 — Value of fat per steer, 
116. 



OLEOMARGAEINE. 881 

Tjiompson, William H., president National Live Stock Exchange — Against the bill 
Number of cattle in United States — Damage by passage of Grout bill — Health- 
fulness and inspection of oleomargarine, 182 — Whom oleomargarine benefits — 
Why not color one if the otlier — Attempt to tax one industry at the expense of 
another, 183 — Price of oleomargarine, 184 — Resolutions of National Live Stock 
Association, 185. 

ToMi'Kixs, A. D., Charlotte, N. C, representing cotton-seed oil mills — Against the 
bill — Loss of $2 per ton on cotton seed — -Price of cotton seed, 315 — Right of peo- 
ple for color, 316 — Why no petitions from the South — Will hear from constitu- 
ents — Anything the matter with the coloring, 317 — ^Cotton-seed oil has color in 
it, 318 — Once prejudice against cotton-seed oil — Workingmen do not question 
what process butter is made by, 319 — Some who help pass Grout bill will stay 
home and run dairies, 320 — Estimate of proportion of total product of cotton- 
seed oil used in oleomargarine in this country — Interest in oleomargarine, 121 — 
Healthfulness of oleomargarine — Bacteria in butter, 514 — Butter made of swill- 
fed cows, 515 — Use of cotton-seed oil in Holland and Germany — Mixed flour 
law — Sold as butter, 516 — Charge renovated butter makers back of bill — Farm- 
ers' interest — Resolutions condemning Grout bill defeated, 518 — Resolutions 
from Cincinnati — Denial that oleomargarine is sold as butter in Cincinnati, 520 — 
Cotton-seed oil's interest in oleomargarine — Proportions of crop, 521 — Effect of 
sales of oleomargarine on butter — Why not oleomargarine occupy whole field, 
522 — Where oleomargarine took prize as butter, 522 — Bacteria in butter — Decep- 
tion in coloring butter, 524 — Why butter is colored, 525— Color of butter at differ- 
ent seasons, 527 — Standard of Philadelphia market, 528 — Evidence of dodging 
national law — White butter in England, 529 — Most butter consumed by farmers 
uncolored, 530 — Failure of attempts to sell white oleomargarine in Cincinnati, 
531 — How much has duplicity brought oleomargarine business into disrepute — 
Claim 90 per cent oleomargarine sold as butter in Chicago — Why not remove 
stamp as easily as fail to affix — Why increase of penalty would be unwise, 532 — 
No interest in enforcement of branding clause of national law, 532 — Coloring 
uncolored oleomargarine, 533 — Tax will be collected, 534. 

TiLLiNGHAST, Frank W., president Vermont Manufacturing Company, makers of 
oleomargarine, Providence, R. I. — Against the bill — Communication from Hol- 
land Butterine Company, 199 — Grout bill will not raise revenue — State laws are 
sufficient — Rhode Island satisfied, 200 — More fraud where colored oleomargarine 
is prohibited — How oleomargarine is sold in Rhode Island — Three-fourths sold 
in Massachusetts in original packages — Not more than 25 per cent sold as butter — 
Every ingredient from farm, 202 — Fraud could be stopped by Wadsworth sub- 
stitute, 203 — Effect if not colored — Is an imitation of butter, 204 — Healthful- 
ness of, 205 — Dr. Wiley's statement, 206 — Difference in grades of oleomarga- 
rine, 206 — Average digestibility of oleomargarine and butter, 208 — Eastern 
dealers try to market goods honestly, 210 — The present law, 212 — Hotels and 
restaurants, 212 — Senator Mason's report — Change in Grout bill suggested, 213. 

Wadsworth, Hon. J. W. — Explanation of statement regarding letters in House Agri- 
cultural Committee minority report, 159 — Appears for Mr. Lorimer — How substi- 
tute will prevent fraud — Grout bill too drastic — Ocular demonstration of workings 
of Wadsworth substitute, 568. 

Walden, G. M., president Kansas City Live Stock Exchange — ^Against the bill — Cat- 
tle killed at Kansas City, 119 — Loss on cattle, 120. 

Wilson, Hon. James, Secretary of Agriculture — -Invited by the committee to present 
views — Grout bill has my full sympathy — Law of 1886 not adequate, 414 — 
Increase in sale of oleomargarine — Mostly consumed as butter — If sold in com- 
pliance with State laws — May diminish sales of colored oleomargarine — Cow most 
valuable agent for producer, 415 — Value of cow to the soil — Population increas- 
ing faster than cattle — Best interest of cotton-seed belt lies in dairy cow, 416 — 
Oleomargarine not as healthy as butter — National law not well enforced — ^lost 
oleomargarine sold as butter, 417 — Fat steers not desiral)le to-day— Small amount 
of loss on fat used in oleomargarine amounts to little, 418 — Color in butter 
deceives nobody; color in oleomargarine deceives everybody, 419 — Renijvated 
butter, 422 — Reply to dealer who saya bid will injure cattle industry, 425 — The 
future growers of cattle, 426. 

S. Eep. 2043 56 



INDEX TO SENATE HEARINGS. 



Adulteration: Page. 

Definition of 193 

Butter: 

Chart showing values for ten vears 558 

Creamery .' 165, 263 

White, used at Delmonico's 573 

Quality of 540 

Prices of 68, 80, 172, 177, 215, 252, 331, 481, 548 

Imitation creamery 165 

Oleo's competition with higher grades of 35 

Quality compared with twelve years ago 167 

Ladles, what they comprise 165 

A good price for 551 

Accustomed to eating yellov,- 355 

Receipts in New York 50, 339, 481 

Cost to the people 65 

Market conditions 51 

Green color of 513 

Demoralized market for, and cause 555 

Uncolored, not salable any more 457 

Sale, how damaged by oleomargarire 538 

Quantity made 36 

Highest-priced article, white 235 

Bacteria in 514,524,538 

Process by which made not questioned by workingmen 319 

Standard of Philadelphia market 528 

Made from swill-fed cows 515 

Effect of sale of oleomargarine on 522 

How made and shipped on farm - ^ 165 

Facilities in country for making 379 

Will pay 50 or 60 cents for 507 

Corner in - 174 

Cause of advance in 1899 482 

Natural 186 

Australia's industry 179 

Talk of trust in . . I 216, 269 

Prices of colored and uncolored 192 

Best way of making 270 

Prices and supply of 307 

What milk brings for manufactnriTr ■■ 229 

How some is made 265 

Sold at 35 cents 228 

Exports of 176 

Trade of 1900 175 

Packing stock 269 

Quick production of 168 

Butter — color in: 

Amount in 263 

Requirements of various markets 263 

Dairymen's right to use 379 

In December butter ■. . 188 

Twenty-five years ago 188 

We color butter 228 

Butter never white , - - 310 

Butter naturally two-thirds normal color . 525 

Why butter is colored 525 

8bo 



884 INDEX. 

Butter — color in — Continued. P^s^- 

Where deception in 524 

At different seasons 527 

White butter in England and France 529 

Little in that consumed on farm? 530 

Deceives nobody 419 

Color of butter 335 

Why color butter 127 

Food effects on butter 22 

Always was colored 34 

Butter's trade-mark 33 

Winter butter 11 

Why not sell white 248 

Seventy-five per cent natural 480 

Amount in 1,000,000 puunds butter 479 

Different in butter 540 

Butter, renovated: 

From what made 489 

Quantity compared with total product 536 

Chemists can not distinguish 538 

Why anticolor laws will not apply 537 

Where made 537 

Patents on process 534 

Condition of raw materials 534 

Use of acid in 267 

No acids used by makers 534 

Process of manufacture 534 

Internal Revenue Department should investigate 390 

Processes for 387 

House bill called attention to .- 40 

Cost of 39 

General discussion of 22, 29 

Secretary Wilson on 422 

Charge makers of, are back of Grout bill 

What is it 109 

What made of 226 

Major Alvord's letter on 338 

Put in oval package« 486 

Reference to 165 

Cattle interests : 

Number slaughtered 511 

Amount caul fat in 66, 114, 510, 559 

Have growers ever heard other side? 251 

When they asked protection 70 

Statistics of Kansas City 66 

Loss to, if oleomargarine is forbidden 332 

Decrease in number of 332 

Interest in oleomargarine 41, 445 

Loss on, claimed if Grout bill passes 120 

Secretary Wilson's reply to Senator Dolliver about 425 

The future growers of cattle - - 426 

Loss to, infinitesimal compared with damage of oleomargarine to dairy 

interests 418 

Excessive fat steers a thing of the past 418 

Population increasing faster than cattle - 416 

Number cattle killed at Kansas City 119 

Number in United States - 182 

Damage to 182 

Value of fat - 115 

Value of fat per steer 116 

List of live stock associations 77 

Value of live stock 77 

Majority of cattle owned in anticolor States 452 

Facts misrepresented 451 

The facts in the case, showing amount of loss per head 451 

Cleveland: 

Extract from message - - - 391 



INDEX. 050 

Constituents: Page. 

Will hear from 317 

Cottou-seed oil interest: 

What interest in oleomargarine 321, 521 

Use in Holland and Germany 516 

Estimated proportion used in oleomargarine in United States 321, 487 

Prejudice against once 319 

Cotton-seed oil and color 318 

Loss per ton on seed 315 

Price of cotton seed :;15, 484 

Use of caustic soda in refining 348 

INIanufacture of cotton-seed oil 325 

Color of cotton-seed oil 347 

Effect of passage of Grout bill uu o22, 325 

Number of mills 322 

Estimated loss per gallon by passage of bill 323 

Amount made from ton of seed 327 

Amount used in compound lard 326 

Number mills in Tennessee 324 

Amount used in oleomargarine in this country .524, 511 

Acreage of cotton 483 

Value of cotton per bale 483 

Cotton-seed oil, a little green 341 

Proportions of crop 521 

Best interests cotton belt with dairy cow 416 

Value of crop - 487 

Cotton-seed oil nut a necessary ingredient in oleomargarine 511 

Value of product of cotton-seed oil of United States 487 

Cow: 

What will become of her 92 

Value of, to the soil 416 

Most valuable agent for the producer 415 

Price of, affected by Grout bill 67 

Value of 68,333 

Ability of American, to produce milk 334 

Cowherd: 

How packers elected 64 

Creamery interests: 

Organization of 66 

Farmers: 

By whom represented 250 

Grout bill: 

Explanation of - 3 

The tax in 5 

Purpose of 11 

Effect of 303 

Why favored -H2, 224 

All food commissioners favor it 445 

Aims at fraud 430 

Few measures created so umch interest 450 

Most effectual means of stopping fraud 230 

Consumer a big element 121 

Farmers' interest in 518 

Secretary W^ilson on 414 

May diminish sales of colored oleomargarine 415 

Pennsylvania favors it 152 

Indorsements of 152 

Will overcome our dillicnlliei- 160 

Will relieve great expense 233 

Needed to promote honesty 413 

National Grange wants. 412 

Why wanted 441 

Why it should be passed 248 

Why it will protect 499 

Who asks protection 193 

Its opponents 271 

Its passage would be an entering wedge 323 



886 INDEX. 

Grout bill— Continued. Page. 

Its one purpose 401 

Why unwise and unjubt 399 

Its avowed purpose and its real purpose 291 

Only reduces tax 306 

Attempt to tax one int,.-ro> t at the expense of another 183 

Some who help pass it will stay at home 320 

Will not raise revenue 200 

Change suggested in 213 

Toodrastic 568 

Secretary Gage's objecUon tu 561 

Measure not honest 15, 306 

Believe bill will destroy industry 37 

Intended to destroy industry 15 

Attention called to precise wording 42 

Labor opposes 505 

Destruction of industry 353 

Establishing a precedent 353 

Aim at life of oleomargarine industry 65 

Legal questions: 

Constitutional questions 153 

Bill is constitutional 154 

Original-package decision under Wilson law 4 

Constitutionality of tax 5 

Constitutionality not questioned 15 

Congress no right to prevent fraud through taxation 16 

Plumley v. Commonwealth 124 

Legality of tax 104 

Wilson Act, discussion of 1G<3, 106, 107 

Constitutional restrictions 106 

Legal aspects of color question 93 

Interstate-commerce question 97, 123 

Why right was given Congress to regulate mterstate commerce 124 

Congress can not delegate power to State 393, 400 

Hogs: 

Value of, and loss on, by passage of bill 68 

Lard: 

Amount neutral, used in oleomargarine 611 

Compound, attempt to tax 108 

What is neutral 41 

Labor: 

Proportion idle in rural districtri 550 

Federations tell a curious story 407 

Reprisals threatened 505 

Oleomargarine question discussed by 351 

Want to perpetuate employment of men making oleomargarine 351 

Lands: 

Appreciation in value of 228 

Letters — from — 

Holland Butterine Company, Pittsburg, Pa 199 

Grosvenor, E. 0., food commissioner, Michigan 447 

Blackburn, J. E 354 

CLncirmati, telling of sale of oleomargarine as l)utter 174-476 

Braun & Fitts, guaranteeing protection against State laws 466 

Wm. J. Moxley, guaranteeing protection in case of prosecution 465 

Forgery claimed 82 

Hugh v. Murray, warning dealers not to sell oleomargarine as butter .... 465 

Cotton Growers Protective Association of Georgia 487 

Oleomargarine — 

Price of 21,184,311 

If sold in compliance with State laws 415 

Consumption in England 383 

Can't pay 10-cent tax 38, 47 

No objection to legislation for identification of 382 

Brandmgof 386 

Don't rob it of one of its first qualities 391 

Dealers in Chicago district 463 



INDEX. 887 

Oleomargarine — Continued. Page. 

80 centt^ a jiound 470 

Retail dealers in Uiiiteu tjtateri 463 

Proportion of uncolored 547 

Labels used on, in New Jersey 331 

Exports of 59 

Benefit to farmer 337 

When first introduced 541 

Imitates butter with every ingredient 17 

History of 217 

Serving at restaurants a legal sale 457 

Tax it now pays 70 

Amount produced in Chicago 463 

Will stand on its merits 383 

Profits in sale of 469 

Sells best when butter is high 551 

Percentage of butter in it 54 

Without color would look like lard 336 

If driven out, creamery system would suffer 546 

Revenue on, well collected 562 

Can not be sold uncolored 39 

Distinguishing from butter 512 

People forced to use it , 413 

If suppressed, butter will be high 352 

Difficulty of securing evidence against illicit vendors 498 

The present law on 212 

First prize as butter 522 

Attempt to sell it white in Cincinnati 531 

Coloring uncolored product 533 

Increase in sale of 415 

Manufacture in Holland 337 

Sold to consumers 20 

Pounds illegally sold 463 

What 10-cent tax would make it cost 382 

Makers of, swear their books would incriminate them 493 

Sales outside New York just as damaging 372 

No detriment to butter 166 

Never quoted on open market 548 

Melting point of, compared with butter 512 

Keeping qualities of 357 

Investment in business 47 

Fats used 54 

Clarifying point 512 

Fooling the old lady with 510 

Percentage of ingredients of 511 

Temperature raw materials heated to 510 

Eating it no disgrace 359 

Profits in sales of 7 

Amount sold in New York Slate 369 

Cost of 369 

Prohibited absolutL'ly in Canada 413 

Don't want it uncolored because it don't look like butter 312 

"I never ate any; I don't have to" 313 

Composition of 187 

How made 187 

Almost identical with butter 257 

Discrimination against, condemned 255 

No depiand for 221 

Experience of Congressman in District 196 

About branding under new rulings 196 

How sold in District 195 

Used in majority of Soldiers' Homes 261 

Nutritive qualities of 260 

Natural color of 259 

Not an imitation 266 

Can't taste be cultivated for it without color? 271 

What makes difference in price 269 



888 INDEX. 

oleomargarine — Continued. Page 

It is butter 261 

Ashamed to buy it uudcr its own name 446 

Profits in manufacture of 442 

Proof that it can be sold uncolored 433 

Government's stamp of approval 346 

Not in imitation of butter 401 

Can't stop traffic in colored 407 

Is white oleo good enough for the workingmau? 307 

Why disreputable to buy it 309 

Pride of the poor 309 

Average buyer of butter doesii' t want oleo 225 

People know what they are buying 308 

How sold 292 

Are hotel and restaurant patrons notified? 297 

Eetail dealers in Ohio 297 

The combine of makers 82 

Amount consumed in each State 90 

Where colored article is prohibited 89 

Whom it benefits. 183 

Per capita consumption in United States 91 

Production of 87 

Ingredients of 88, 115 

Why not occupy whole butter field 522 

Every ingredient of, from farm 202 

How sold in Rhode Island 201 

Three-fourths sold in Massachusetts sold in oiiginal package 202 

Difference in grades 206 

An imitation of butter 204 

Try to put goods on market hone&tly 210 

Consumption in Rhode Island 207 

Senator Mason's report on 213 

Keeps down butter prices 382 

Patents for making 129 

Advertising of 384 

Why all butter men do not sell it 497 

Butter men not interfering with 240 

Where sold 246 

Purity of 26 

Oleomargarine, color in — 

Right of people for 316 

Why one if not the other 183 

Legality of 85 

Why reprehensible in oleomargarine 374 

Artificial coloring invented by oleomargarine makers ^5, 406 

Made by cotton-seed oil 402 

Testimony of chemist in regard to 403 

For same reasons as in butter 405 

Right to use 346 

Unfair that oleomargarine makeiri should not use 323 

Denmark eats without color 431 

Legal view of right to use 436 

Both butter and oleomargaiine are colored 262 

Its effect upon the palate Ill, 272, 382 

Poor man's pride 273, 311 

Why not select another. 284 

Number of shades 191 

Forbidden in oleomargarine 189 

Pink law decision 190 

Justice Peckham's opinion _ _ . _ _ 190 

Agree upon distinct 339 

Natural color of oleomargarine 22, 47 

Not to make resemble butter 40 

And butter 8, 11 

Advertisement of W'ella, Richardson & Co.'s 388 

Malvcs temptation to sell as butter 243 

Not 30,000 pounds uncolored oleomaigariue soid in United telates 178 



INDEX. 889 

Oleomargarine, color in — Continued. Page. 

Amount in 1,000,000 pounds oleomargarine 479 

No objection to red 490 

Can be made by mixture of fats '. '. . 340 

Denial that mixture of fats will color oleomargarine 340 

Given by ingredients 18 

Imitates butter 125 

Effect if not colored 204 

Anything the matter with 317 

Why not eat oleomargarine white 358 

Coloring used 54 

Oleomargarine, fraud in sale of — 

Incentive for fraud 238 

Every dealer in Philadelphia sold, as butter 238 

Refusal of manufacturers to show books 493 

Aurora Produce Company swindle 491 

"Covering up " dealers 491 

Fraud shown to collector by Chicago Record 495 

Scheme to sell as butter and evade Jaw 498 

Fraud in Baltimore 440 

Chicago Butter and Egg Board's estimate of fraud in Chicago . . 555 

Documentary evidence connecting manufacturers with fraud 553 

One thousand convictions for selling as butter 368 

Tricks to evade law 247 

Fraud in name of seller 246 

Production of swindling sign 461 

Sold as butter in eight out of ten places 461 

Grocer clerk's statement 461 

Photograph of store front exhibited 462 

Manufacturers' defense of fraud shown 462 

Colored wrapping-paper scheme 464 

Fraud in concealed marks 464 

Fraud in brand 463 

How sold by peddlers in New York 365 

Will require national legislation to stamp out fraud 163 

Seventy-five per cent sold as butter 163 

How enables competitors to beat honest dealers 220 

As seen by farmers 373 

Fraud admitted at boarding houses 377 

For seven years endeavored to enforce honest sale 376 

Object is to sell as butter at butter prices 377 

Fraud in Paterson, N. J 377 

Not largely sold as oleomargarine 224 

Amount sold as butter 224 

Fraud induced by large profits 450 

Its use by irresponsible dealers 225 

No wholesaler wants it sold for what it is 224 

$50,000 worth as butter per year by one retailer 226 

How disposed of 223 

Dealers admit must sell for butter 222 

Sold as butter 121, 312 

Thrives upon fraud 121 

Fraud on a large scale 122 

Have they really proven any amount of fraud ? 291 

Claim manufacturers do not defend fraud 302 

Sharpless brand of butter counterfeited 220 

Experience with fraud at Pittsburg 229 

Report of Senate Committee on Manufactures 85 

Sold as butter 19. 20, 27, 28, 135, 516 

Denial of fraud in Cincinnati 520 

Ninety per cent sold as butter in Chicago 532 

More fraud where anticolor laws 201 

Could be stopped by original-package law 203 

Twenty-five per cent sold as butter 202 

Mostly consumed as butter 415 

Most oleomargarine sold as butter 417 

Fraudulent sale of, in New York 125 



890 INDEX. 

Oleomargarine, fraud in sale of — Page. 

Would 10-cent tax stop fraud? 127 

Commissioner of Internal Revenue qu< >ted 19 

Condition in Massachusetts 28 

Manufacturers and fraud 5 

Why not honestly sold 219 

Business is fraud all through 218 

Few people buy oleomargarine knowingly 217 

Charge of fraud corroborated l:)y every food commissioner 160 

Doubt if dealers will sell oleomargarine as such 232 

Wholesale dealers asked to enter fictitious names 234 

No law can stop fraud while oleomargarine is colorc^d 235 

Retailers principal violators of law- 383 

Amount fraudulently sold 387 

Fraud in Philadelphia 237 

Concealing marks on original packages 239 

Fraud in marking package 463 

Chicago oleomargarine makers, defense of 467 

Moxley's defense of illicitly made oleomargarine 468 

Seven thousand five hundred dollars offered in settlement 471 

Indictments for fraud against Washington man 471 

Fraud in Cincinnati 473 

Sympathy of makers with fraud 491 

Seventy-five per cent sold as butter in Chicago 469 

Large percentage sold as butter 473 

Senator Allen's experience 509 

All was sold as butter 440 

" Push its sale and build up a reputation for good butter " 477 

Scheme for defrauding 367 

Documentary evidence of defense of fraudulent dealers by manufacturers 

in Chicago 552 

Oleomargarine, Government inspection of: 

Factories must be ready for 262 

Inspection of Ill 

Inspection by Government 18, 25, 499 

Government does inspect 194 

No revenue agents in factories 564 

Visits of inspectors to factories 564 

Inspectors not experts 564 

Purity of 26 

No scientific inspectors 264 

Government agents do not report on purity of ingredients 564 

Refusal to make returns 493 

Number of chemical analyses 499 

Oleomargarine, healthfulness of: 

Heal'thf ulness of oleomargarine 19, 64, 85, 1 27, 1 36, 1 82, 205, 514 

Reference in Plumley v. Commonwealth 191 

As healthful as butter 417 

Germs not killed in fats 242 

Question in doubt 241 

Opinion of chemists v. physicians 242 

Dr. Clark's statement 129 

Not a question of 228 

Not germane 448 

Transmission of tuberculosis from 241 

Why encourage sale if not healthful 193 

Dr. Wiley's statement 206, 277 

Difference in butyric acid 155 

Should be forbidden if not healthful 194 

Digestibility of 156 

Digestive experiments with 48 

Digestibility of, compared with butter 144, 208 

Recognized by supreme court 396 

Oleo oil: 

Method of manufacture 56, 510 

Amount possible from caul fat of average animal 559 



INDEX. 891 

Oleomargarine — State laws: Page 

INIap showing number of antirol( ir 557 

History of 236 

We are not the police power 232 

Difficult for individuals to enforce 231 

Do States know what they want 153 

Difficulties of enforcement 152, 469 

Purpose of, shown 38 

Rhode Island's law 16 

Would be made effective 16 

Of Pennsylvania 542 

Police powers of States 103, 124 

Regarding hotels and restaurants 212 

Are sufficient 200 

Rhode Island satisfied 200 

Has not evasion of, brought oleomargarine into disrepute 532 

Will have force 108 

Ohio pure-food law 294 

Why oleomargarine makers quietly acquiesced to 286 

Supreme Court decisions on 287 

Enforcement of, in Ohio 290 

Testing of 122 

History of. New York State 121 

Why not repealed 406 

Right of tax under 392 

Violations in Tennessee 329 

How happen in South 328 

How justice is defeated 163 

Why not enforced 161 

Money spent in prosecution? 161 

Difficulty of jury trials 162 

Banqueting jurors 162 

Openly violated in Nebraska 450 

How handicapped in New York 366 

Regarding boarding houses in New York 367 

Why passed 435 

Protection against, guaranteed 1 62, 226, 439, 474 

How evaded in Wisconsin 443 

Where enforced 281 

The pink 189 

How evaded by dealers 343 

History of Pennsylvania prosecutions under 542 

"Persecution" under 544 

Attempt to enforce in Illinois 465 

Cost of effort to enforce 468 

Decision of New Jersey courts 336 

Should they be violated when disputed ? 244 

All claimed to be vmconstitutional 245 

Cost of enforcing in New York 370 

How Illinois food department was beaten 468 

Charter of oleomargarine concern revoked for violations of 469 

How is yellow oleomargarine sold in New Jersey? 334 

Legal machinery of New Jersey 331 

If nonsensical were repealed 547 

Anti-color only can protect consumer? 453 

Repeal them 33 

Conspiracy denied 280 

Oleomargarine national law: 

Act of 1886 not adequate 414 

Force inadequate for enforcement 565 

Not well enforced 417 

Attempts to get enforcement 237 

No interest in enforcement of branding clause 532 

Offenses against - 562 

Where information of violations come from 533 

Why increase of penalty would be unwise 532 



892 INDEX, 

Oleomargarine national law — Continued. Page. 

Evidence of dodgins: 529 

Regulations of 293 

Is unjust ; 308 

Miller, Senator Warner, remark? 52 

Analyses made under last year 1 499 

Collection of tax under 408 

Hatch bill discussed Ill 

Paraffin : 

Use of, in oleomargarinp 39, 128 

Where comes from 510 

Use of, denied 55 

Petitions: 

Why none from the South 317 

Resolutions: 

Chicago Federation of Labor condemns Grout bill 360, 505 

Chicago Federation of Labor condemns colored oleomargarine 472 

South St. Paul Live Stock Exchange 57 

Commission Merchants' League of the United Statpp 447 

National Live Stock Association 77 

Vote on 80 

National Live Stock Exchange 185 

Condemning Grout bill defeated 518 

From Cincinnati explained 554 

From Cincinnati 520 

From labor organizations — source f - ' 471 

Kansas City Live Stock Exchange 71 

Decorators of Cleveland, Ohio 362 

Horseshoers' Union 361 

Building Trades' Council of Cleveland 508 

Sioux City Live Stock Exchange 60 

Cotton-seed crushers 58 

Kansas City Mercantile Club 61 

Stearin: 

In all oils 510 

Tawney, Hon. J. A. : 

Attempt to defeat 63 

Tax, internal-revenue: 

On mixed flour 516 

Percentage of loss in collecting, on oleomargarine 562 

Will collect 534 

Uses of 448 

Wadsworth substitute: 

The worst thing Congress could pass 226 

Difference between, and present law 305 

Able work of oleomargarine makers 376 

Ocular demonstration of 568 

How it will prevent fraud 568 

Why not remove stamp as easily as to fail to put on 532 

Difference between offenses imder, and present law 566 

Secretary Gage's opinion .♦. . ^ 566 

Does not pi-otect restaurant or hotel patron 571 

Passage advocated 390 

Vastly more damaging than any other legislation Congress could enact. . . 240 

Its viciousness 245 

Wool growers: 

Why not protect? 110 

o 



^u-^^' 




^^'\ 













^oV^ 















^^'% 






v^^^ 

.s^"-. 



^^"^ \. ^^. 



\v s • » ~ 






^ y'^^ '-^-^ /"-^o, '--^^ 



^ 



















0» >3 ■■ 










^*i°^ 
<!y ^ 

K^ O. 



* o u o ' "^^ -^ k , -. • 

O . ♦ • o^ ■^ 







^.. ^' / 



^ 




-^^13^ . 




■,i. I- 
















<>> * * ' A , . •/> 



- • • • ^-^ 












> o ' 





BOBBS BROS. > O ^ 

IIIHARV SINOINQ • j^ 

ST. AUGUSTINE ^ ° " ° ^f , . „ '^.^^ " ' / 



" ' •■ * D M 

ST. AUGUSTINE ^ 






.'•o, <;. 






